Swift Developments is a hand-curated newsletter containing a weekly selection of the best links, videos, tools and tutorials for people interested in designing and developing their own apps using Swift.
Business
Subscribers Are Your True Fans
Great article from @drbarnard on the use of subscriptions and why, in the long-term, they are probably the best bet for monetizing your app.
revenuecat.com
The Dark Side of the App Store
I’ve said before, policing the app store is a huge challenge for Apple and the staff involved so I’m willing to cut them a bit of slack – after all, no system is perfect – but with that said, one of the biggest frustrations with the app store review process is the lack of consistency and transparency in how the app store review guidelines are applied. This article from @fassko is sadly another such example.
kristaps.me
Introducing AltStore
An alternative app store for non-jailbroken devices! @rileytestut has put together a clever way of side-loading apps into your iOS devices without the need to jailbreak them. Whilst the solution relies on a local server and one of Apple’s existing supported installation methods and is an interesting avenue to explore, my guess is that it won’t be long before Apple takes steps to try and shut this down. Let’s hope I’m wrong.
rileytestut.com
Swift
5 Small but Significant Improvements in Swift 5.1
If you put aside the headline features, Swift 5.1 actually has a bunch of other, smaller, but no less significant improvements. @johnsundell has written a nice article summarising some of them.
swiftbysundell.com
Code
Sign in with Apple using SwiftUI
Add user privacy and control to your SwiftUI apps with this step-by-step tutorial from Scott Grosch showing you how to integrate Sign in with Apple with your SwiftUI app.
raywenderlich.com
iOS 13
Although iOS 13 has incorporated some major new features this year which have obviously drawn much of the communities focus over the last few months, iOS 13 also contains a bunch of new features that have had much less coverage. @mattt attempts to redress the balance with a look at of some of the lesser-known (and in many cases lesser documented) features that have been introduced.
nshipster.com
Supporting Low Data Mode in Your App
I’d completely missed this feature until I saw this article from @DonnyWals. Introduced in iOS 13, Low Data Mode allows users to limit the amount of data that is used by apps on their phone. In this article, Donny looks at the implication of this new feature from a development perspective.
donnywals.com
Activity Classification with Create ML, CoreML3, and Skafos
In this two-part series, (Part 1, Part 2) @tchutch94 shows you how to use Create ML, CoreML 3 and Skafos AI to perform on-device activity classification based on device motion data. As an ex-athlete with a new watch on the way – this series is on my list to experiment with.
medium.com
Tools
Overriding Status Bar Display Settings in the iOS Simulator
@jesse_squires with some tips on a new feature in simctl in Xcode 11 that allows you to override the status bar values in the iOS simulator. Just what you need for those app-store screenshots.
jessesquires.com
iOS Multiple Projects Workspace Setup
Juggling multiple iOS projects? @yakivmospan shows you how to simplify things with by setting up your own multi-project workspace.
medium.com
Resources
100 Days of SwiftUI
Slightly late to the party with this one but if you haven’t seen it already, @twostraws has kicked off a new 100-days series – this time focusing on SwiftUI. The first part of the series has been a Swift refresher so there’s still time to catch up.
hackingwithswift.com
Videos
iOS Redux with Swift, SwiftUI and Combine
Bring together all of this year’s major new framework developments with this two-part (Part 1, Part 2) video tutorial from @peres looking into Redux, why it’s awesome and why you should start using it in your own projects.
youtu.be