A few weeks ago there was an extended discussion on the future of Objective-C and I linked to a couple of different stories on it. This week Jason Brennan posted a follow up to his original article. He argues that we're not thinking big enough by just considering a replacement for Objective-C and that we need to think of a bigger picture on how we build software in a more modern way. It's a lengthy article but certainly one worth reading, and looking back on in 5 years.
I always find the stories about how apps come into existence fascinating and this one from Alexander Griekspoor about Agenda is no different. I also love to see in-development screenshots and videos, and there's some of those here too. It's worth a read!
Student submissions for the WWDC 2019 Scholarship
Scholarship applications are now closed, and as always it's inspiring to see what the next generation of developers is up to. Good luck to everyone who submitted something! 🎉 See you there.
Deleting unused iOS Simulators
Next up, and especially if you're short on disk space, you might want to consider this tip from Julio Carrettoni. Just be careful to only do it if you only have one version of Xcode installed.
Upcoming App Store Submission Requirements
You're probably already building against the iOS 12.1 SDK but just in case you're not, you'll need to change that if you want to submit next week. Oh and if you're writing something that uses Metal 🤘 then you'll also need to be aware of the changes to memory accounting.
We knew this was coming but it's going to be mandatory to notarise your Mac apps with the next point release of Mojave. If you're a Mac developer and have not yet automated the process, I linked to this article from Berk Çebi a while back that should help you out!
Let's get this week started by celebrating a small anniversary. It's been one year since the iOS Dev Directory went live! 🎉
When I launched the site I hoped it would become a comprehensive directory of sites publishing regular content on iOS development. Selfishly, I also hoped it would be the easiest way for me to expand the people who I listen to on a regular basis. 😀
So, has it been a success so far?
I'd say it definitely has! On day one the directory contained 184 entries and throughout the year I've continued to add more. There have also been over 190 community contributions and the directory now contains 461 sites! That's amazing.
But… I'm quite sure there are plenty of sites that are still missing so let's all give it a bit of a bump on its birthday shall we? Go and check the page for your blog, your colleague's blogs and your friend's blogs. If any of them are missing, you know what to do. Then, would you mind sharing it? I think it's probably got most of the blogs run by people who are aware of this newsletter, but what about all the people who have never seen iOS Dev Weekly? The only way it's going to reach them is if you all share it to your followers. Thanks!
I wonder how many sites it'll track next March? 🤞
Last night I was catching up on the week's iOS news and I found myself nodding along with point after point in this article on Apple's long term Marzipan strategy from Curtis Herbert. As I've said before I'm not expecting huge changes to Marzipan over what has been discovered over the last 12 months, but I'm definitely expecting some.
So far most of the criticism has been around things like platform fit, but Curtis makes the point that there are many things that are needed before that can be the top priority:
The real can of worms opens before we even get to worry about if our apps look at home on the Mac: it begins in just worrying about getting them to run. That means every framework we use on iOS has to be there on the Mac, in some form.
He's got a point, macOS and iOS have separated significantly over the years with so many iOS only APIs being introduced. He suggests that one focus of this year's Marzipan release might be something less susceptible to criticisms of platform fit, games.
To me games seem like they'll be the low-hanging-fruit of a v1.0 Marzipan rollout as they'll require the least framework surface area to support. Their AppKit support needs will be minimal too: keyboard/mouse support, a menu bar item or two, and boom(ish) you've got a native-feeling Mac game.
He's not saying that the Marzipan story will be entirely about games (and I also hope it isn't!), but that they may well feature prominently. I do worry that given how much negativity there has been in our community about Marzipan, that whatever they announce this year will only be seen as disappointing.
So what I really hope for in June is that Apple map out their strategy for Marzipan with a little more clarity. Obviously they're not going to give us any information on things like ARM based Macs, but that doesn't mean they can't let us in on the software roadmap a little bit. If platform fit is taking a back seat this year over framework compatibility and games, that's OK but it does mean the wailing and moaning will be deafening for the next 12 months if that's all they present.
They probably won't, but I can live in hope... 🤞
Try not to get lost in this and emerge smiling an hour later like I did.
One thing I heard repeatedly last week was people saying "What are we going to complain about now?". I was pretty confident that we would all find something suitable to fill the void now that Christmas came early, Justin Williams kicks us off.
