Issue 524

Comment

Is everyone ready for their phone to feel a little less shiny and new come Tuesday? 😂

You’re always more likely to come out of an Apple event happy if you go in with low expectations, and I’d say that’s never more true than with the September event. The iPhone is Apple’s biggest moneymaker by a wide margin, and the message that needs to come out of this event in particular is:

“There’s a new iPhone. It’s the best iPhone we’ve ever made. You should buy it.”

Marketing is hard. You need to repeatedly tell everyone about your product, to the point where you’re sick of doing it. Also, the more announcements you make at once, the harder the problem gets, even for a company like Apple.

So, even though there’s yet another AR tease (and you should check out Michael Steeber’s look at how that trick works), my gut feeling says we’re still multiple years away from major AR announcements. Also, when they do come, I doubt they’ll compete with an iPhone announcement unless inextricably linked to it.

Tune in next week to see how wrong I was as pre-orders for iGlasses open up. 😂

Also, as I was finalising this week's issue, this happened. Honestly, I wouldn't have written about this even if it broke yesterday. There will be appeals, and if/when the appeals fail, the changes will take time to appear. The long and ugly process rolls on.

It's likely that Apple will do nothing more than what is required, meaning you'll only be able to take advantage of these changes for US-based customers and that app review is about to get way more complicated and fraught. Fab.

News

How many apps on the App Store use React Native?

I was surprised these numbers were so low, but not that the Flutter numbers were even lower. It seems like it's still a great time to be a native developer. 🚀

Vulnerability in Bumble reveals any user's exact location

This post from Robert Heaton is a fascinating write-up and a great reminder that if you're handling user location, you need to be very, very careful with it.

iOS Browser Engine Choice In Depth

This article from Alex Russell (who, you should note, works for Microsoft on Edge) isn't directly about iOS development. It's about web browser engines on iOS. I think he makes some interesting points, though, and I'm glad I read it.

Tools

From Sketch to Xcode asset catalog

I liked that this article from Ralf Ebert was more than a guide on how to export your icon images. It explains how to automate the process entirely. You'll never need to calculate which image fits for 29pt at 3x again! 😂

Code

Using Swift’s async/await to build an image loader

This post from Donny Wals could easily have had the title "Let's re-create AsyncImage" because that's what he does! Re-implementing an existing control is a great way to understand a problem, though, so it's worth a read.

Preventing Data Races Using Actors

You've likely read a few articles about Swift 5.5 Actors by now, but I especially liked how Lee Kah Seng's take on the subject focuses on using them to solve a real-world problem, data races. 👍

The SwiftUI Canvas

Javier Nigro delayed this follow up to his article on TimelineView due to some bugs in early betas. The good news is that there are fewer bugs now, which means it's time to learn all about Canvas.

Business and Marketing

Daily Sales Email

It looks like this service from Kyle Hankinson launched earlier this year, but I just found out about it this week. Would you like a daily email with sales/downloads/updates/and various other numbers split across all your apps? It's free, so there's no good reason not to try it.

How capitalism ruins everything

Want a depressing start to your weekend? Read this thread by Nick Lockwood. Every word is true, especially this tweet:

For every user who deletes your app in disgust because you asked them to subscribe before they even tried it, there are 1.x users who subscribe who otherwise wouldn't have.

Every time I talk to someone who does this, it's working. Depressing, isn't it.

Jobs

Open Source Project Lead - SwiftUI @ DockYard – We have a high-value open source project that we need an experienced Swift/SwiftUI engineer to help us complete. Experience with Elixir is a plus. – Remote (Anywhere)

Junior, Senior, Lead iOS Engineers & Eng. Managers @ Capital One – We are a Bank/FinTech that reaches tens of millions of consumers every day. We're mobile first and have 200+ native mobile devs. We make use of Swift, Combine, Bazel, Xcodegen, Fastlane, etc. Our app is always in the top 10 Finance apps. We're looking to hire 40+ devs & managers of all levels! – Remote (within US timezones) with some on-site work (United States in IL, NY, or VA)

iOS Engineer @ onX – Are you an iOS developer who loves the outdoors? Join onX! If you’re passionate about writing great software, love playing outside, and believe in protecting access to public lands – then join our team, where we empower millions of outdoor enthusiasts to explore the unknown! – Remote (within US timezones)

iOS Engineer @ Protégé – Protégé is looking for a passionate, hardworking, detail-oriented engineer to help make it easier for people to access their dream careers. The experiences you make possible will shape the future of both our business and our amazingly talented protégés. – On-site (United States in IL) with some remote work (within US timezones)

SwiftUI Engineer @ Eimy – Eimy develops consumer electronics and services that improve the lives of a billion users worldwide. Our Munich team is hard at work to make our dream of better communications for everybody a reality. We are looking for iOS Engineers to help shape our state-of-the-art SwiftUI apps. – On-site (Germany)

iOS Developer @ Doximity – Doximity, medical network used by over 80% of US clinicians, is hiring passionate iOS engineers (remote). You'll be part of an amazing product team and work on an app that is constantly evolving. Use your skills (Swift, MVVM, FRP) to be an integral part of our newly launched telemedicine feature. – Remote (within US timezones)

iOS Lead @ mobile.dev – Mobile.dev is leading the charge on the shift-left in mobile engineering. We're an ambitious team looking for a world-class iOS engineer who is passionate about building novel tooling for mobile teams. Join us and help shape the future of iOS development! – Remote (Anywhere)

Mobile Full Stack Engineer @ Expensify – Join our passionate team of top-notch engineers to solve a real-world problem, and help people spend less time managing expenses and more time pursuing their real goals. Being part of the Expensify team means building the easiest, fastest, and most efficient expense-related platform. – Remote (Anywhere) with some on-site work (Australia, United Kingdom, or United States in CA, MI, NY, or OR)

Lead Engineer, Apple Platform @ Hudl – Be part of our mission to empower sports teams to make every moment count by joining one of our cross-functional product teams in the UK to create and drive strategy for our native Apple apps (i.e. Hudl Sportscode) used by elite teams around the world (e.g. Premier League, Bundesliga, NBA). – Remote (within European timezones) with some on-site work (United Kingdom)

Senior iOS Developer @ Shape Games – We deliver award winning sports betting products used all over the world. As a developer at Shape you can pride yourself with building products used by millions of people and have fun while doing it. – Remote (within European timezones) with some on-site work (Denmark)

Software Engineer · iOS (all levels) @ Playground – Come join Playground on our mission to make intelligent products shapeable. We build foundational tools that allow anyone to customise data-driven experiences. You'll collaborate with a team of designers, engineers and data scientists, on building the next generation of intelligent products. – Remote (Anywhere) with some on-site work (United Kingdom)

Are you hiring? You can post your open positions for free over at iOS Dev Jobs.

And finally...

That's it. That's the tweet.

Note: I know it shows a remarkable lack of class to link to my own Tweet as an "And finally...", but bear with me just this one time! 😂 I couldn't shake the feeling that this tweet should have done better than it did. It (probably) won't happen again!

Issue 524 September 10th 2021