Issue 528

8^th October 2021

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

I don’t remember when I first became aware of Steve Jobs. It happened gradually.

I had been aware of Apple since I used my school’s single Mac Classic (yes, just one for the whole school) in 1990 when I was sixteen. The teachers kept it locked away in the cupboard, but I managed to find excuses to use it. I certainly didn’t know much about the company’s history at that age, though, and there was certainly no internet in any form I had access to back then if I had wanted to research it!

I think the first time I was properly aware of Steve was during one of the iPod announcements. I was fully immersed in a Microsoft focused part of my career at the time, and I remember comparing it to much cheaper (and so much worse) alternatives. I wasn’t too impressed, but I wasn’t paying proper attention.

I finally opened my eyes to Apple when I bought my first Mac in 2006. As soon as I focused on the company, it was instantly apparent what an incredible job Steve had done bringing it back from the brink of failure.

I was lucky enough to be in the same room as Steve a few times during WWDC keynotes. It was quite an experience, even as a member of the audience. People used to refer to it as his “reality distortion field”, and I certainly felt it. He changed the way I thought about products and was instrumental in changing the path of my career. I’ve missed him over the last ten years and will continue to miss him for the next ten.

But, rather than reading the thoughts of someone who didn’t know Steve, I’d recommend you spend some time this weekend reading this article in the WSJ from Jony Ive, one of his closest friends. It’s beautiful.

Dave Verwer

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News

We knew this was coming at some point, and now we have a deadline. If you offer account creation within your app, you also need to provide an account deletion feature by the end of January next year.

If I had to make a prediction, Apple will delay this. Don’t trust me, though, as I know nothing. Get it implemented by then, if you can!

Announcing this now feels … optimistic. 🤞As of today, there are no changes to any App Store rules. Some changes must come, but it’ll likely be the minimum possible adjustment to satisfy the courts.

That said, it’s an indication of how much a system like this is worth if it’s worth developing and announcing before any official changes are within sight. I hear good things about Paddle as a payment system for Mac software, though, so I wish them luck.

A step in the right direction!

Tools

I’ve linked to Alex Grebenyuk’s Pulse project twice before, once when it launched with an interesting business model and again when he reached the funding goal and released the app. Why the third link? He looks to have been working hand on enhancing it, and this is a fantastic post about the enhancements to the app and mixing SwiftUI and AppKit.

I’m still waiting eagerly for SE-0303 – Package Manager Extensible Build Tools in Swift 5.6. Until that glorious day comes, how can you run tools like SwiftLint on a Swift package? Alexandre Colucci didn’t want to wait for the new release and dives into Xcode behaviours to fix the problem.

Code

It’s been a while since I’ve used a networking framework in an app. I moved from the AFNetworking glory days to using URLSession directly. Even so, there’s certainly still a place for networking frameworks! Alamofire might be many people’s first choice, but take a look at this newly open-sourced library from Brendan Lensink and Jeremy Chiang, which looks great for handling REST APIs and has been battle-tested for two years.

Much of what Michael Bachand discusses in this post will only be directly relevant if you work at a company maintaining a huge iOS or macOS app. That doesn’t mean you won’t find it interesting, though, even if only as a story of how some developers work!

Majid Jabrayilov has been on a roll with SwiftUI accessibility posts recently. I enjoyed this one on audio graphs the most, but while you’re there, don’t miss Custom accessibility content, Accessibility focus, Accessibility rotors, and The power of accessibilityRepresentation view modifier. 🚀

I’ve seen a few people try to tackle the subject of programmatic navigation with SwiftUI, but none have been quite as comprehensive as what John Sundell covers in this post. From switching tabs to navigation stacks, you’ll find a great explanation here.

Design

This fascinating thread from Jeff Verkoeyen is worth a read. Google is deprecating their material design component library for iOS as they are moving closer towards using standard UIKit controls in their own apps. It has been my experience that the bigger the company/client, the keener they are to have a consistent design across both platforms, and that’s how Google has been so far, so this is a welcome change!

Jobs

Senior 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 Software Engineer @ Modo Labs – Come join a small development team that is both fast-paced and laid-back. We are developing a unified digital experience that empowers the hybrid workforce and digital-native students to success. – Remote (within US timezones)

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)

Senior macOS Engineer @ Paw – At Paw, our goal is to build the best possible productivity tools for developers, and in particular, for building and designing APIs (REST & GraphQL). We’re proud to have Airbnb, Apple, Mailchimp, MessageBird, and many other leading tech companies among our most active customers. – Remote (within European timezones)

SwiftUI Developer (Multiplatform) @ Judo – Judo is a server-driven UI platform for iOS and Android. Our Mac app is used by designers and developers to build user interfaces visually and deploy them without submitting to the App Store. We’re growing and looking for a seasoned Apple developer with a passion to sharpen their SwiftUI skills. – Remote (within US or European timezones)

Senior iOS Engineer @ Nurx – Nurx is a startup focusing on women’s and sensitive health — birth control, STI & HPV testing, PrEP, and more! You’ll wear many different hats (dev, design, product) on a small US-remote team to help change a broken healthcare system & positively impact the lives of thousands of patients every day! – Remote (within US timezones)

Senior iOS Software Developer @ TouchBistro – Our developers are a tight-knit group even as we continue to grow. Fix it, Ship it, Own it is our department mantra and we try to live it daily. We value shipping quality code that delivers e2e functionality and then iterating using feedback loops from our customers and observability stacks. – Remote (Anywhere)

Senior iOS Engineer @ Ground News – Tim Cook personally reviewed and praised this award-winning app (for real!). Featured by the App Store multiple times. – Remote (within US timezones)

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

And finally...

Not suitable for a maritime environment. ⚓️

… and with the new release, it’s still not suitable! 😂