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
Putting the M in MVP
You’ve probably heard the term before – MVP – Minimum Viable Product – the term coined by Frank Robinson and popularised by Eric Ries in his book The Lean Startup. When it comes to building an MVP though, it can be all too easy to build more then you actually need so how do you identify what “minimum” actually means? In this article, @imhowardlo presents some of his own hard-won lessons.
freecodecamp.com
Ownership of the Apps You Use
App pricing has always been an challenge whether it be for indie developers or major development shops and in recent months and years we’ve seen a number of high profile companies changing their pricing strategies. With many publishers now having essentially the same app available on multiple platforms customers are starting to ask whether they should be paying for “the same app” twice. @ctietze explores the implications.
christiantietze.de
Sponsored Link
The Swift Algorithms Book (Revised for Swift 3.0)
Written for students and professionals, the 2nd edition of Swift Algorithms & Data Structures blends modern code, illustrations and computer science to help you pass the interview or build your next app.
Revised and updated for Swift 3.0, the new book takes a fresh approach to explain concepts that power search engines, databases and social networks.
Use coupon code “BARGH” at checkout to receive a 20% discount!
shop.waynewbishop.com
Design
Making a Case for Letter Case
Text plays a big part in many of our applications and how that text is capitalised can play a big part in the readability, comprehension and usability of your app. In this article, @jsaito looks at the different capitalisation options available and examines the relative merits of each.
medium.com
Designing the Perfect Text Field: Clarity, Accessibility and User Effort
Input and text fields play an important part in many iOS applications. In this article, @101babich examines their key design factors and how we can use them to improve data input within our applications.
babich.biz
Code
Create an iMessage App in iOS 10
One of the big additions at this year’s WWDC was the introduction of iMessage Apps. iMessage apps provide the ability to develop expressive experiences within the scope of an iMessage conversation and in this article, @davis503525 shows us how to get started.
tutsplus.com
How Do I Build a Network Layer?
Nowadays, most mobile apps have some sort of client-server component built in. This in turn means that there is always some sort of network component we need to handle within our apps architecture. Having tackled this problem on numerous occasions, @tomkowz had never quite seen a solution that ticked all the boxes. However, in this article, he presents an option of his own.
szulctomasz.com
RxSwift for Dummies
If like me, Functional Reactive Programming is on your list of topics to dig into in more detail, these two articles (Part 1, Part 2) from @MichaelCiurus could save you a lot of time. In it, Michael provides a gentle introduction to the terminology and ideas behind Functional Reactive Programming and provides and number of great examples to help you get up to speed.
swiftpearls.com
Libraries
AspectFillFaceAware
When it comes to fitting photos of people within a UIImageView things can be a little tricky. UIImageViews, AspectFill option is great for fitting the image to the view but has no concept of the image content itself and can inadvertently crop the persons face, especially if they are not central within the image. AspectFillFaceAware by @beaunouvelle takes a different approach though, analysing the image for a face and ensuring that that remains the focus. Great for user avatars.
github.com
WSTagsField
One or my favourite apps for collecting links and articles from around the web is Evernote, and one of it’s most prominent and powerful features is it’s ability to tag different data. If you’re developing an app of similar ilk, WSTagsField by @Whitesmithco may be just what you’re looking for.
Providing an iOS text field that can be used to allow users to manage and tag different data it’s nicely configurable and provides a clean set of delegate methods that provide notifications when data changes.
github.com
Videos
My Name is Bond…SwiftBond
In this talk, @thedevme talks through how he use SwiftBond (now renamed to ReactiveKit) a collection of Swift frameworks that support reactive and functional reactive programming to bind NFL game data to elements within his UI, a powerful technique that allows him to both simplify his app and update game data in real-time for all his apps users.
realm.io
Finally
You Don’t Learn Until You Ship
Design it. Build it. Get it out into the world. The quicker you can complete this cycle, the sooner you can get feedback. A great reminder from @mijustin!
Comment
Welcome to another week of the AndyBargh.com Newsletter or should I say: “Swift Developments”.
As you probably noticed, after a number of weeks of deliberation and in honour of Swift 3’s grand renaming, I’ve finally decided to change the name of this weekly roundup to better reflect it’s content and direction!
It’ll still have the same topics, same community feel and (with any luck), will continue to grow into a useful resource for the Swift and iOS Development community but as we headed towards the publication’s first birthday I thought it was time for a bit of a change! Hopefully you approve!
Also as an added bonus I’ve created a new twitter account (@swiftdevmnts) if you want to get in touch.