Issue 476

2^nd October 2020

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

It’s been a joy to hear to the story behind Widgetsmith direct from David Smith this week. I don’t often link to podcasts, mainly because I don’t listen to tech podcasts anymore (I stopped because I spend too much time reading tech and reserve my podcast time for other subjects). But I made two exceptions this week to hear more details of his remarkable story.

He talked first on Under the Radar, and then at length about his experience on The Talk Show. You should listen to both if you have time.

While it’s a lovely story, and couldn’t have happened to a nicer person who has worked consistently for many years as an independent developer. I don’t think there’s anything revolutionary to be learned from his experience. David won the App Store lottery, and yes, he bought 59 tickets instead of one or two, but buying lottery tickets still isn’t a (good) business strategy.

I’m confident Widgetsmith would have been sustainable as part of the overall strategy that he’s been following for years now (which he outlines on the Talk Show) without this stroke of luck. I’m sure this last couple of weeks will change his business now that it’s happened, but it’s not something you could/should ever plan or aim for.

Congratulations again, David. It’s lovely to see your success. 🚀

Dave Verwer

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News

I’ve linked to Alexandre Colucci’s posts looking at how Apple is adopting Swift internally for the last three years. Regular as clockwork, here’s the iOS 14 edition and it covers both Swift and SwiftUI this time. It’s a really positive sign for the language that it’s clearly gaining significant internal adoption (although there will still be a lot of new Objective-C code too, of course).

Tools

So, let’s think about how you’re going to persuade your boss to buy you that shiny new Apple Silicon laptop at some point in the next year. Maybe you’ll take the argument of “But think about how much more productive I’ll be if I don’t need to wait for Xcode to build all day!” Wouldn’t it be great if you could back that argument up with numbers? Buildwatch is what you need. I’m not sure there’s a huge amount to be learned from the numbers it shows you, but they are interesting to look at.

For full disclosure, I was sent a promo code for a copy of this app so I could check it out before it launched.

Code

As Karoy Lorentey explains, this new library won’t solve all of your problems when writing asynchronous code:

Approach atomic code with extreme caution. Use copious amounts of Thread Sanitizer after every contact!

That said, this looks like it might become a useful tool for the toolbox. It’s also nice to see Apple continue to publish open-source Swift packages! 👏

There are many ways to ensure a consistent style for SwiftUI controls and views across your whole application, but which one is best? Let John Sundell show you a few options, and give you the answer to which is best.

As with many of Bruno Rocha’s posts, this post is not for the faint of heart. If you’re not afraid of getting into the weeds about how something works, then you’ll find this post about @availability will fill your Friday afternoon up perfectly.

Design

The format of this design walkthrough from Dan Benoni reminds me very much of User Onboarding, but that’s no bad thing at all. It does cover the onboarding process, but also has some UI design tips in there too. This is definitely worth a few minutes of your time.

Business and Marketing

Here’s something new from Apple. Search for your app, and get a set of useful links generated by Apple. Whether you’re looking for a definitive link to your app, get the correct App Store badge in any language, or whether you want to encode it in a QR code that includes your app icon. You’ll find all that and more on this page. 👍

Jobs

iOS Developer @ Savvy – Savvy is a top creative agency and one of the first agencies to pioneer #remotelife back in 2009 before it was “cool” or more recently, required. Our work is regularly featured on the App Store and the industry as a whole. We have a great culture, generous benefits, and a fun, results-oriented atmosphere. – Remote within the US

iOS Developer @ sengaro – We’re looking for a mid/senior-level iOS developer for our team at sengaro. You’ll be working on a wide variety of apps - from public transportation, news, frameworks, to apps used in the medical sector. Ideally, you’ve been in the field for 3+ years, but experience and seniority are less important to us than personality - we’re looking for a good fit to our team, not just to fill a job! – Innsbruck Austria

And finally...

I want to learn everything this way. 🚁