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.
News
App Store Policy Updates
So we kick off this week with some new updates to the App Store policies. Currently, Apple requires privacy policies for all apps that access personal information but from October 3rd this same policy is going to be extended to all new apps and app updates including basic apps that do not share or access user data in any way. Currently, existing apps on the store, won’t be affected but will have to comply on their first update after the October 3rd deadline. @MacRumors provides some more detail.
Business
How to Leverage Apple Pre-Order For Your iOS App Launch
Looking to generate some buzz around your app launch? Pre-orders might be just what you’re looking for. In this article, the team at @apptamin provide an in-depth guide to setting up and using pre-orders on the store.
Design
Best Practices For Mobile Form Design
It’s not uncommon to use forms in mobile app designs whether it be for registration, subscription, user feedback or purchases. When it comes to designing these forms though, there are number of things you’ll need to watch out for if you want to maintain your apps user experience. @101babich explains more.
Swift
Lazy Sequences in Swift And How They Work
@rockthebruno dives into the detail of how lazy sequences work in Swift and how, with a bit of knowledge, you can use them to extract some additional performance from your app.
Dynamic Features in Swift
Although Swift is a statically typed language, Swift’s type system supports a number of runtime features that let you examineyour code at runtime. In this tutorial, @finneycanhelp shows you how these features can be used to customize your console output, hook into third-party object state changes and more.
Code
How to Visualize Random Distribution Algorithms in Swift and ARKit
One of the reasons I like ARKit is that it provides a world of new possibilities for developers. In that vein, I like @AbovegroundDan novel use of ARKit to visualise different random number generators.
NSDataAsset
Asset Catalogs are great ways to collate and organize resources within your app. In this article, @mattt shows you how to extend their capabilities using UIKit’s NSDataAsset class to store resources like JSON, XML and other data files.
Building a Neural Style Transfer app on iOS with PyTorch and CoreML
CoreML has opened up a wider range of new possibilities for app developers including everything from image analysis to NLP. In this article @alexiscreuzot makes use of these capabilities using PyTorch and CoreML to build a nerual style transfer app that learns, and then applies, a particular style of painting to an image.
When You Refactor, Are You Using Small Steps?
Although I try not to, I, like may others are sometimes guilty of tackling refactoring’s in too big a steps. @qcoding provides a good reminder that your refactorings should be kept as small as possible with each step being verified by a working set of unit tests.
Videos
ARKit in Practice
In this live-coding talk, @nvh uses Swift playgrounds to explore the two main ways of using ARKit – one using SpriteKit and one using SceneKit.
iOS Accessibility Tips & Tricks
@Sommer talks all things accessibility, from what it is and why it’s important, to some tips and tricks for quickly adding accessibility features to your own apps.