Issue 622

Comment

I recently read this post from Danijela Vrzan on reaching one year of blogging about Swift. She published it just before WWDC, but that week’s issue of the newsletter was full of pre-conference excitement, and I’ve not found a chance to share it since with all the post-conference catch-up. I wanted to link to her post, though, partly to congratulate her but also hoping that her writing will encourage more people to write about Swift and Apple platform development.

There’s nothing wrong with YouTube, Podcasts, Twitch, and all the social media platforms, but for me, nothing beats a blog post. I can read it at whatever pace and schedule makes me comfortable, search it for keywords or something specific I’m looking for. I can easily share a key point with copy and paste, or a link to the whole article.

In my (admittedly possibly old-fashioned) opinion, it’s the very best way to share something you learned or did. Hundreds of people blog about Swift already, and you could join them. Whether your writing is a quick paragraph or an in-depth tutorial doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t matter if you switch back and forth between those! You don’t need to write every week or on any regular schedule at all¹. You don’t have to dedicate your life to it or make it a source of income. But every blog I have written on over the years has provided me with some quantity of good things in return.

Thank you to everyone in this community for the hundreds of posts I read each week. I can’t share them all, but I’m glad you write them. ❤️

¹ … as long as you have an RSS feed so I can subscribe! Also, if you have a blog or plan to start one, please add your RSS feed and details to the iOS Dev Directory. I run my whole RSS system off that directory, and it powers other sites that help promote your writing, too.

News

China to require apps to share details in new oversight push

If this all goes through and truly affects every app in the store, I hope that Craig Hockenberry is correct and Apple can step up and become the publisher. It seems like it should be within their power, and it would undoubtedly be in Apple’s interest to make this easier/possible for smaller developers.

Tools

Kaleidoscope and Git

Kaleidoscope is a great diff tool, but once it does the best diffs, what other features does it need? I might have asked for “faster horses“ if the developers had asked me what to add next, but I’m glad they didn’t because this is exactly the feature I didn’t know I wanted! The UI of clicking through the history of a file with A and B buttons is simple and brilliant. Please continue not to ask me what feature I want next. You’re doing a great job. 😂

For full disclosure, the Kaleidoscope developers provided me with a license when version 4 came out.

Code

Swift Transformers: Run On-Device LLMs on Apple Devices

There are a few different methods to get an LLM model, such as Llama 2 running locally on your Mac or iOS device, but Pedro Cuenca’s is the most approachable I’ve seen for Swift developers. He covers converting a model to be compatible with Core ML and using it with the newly created swift-transformers package to build a chat app.

Applying metal shader to text in SwiftUI

What’s the very simplest Metal shader you could use to demonstrate the new SwiftUI ShaderLibrary feature? I’d say this one from Toomas Vahter is up there. What a great way to get started if shaders are as scary to you as they are to me!

AppKit vs SwiftUI: Stable vs Shiny

Every now and then, it’s worth checking back in on the SwiftUI vs AppKit/UIKit question, and this time it’s the turn of Milen Dzhumerov to take us through the pros and cons. I think my favourite answer to the question was from Sarah Reichelt:

To support old versions of macOS, use AppKit. For long-form text editing or thousands of records, use AppKit. For existing AppKit apps, add SwiftUI gradually. For everything else, start with SwiftUI and include AppKit as needed.

And finally...

Have you ever seen a book this future proof?

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Issue 622 August 11th 2023