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Your WWDC Insurance Policy
Itās almost time again for Apple to dictate your summer vacation plans. What breaking changes will they introduce? Which new APIs will you be scrambling to implement? Well, if youāre using RevenueCat, you wonāt have to worry about any changes to IAPs or StoreKit ā weāve got you covered. If youāre not using RevenueCat, switching over is simple and our handy guides will walk you through the process. Check out our migration documentation to future-proof your app with RevenueCat.
News
Foundation Package Preview Now Available
First announced late last year, Apple has now published a preview of the open-source Foundation package, and this post from Tony Parker outlines the current state and next steps for the project.
They plan to focus on quality and performance first, then:
As a secondary goal, the project requests community proposals to add new APIs with focused scope to round out existing API functionality in Foundation. This will pave the way to explore how to add significant new APIs as the project progresses. In 2023, we aim to accept a small number of proposals with corresponding Swift implementations.
This is a great step for Swift and the whole ecosystem. It must have taken a lot to make this happen. š
Code
Queryable
I like the idea behind this new package from Dennis MĆ¼ller. It tidies up the state management around presenting alerts, confirmations, full-screen presentations, sheets, and overlays in a clean way. If youād like to learn more, thereās a great example in the Get Started section of the readme.
Using Swift Reflection
Iām a little wary of using the Mirror API for production code but it does have uses for unit testing.
Like Keith Harrison, Iād be cautious about using these APIs in your apps. Thereās nothing wrong with them, but they may introduce a new class of bugs that Swift developers are not used to encountering. Tests would be a great place to experiment with them, though.
Design
Business and Marketing
YOLO (You Only Launch Once)
Itās easy to forget about app preorders when youāre getting everything in line for a new app launch, but as Chris Wu shows in this launch postmortem, they can give you hundreds of downloads on day one as an indie developer. Thatās a great head start over where you would have been.
Videos
Why Don't A/B Tests Add Up?
The whole talk is worth watching, but I like the message in this three-minute clip from Luke Wroblewski, too. So many companies dip their toes in A/B testing, and itās so easy to be misled.
Jobs
Senior iOS Developer @ Shareup ā Want to build something new? Join our small, design-led team at @shareupapp to build the fastest, easiest, and most secure way to share anything with anyone. We use Appleās best tech, including Swift Concurrency, Combine, Catalyst, UIKit, and SwiftUI, and youāll work closely with our talented team. ā Remote (within European timezones)
Apple Platforms Developer @ Cascable AB ā Cascable is a small "indie" company based in Stockholm, Sweden. This is the job for you if you love working with and learning about multiple technologies. We have UIKit, AppKit, SwiftUI, and Swift-on-the-Server (Vapor) across our suite of products, and you'll be working with all of them! ā On-site (Sweden) with some remote work (within European timezones)
Senior iOS Engineer @ Reveri ā Weāre looking for an experienced, adaptable, and engaged Senior iOS Engineer looking to make a genuine positive difference in our memberās lives through self-hypnosis. 100% SwiftUI codebase, iOS 15+, Combine, and Concurrency. Small team, 3 iOS, 2 Android Engineers, every role has impact. ā Remote (within European timezones)
If your company is hiring, you can post your open positions for free over at iOS Dev Jobs. Oh, and if it's not you that's responsible for hiring, I'd love if you would pass this on to the hiring manager.
And finally...
How on earth did I miss this?! š¤Æ
Comment
At the start of last year, the rumours of an Apple AR/VR/MR headset were so prevalent that I opened the first issue of 2022 with a comment about them. I guessed that no announcements were imminent.
Itās not just about correctly predicting whether Apple will or wonāt announce something, though. I just re-read what I wrote, and I believe my reasoning still makes sense today. I donāt think VR/MR is any more compelling for Apple today than it was 15 months ago, mainly because of how people will perceive whatever is possible with todayās technology.
But if the rumbling was deafening at the start of 2022, itās overwhelming now, and the tech press had nowhere to go other than to start talking about rumours as if they were facts. š Iām not fond of this practice, but it looks increasingly likely that there will be an announcement at WWDC. Even Tim Cook has been talking freely about the possibilities, and I canāt think of anyone who speaks as carefully as he does.
Naturally, weāll have to sit through hundreds of āApple is doomedā articles if people perceive whatever Apple announces to be too expensive, heavy, ugly, awkward to wear, or limited in functionality, just as we did after the slightly rocky launch of the Apple Watch, but if thereās one thing about Apple, they are outstanding at not letting the reception of a first-generation product get in the way of their long-term plans.
If Apple announces a device five weeks from now, it will be the next step in the line that started with this announcement in 2017, and whatever might be imminent certainly isnāt the final destination. Theyāll refine the message and the device, and Iām sure in five more years, weāll have those sleek, beautifully designed spectacles on our faces.
Either that, or Iāll write this comment again in May 2024! š
Dave Verwer