Issue 432

29^th November 2019

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

I tweeted yesterday about wanting to do a comprehensive survey of iOS developers, but I didn’t do a very good job of explaining myself in the tweet. So I’ll try again…

I want to do a really comprehensive survey of this community and of the state of iOS development in 2019. I want to aggregate and analyse how we feel about Swift, Xcode, SwiftUI, Catalyst, app architectures, our careers, side-projects, how we make money from apps, the conferences we attend and why we attend them, and more…

We regularly listen to people who write blog posts, make podcasts, or speak at conferences, but we know so little about the people who actually make up this community and how we feel as a group. I think it’ll be fascinating to see that, and I’m taking it upon myself to make it happen.

I also want the data to be owned by the community that contributed it, rather than it being hidden away by Apple or some other company that gathers it. This is your opinion and you’ll get to see everything that comes out of it.

Then, and this is where I think the idea really shines, I want to repeat the survey every year so we can see how the community’s opinions change over time. I can’t wait.

To prove that this is truly a community survey, I want the design of it to be as open as the results will be. I’ve put a good amount of work into creating a (very 😬) long list of questions that cover what I think are interesting areas, but I’d love to know what you all think too. I’m using a Google Doc to design it, and commenting/suggesting is enabled. Please take a look, and let me know what you think.

Then, next week I’ll set up the survey tool and we’ll start gathering the data. Are you with me? 🤞

Dave Verwer

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News

Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving if you do! 🦃) the whole world seems to have embraced Black Friday. Marius Landwehr has put together his usual list of great deals, but there’s also some iOS app deals that Bryan Dubno collated, and this additional summary from the wonderful Michael Tsai.

Also, just scroll down just 2 more lines for this week’s sponsor, which is also a Black Friday special! 👍

Tools

This is a nice post from Alexander Grebenyuk covering the basics of setting up CI for the frameworks you write. He uses Travis CI in the post, but the concepts are relevant no matter which provider you use. 👍

Code

Building a new app with a new technology is one thing, but it’s very different from the experience of converting an existing app to use something new. I really enjoyed this piece by Josh Adams where he converts his Conjugar app from UIKit to SwiftUI.

You may have read recently that feature flags are going to make iOS 14 stable! Incredible. 😂 Seriously though, the technique can be really beneficial, especially if you’re working on a big app with a team. Here’s Alberto De Bortoli talking about JustTweak.

This is a terrible idea, and I love it. 😍 Why is it a terrible idea? SwiftUI makes no promises as to how a view will actually be created. Yes, a List might render on iOS with a UITableView right now, but that’s not guaranteed at all. That said, this is an interesting project from Loïs Di Qual which might make impossible things possible while the framework fleshes out.

Jim Dovey on how to make SwiftUI and Core Data play nicely together using his AQUI library. Of course, Core Data works with Swift, but it really doesn’t mesh seamlessly with this year’s new technologies yet. That has to be a priority for Apple at some point, doesn’t it?

Design

There’s no symbol changes in this release, but the app is improved. 🎉 Go and download the update.

Version 1.1 adds custom symbol validation, a new sidebar with categories for faster browsing, and the option to receive updates automatically.

They’re not using Sparkle (I checked), so it must be a custom updater for this app specifically. Why isn’t this app just distributed through the App Store? Does anyone know? It seems weird.

Business and Marketing

Curtis Herbert talks about lifecycle emails. It should be no surprise that I loved this article as my views on all kinds of email are well known. 💌 He doesn’t yet have any results to share, but the process and flows that he has set up are still worth digging into.

Michael Liberatore with some great advice on asking for help, talking to your team, explaining yourself well, and… well, basically it’s about writing better software and that’s something we all want to do. 👍

Videos

Were you in Oslo at the start of November for Mobile Era? If, like me, you were not lucky enough to be there, at least you get to catch up with the videos! 🙌

Jobs

iOS Engineer @ Issuu – At Issuu, we empower content creators through cutting edge tools, technology, and services. We exist to help creators of long-form, highly visual content build audiences and businesses. You will work on the Issuu products, along with supporting backend and infrastructure in a small, autonomous team of engineers, designers, and product managers to find end-to-end solutions to challenging problems. – Berlin Germany

Mobile Developer @ Bloom & Wild – We’re Bloom & Wild, the UK’s most loved online florist. We’re using technology to reimagine the experience of buying and receiving flowers, connecting people more thoughtfully to make sending flowers a joy to send and a delight to receive. In doing so we’re aiming to become Europe’s most loved flower brand. Recently named as the second-fastest growing tech company in the UK by Deloitte – London UK

Senior iOS Developer @ Dr. Bill – Dr. Bill saves time for Canadian doctors by making medical billing delightful (OK… at least suck less). Join us and help lead our team as we accelerate our growth to dominate medical billing in Canada! – Remote, or Vancouver Canada

Senior iOS Engineer @ Argent – Help us reimagine the future of money and the web - putting people, not big corporations, in control. We’re backed by Spotify and Slack’s investors and aim to build the best product in crypto and fintech. – Remote (in Europe only)

There’s over 50 currently open iOS positions listed over at iOS Dev Jobs right now. If you didn’t find what you were looking for above, you should head over there!

And finally...

EnvironmentObject is like a mini-bar 🍷