Issue 513

Comment

Sometimes I sit down to write my comment for this newsletter, and there are so many things I want to write about, it’s tough to pick one. Sometimes I sit here, and no matter how hard I try, nothing that I’d be happy to publish comes out.

I could force myself to sit here for another few hours and squeeze out a few words on some topic or other, but it wouldn’t be worth reading. I just can’t do it today.

So, I’ll get straight into the links instead. Have a great week, and hopefully, I’ll feel more like writing next week. 🤞

News

How WWDC 21 Foreshadows AR Glasses

Dom Williams is right. It's not just RealityKit, ARKit, and all of the obvious things that point to Apple moving towards some kind of glasses device. Features that point in that direction are everywhere in iOS 15.

Annotating Apple’s Anti-Sideloading White Paper

As always, John Gruber has a good take on the new document published by Apple this week to back up their arguments in court. This comment resonated with me:

I’ll admit it: if Mac-style sideloading were added to iOS, I’d enable it, for the same reason I enable installing apps from outside the App Store on my Mac: I trust myself to only install trustworthy software. But it doesn’t make me a hypocrite to say that I think it would be worse for the platform as a whole.

My thoughts exactly.

Tools

Accessibility Gets an Upgrade in Xcode 13 Storyboards

SwiftUI has excellent support for previewing your designs with various accessibility features turned on, but that doesn't mean that UIKit doesn't! Let's join Mark Thormann for a run-through of what was already possible in the iOS simulator and how it's now available in the storyboard editor inside Xcode! 🎉

Xcode Column Breakpoints

It has been a very long time since there has been a change in how breakpoints work in any IDE that I know of. Here's Keith Harrison talking about the most exciting advance in breakpoint technology in the last ten years. 😅

Code

Catalyst Sample Code Roundup

I've had this article from Steve Troughton-Smith in my queue since just before WWDC, and with all the excitement about "new things", it stayed there for a few weeks! I do want to make sure I link to it, though, so here it is. It's a superb collection of beautifully illustrated samples. If you're writing something with Catalyst, you need to read this.

Converting closure-based code into async/await in Swift

I liked this article from Andy Ibanez that goes beyond the basics of async/await and into a task that we're all going to be doing a lot of over the next few years, converting lots of closures (and maybe delegates too) into the modern syntax.

Note: Andy mentions this in the article, but I think it's worth emphasising again. You should think carefully about refactoring working code to use a new API or language feature unless there's a really good reason to do so. Everything in your codebase doesn't need to be bang up to date.

How iOS 15 makes your app launch faster

Honestly, this article from Noah Martin is mostly beyond me, but I'm certainly interested in a "free" speed increase for apps!

Business and Marketing

Getting the Most out of Custom Product Pages in the New App Store

I linked to Ariel Michaeli's round-up of what was new last week, and we also discussed it on the Insider's call. During the call, one thing that came up was some confusion on whether custom product pages were part of or could be used for A/B testing. So, I was delighted to see that this week's article from Ariel covered precisely that question in and amongst taking a deeper look at both features.

Up to Speed

Linting vs Formatting

If you're just getting started working with a team on iOS projects then you might be encountering tools like SwiftLint, swift-format, or SwiftFormat for the first time. I liked this explanation of linters and formatters from Jason Zurita, and I think you'll like it too!

Jobs

iOS SDK Architect @ Stream – Stream is hiring for an iOS SDK Architect to write and maintain our open-source SDKs that are consumed by over a billion end-users. You will work with modern iOS technologies, such as Swift, SwiftUI, and Combine, with a heavy focus on code quality, API design, testing, and CI/CD processes. – Amsterdam or Remote

iOS Engineer @ MOJO Inc. – Interested in making sports more fun for kids, parents, and coaches? MOJO is seeking an iOS Engineer who is smart, curious and loves the challenge of solving problems that improve people’s lives. You’ll collaborate with a fun, experienced, and agile team to architect, implement, test and continuously deliver new features and products to customers. – Los Angeles CA

iOS Engineer - Multiple Levels @ Turo – Help us build product features that delight guests who book vehicles on our platform and enable hosts with the tools they need to manage their fleet. The iOS team is actively transitioning our iOS codebase from Objective-C to Swift, and we’re learning SwiftUI together–in labs–as we migrate our internal, watchOS, and tvOS apps. It’s really an exciting time to be an Apple-centric engineer at Turo. – San Francisco CA

iOS Developer @ Boozt – Tech is in our DNA, we strive to innovate, experiment, make data-driven decisions in our daily work, be curious and competitive and foster collaboration and personal growth, all while being nerdy and having great fun. Here you will work with one of our consumer-facing apps and you will have a great chance at shaping our future path. Come join our success! – Copenhagen Denmark

Talk to your hiring managers and ask them to list your open positions over at iOS Dev Jobs. Standard listings are free, so you've nothing to lose!

Insiders

Thanks so much to this week’s iOS Dev Weekly Insiders! Meet Gupta, Manuel Maly, Marius Rackwitz, Emerge Tools, and Aura Lily Vulcano! Thank you all so much. 🙏

This week’s insider’s call is on Monday, so there’s plenty of time to get registered, get on Discord, and join us.

And finally...

How about finishing this week with a set of wallpapers inspired by the OS9 default, but in the beautiful new iMac colours? 🖥😍

Issue 513 June 25th 2021