Quick reminder to get your ducks in a row today as this is the last day for any changes in iTunes Connect before it shuts down. You will not be able to make any pricing changes, do any submissions or edit any metadata until the 27th so make sure you're not caught out by that.
Another quick reminder, I am going to be taking my traditional one week break from iOS Dev Weekly next week. If you're also taking a break over the next couple of weeks then I hope you have a good one! I'll be back in the new year so I'll see you all then!
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.
Practical and efficient WatchKit tables with view model diffing
In a follow up to this article from a couple of weeks ago, Radek Pietruszewski has put together a great article taking the technique even further. Even with the announcement of the native SDK next week, all networking is still going to be across the connection with the phone so techniques like this are important.
A Partial List of Questions About the Native Apple Watch SDK
One thing that was confirmed this week is that we'll see a preview of a native SDK for the watch this week. Marco Arment published his thoughts on it and there's certainly a lot of questions here that'll be answered next week. It's also worth reading this follow up by Jason Brennan.
The Not-So-Complicated Complications
Michał Kałużny looks at building a complication in watchOS 2. It's a relatively straightforward API but there are still a few gotchas to watch out for. The example in the article is creating a complication to show the time for the next bus in a transit app. It goes through the basics, and then moves into dealing with time travel 😁.
What a fantastic gentle introduction to SceneKit from Silviu Pop. He goes over some of the core concepts of SceneKit and then presents challenges with solutions to guide you through the learning. There's also Part 2 and Part 3 which cover more advance topics but are again so well written that each challenge just seems like the next logical step.
Still no sign of full iOS 9 TestFlight support, or any news about when submissions will be accepted so it's possible we won't see the final release of iOS 9 at the launch next week. However, at the very least I'd expect to get the GM by the 9th, with a possible final release a week or so later?
The biggest news of the March 9th event for me was ResearchKit (see the Technical Overview). I didn't expect any mention of SDKs at all at the event, let alone new ones! It's planned to be open source as well and is even listed on the Apple open source page already, right next to FaceTime 😆.
New App Store Rules around Ad Identifier
This week Apple also added new screens to the iTunes Connect submission process when preparing an app for upload. You will be prompted to declare whether you are using the Advertising Identifier, explain why and finally make a declaration that you are not breaking the rules. Be ready to answer these questions next time you upload an app.