Sponsored Link
Why do mobile-first companies choose Instabug over Crashlytics
Instabug helps you identify and resolve severe crashes quickly. You can retrace in-app events and know exactly which line of code caused the crash along with environment details, network logs, repro steps, and the session profiler. Ask more questions or keep users up-to-date with in-app replies straight from your dashboard. We take data privacy seriously, so no one sees your data but you! See more detailed features comparison and try Instabug's crash reporting SDK for free.
News
The Apple Developer app news feed
I noticed the WWDC app turned into the Apple Developer app back in November last year and it felt like such a small change I don't think I even mentioned it here. This week I realised there's a whole feed of developer news that's seemingly only available from the app, and not on the web. With blog post style articles, links to old WWDC videos, and even developer profiles! 🤯 It's fantastic!
I can't believe that I didn't know about this. I've wanted Apple to do blog post style delivery of things like this for a very long time. How is it that I was able to be blissfully unaware of this for almost six months after the app launched! If I didn't know about it (and it's part of my job to know about these things!) how many other developers are unaware? Even worse, the RSS feed linked from the blog post style pages is a feed that doesn't include any of this new style content, it's just the regular news RSS feed! It's baffling. 🤷♂️
Tools
Spasibo
How many dependencies does the app you work on have? Have you, or the company you work for considered helping to fund the development that supports those projects? Artem Novichkov's new tool makes it easy to figure out which of your dependencies are open to receiving funding, and it supports all the major package managers. 👍
While I'm on the subject of thanks, I've had a few messages recently from people asking if they can buy me a coffee for writing the newsletter. It always makes my day to receive any kindness about what I write here, but I don't currently have any way you can give me money! If you'd like to support iOS Dev Weekly, and ensure that it continues, please do check out each week's sponsored link. Thank you. ❤️
Debugging superpowers with FLEX
It's kind of amazing that the first time I linked to FLEX was in Issue 156, back in 2014. It's been consistently developed for years now, and what it can do inside your app is ... well, it's a lot. You should probably listen to Alejandro Martinez wax lyrical about it.
Code
Controlling Lottie Animation with Markers
I've linked to articles about Lottie a few times now, but I liked this article from Lee Kah Seng as it goes a little further than the basics of how to play animations, and into using markers to integrate animations with your UI. 👍
Exploring Futures over Closures
Two things about this post from Jordan Morgan struck me. First, it's good to see someone talking about how much of a change of perspective that adopting Combine requires of us. Secondly, it's so good to see someone blogging when they're not confident what the right answer is. Every blog post doesn't need to be a perfect tutorial and have everything figured out! I find Jordan's blog constantly refreshing because of this style of writing.
Why your atomic property wrapper doesn’t work for collection types
File this post from Donny Wals under multi-threaded programming is hard...
Business and Marketing
NativeConnect for independent developers
When I first wrote about NativeConnect back in Issue 372, I really liked it, but I didn't think the pricing was quite right for independent developers. So, I was pleased to see a new version of the app released this week as a one time purchase for independent developers, rather than subscription. The team subscription pricing is still available for larger companies too. 🎉
Also, I'm quite surprised that Apple approved this app, so kudos to them for letting it through. It's apps like this that make the Mac platform special. ❤️
Jobs
iOS Framework Engineer @ Apple – The Interactive Media Group at Apple is looking for a highly motivated iOS Framework Engineer to design and develop an analytics framework for all of Apple’s operating systems. You'll be a critical part of a team focused on providing end-to-end infrastructure and tools to enable Apple Engineers, working on media-related features like video and audio streaming, FaceTime, and similar software. – Cupertino, CA
If your company is hiring, I need your help. Please do me a huge favour and let your hiring managers know that they can post free iOS development job listings on iOS Dev Jobs. Thank you. ❤️
And finally...
This is hilarious. My favourite part is at ~48 seconds when Kathy Happy joins the conversation. 😂
Comment
I’ve been poking around the results from the iOS Developer Community Survey again this week, specifically looking at the questions relating to Swift on the server. I ended up putting together a quick piece on how Swift on the server is doing. I’ll not spoil the conclusions I came to here, but I’d love it if you gave it a read.
I’d also like to reiterate my invitation to you all to get involved in this analysis. I think it'd be a shame if it were only ever my opinion in these articles, and I’d love to change that! I’ve had several promising conversations with people, but nothing that ended with written words yet. Don’t worry if you’ve not done any data analysis before. It's just writing down your opinion on the results! I’ll also provide editing help and advice along the way, and of course, you’ll receive full credit for your writing. Just hit reply to this email if you’d like to get involved. 🚀
Dave Verwer