Issue 613

9^th June 2023

Written by Dave Verwer

Comment

Well, they did it!

This is a calibration moment. Take yourself back to a year ago, before all the rumours of specific hardware. How many of you expected Apple’s first entry in this product category to look like a pair of spectacles? Maybe with a thicker frame and stems or some other clever way to hide the hardware, but a device that more closely resembled glasses than a headset. That made sense to me, too, but only if Apple had a few more years to work on it because that kind of miniaturisation doesn’t exist today.

Of course, I don’t need to tell any of you what Apple showed us in the keynote and all the visionOS sessions released this week. It’s the VR/MR headset hardware, exactly as rumoured, but with a fully thought-out software story that screams, “AR is still our end goal!” 👓

That’s where the “calibration moment” I mentioned above comes in. Before we had eyes on the Vision Pro hardware, we had no idea how far Apple was along the path to something that does everything this headset does in the form factor of a pair of spectacles. Now we know exactly how far along they are.

So am I disappointed they unveiled this version? Absolutely not. This is a tremendously exciting announcement, and now they can iterate. Even better, we can watch that iteration in the open! We’ll see the devices shrink and the software take leaps and bounds. It’ll be amazing, and I can’t wait to see (and participate in) what they do over the next few years¹!

¹ Please note that I am being very vague about how long a “few years” may be. 😂

Dave Verwer

As with every year’s post-WWDC issue of this newsletter, I won’t try to cover everything from the conference. We have the whole summer to digest everything and even longer for all the visionOS things! As with every week, this is merely a collection of links that caught my eye.

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News

The official Developer app is excellent and gets better every year, but I reach for this independently developed app when I want to stream (or download) a WWDC video. So, I’d like to thank Gui Rambo and all the contributors for their work every year in keeping this maintained and moving forward. I think it’s the best way to find and watch WWDC session videos, which you’ll be doing a lot of over the next few weeks!

I’m so happy to see this project continue. Initially started by Federico Zanetello and now continued by Cihat Gündüz, this is a fantastic source for community-contributed notes for every WWDC video. They already have 29 sessions covered. That’s great! 👍

I loved the “Behind the Design” series of posts that Apple created to cover the stories of last year’s ADA winners. My only disappointment was that they were a little hard to find. I have no idea if my gentle criticism made it back to those in charge of this initiative, but no matter how it happened, I was thrilled to see every single one of this year’s winners had their Behind the Design post linked alongside the announcement! The stories are just as great as last time, and so many more people will see them. Whoever made that happen, you’re all amazing!

So, please read the stories from Universe, stitch., Duolingo, Afterplace, Flighty, Railbound, Headspace, Endling, Any Distance, Resident Evil Village, SwingVision, and Marvel Snap! My congratulations to you all!

Last (but not least) in this week’s jam-packed news section is for an excellent cause. The MacPaw Foundation is again running a raffle for a Ukrainian flag pin from WWDC19. I know they will appreciate our support, as will everyone who benefits from the blood bank refrigerators they are raising money for.

Code

I love this page from Apple highlighting all the essential bits of documentation, articles, update summaries, key reference documentation, and sample code coming out of this year’s conference. I’ve long wished we could see new and updated documentation in the official docs, and not only at conference time! This format works really well.

I said I wouldn’t try and summarise everything, but that doesn’t mean other people didn’t! Like this list from Marco Eidinger containing a few details of every new framework announced this year. It’s also another good opportunity to link to his Public Apple Frameworks site, where they are also now listed. 👍

The post title presents a question, but you won’t be surprised to hear that Paul Hudson doesn’t leave you hanging and answers it! The headline feature of this release is macros, but there’s plenty more in here, and predictably Paul’s write-up of them is exceptional.

Videos

This is my favourite session video (of those I have watched!). Watch Israel Pastrana Vicente and Eugene Krivoruchko give a gentle introduction to an entirely new way of thinking about apps and interaction design. It’s all about eyes, hands, and voice. Welcome to the future!

Jobs

iPad Software Engineer @ Liquid Instruments – Liquid Instruments is a startup creating a range of modern test and measurement devices using reconfigurable FPGA hardware. We’re looking for someone to help develop the beautiful iPad user interface that drives it all. – On-site (Australia)

Senior iOS Developer @ komoot – You’ll team up with four world class iOS engineers and take over full responsibility for our iOS app. You’ll develop diverse features for navigation, routing, social interaction and content visualisation that will make your work challenging and fun. – Remote (within European timezones)

Swift Product Engineers @ The Browser Company – Fully remote, diverse team building an all-Swift web browser and bringing Swift to other operating systems. Series A, well-funded and a seasoned engineering team. We’re building a beloved product by thinking differently about how we work and the future of the internet. – Remote (within US timezones)

Mac & iOS Software Engineer @ Flexibits Inc. – We make Fantastical and Cardhop, award-winning calendar and contacts apps for Mac and iOS. We were honored to win Apple’s Mac App of the Year in 2020 and we’re looking to make our apps even better! Our team is a 25 person, fully-remote company spread across the US and Europe. – Remote (within US or European timezones)

Does your company have any open positions that they’d like to fill? Please let your hiring managers know they can post jobs for free over at iOS Dev Jobs. ❤️

And finally...

It wasn’t only this year’s keynote that had one more thing… 🎵