Why do I link to Alexandre Colucci’s articles reporting on Apple’s internal use of various technologies every time he publishes them? Because they’re fascinating!

His latest post covers IOS 16, and the results start predictably. The number of Apple’s apps using Swift and SwiftUI continues to rise exponentially, and several existing apps have included SwiftUI code for the first time this year. That said, Objective-C still dominates the iOS codebase, with it being a part of over 65% of all binaries, which should answer the question of how close Apple is to deprecating it. So far, so good.

The statistic that made me pause was that only four Apple apps use the SwiftUI app lifecycle. That’s less than 2% of all their apps that use SwiftUI.

Should we read into this that the SwiftUI lifecycle is bad? Is SwiftUI doomed because of how few of Apple’s apps are using it? Of course not! I think it’s like this for a couple of perfectly reasonable reasons. Replacing the heart of any app is never trivial unless the app is tiny, and The SwiftUI app lifecycle is still new and far from feature complete. It’s still early days for it.

It’s important to remember that going “all in” on SwiftUI isn’t necessary. Despite the famous message from this year’s keynote, the fastest and best way to write an iOS app today is with a mixture of technologies, and it appears that’s exactly what Apple is doing internally. 🚀

Note: I know I’ve used/misused this image several times. It’s worth saying that I don’t mean to ridicule it, and I don’t disagree with the message given the context in which Josh presented it. The SotU (where I believe this came from) is a perfect place for broad statements and to set direction. That direction is clear and correct, but the reality of any company, whether it be yours or Apple themselves is much more complex. It’s all fine. 👍

Dave Verwer

Interact with the physical world using Swift

Hey, I’m Andy Liu, and I love developing with Swift just as much as I love electronics. I built some hardware, an IDE, and some libraries to make interfacing Swift code with the physical world easy. If that’s interesting to you, I’d love it if you followed me on Twitter.

twitter.com

Over 3,000 Words On What The Measurement Type Is And Why You Should Be Using It

The title of this post from Brett Ohland isn't the only thing that's good about it. The Measurement framework probably isn’t something you’ll need in every app you write, but I love that it exists and this comprehensive blog post from Brett is a great way to learn about it. What else would you expect from the person behind this site?

ampersandsoftworks.com

Pitfall of Nested ObservableObject

If you’ve worked with SwiftUI, you’ll likely have dealt with this issue in one way or another. Junda Ong has an excellent solution using Combine.

Perhaps one day, SwiftUI will support such a use.

I hope so, too!

samwize.com

Platform specific code in Swift Packages

Here’s an interesting tale of cross platform compatibility from Pol Piella. Normally when someone writes about cross-platform Swift, it’s Apple platforms and Linux, in this case it’s SwiftWasm and Windows!

polpiella.dev

Creating the Illusion of Private Messaging with Celebrities

This fascinating article from Lillian Yang is almost out of what I’d consider the scope of this newsletter, but I couldn't leave it out. Given an infinite number of parallel universes, this ends badly in every one of them. 😕

nngroup.com

NSSpain X videos

It has been many years since I attended, but I continue to hear great things about NSSpain every year. There’s nothing quite like being in Logroño, but if you couldn’t make it this year, maybe these videos will tempt you for next year!

vimeo.com

Senior iOS Engineer @ DuckDuckGo – Our app is now downloaded more than 50M times a year, and our private search engine packaged with it has become the #2 search engine on mobile in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. Oh, and we've been profitable since 2014 with revenue currently exceeding $100 million a year! – Remote (Anywhere)

Mac & iOS Software Engineer @ Flexibits Inc. – We make Fantastical and Cardhop, award-winning calendar and contacts apps for Mac and iOS. We were honored to win Apple's Mac App of the Year in 2020 and we're looking to make our apps even better! Our team is a 18 person, fully-remote company spread across the US and Europe. – Remote (within US or European timezones)

Head of Apple Development @ Doist – Doists’ mission is to build the future of work. Come help us lead our Apple team and create some of the best productivity apps in the world. – Remote (within US, European, or Asia-Pacific timezones)

Senior iOS Engineer @ Sendwave – We currently have a 4.6-star rating on Trustpilot — people put their faith in us to deliver their money quickly, securely, and affordably. And we’re pretty darn proud of that. – Remote (within US or European timezones)

Mobile Full Stack Engineer @ Expensify – Join our passionate team of top-notch engineers to solve a real-world problem, and help people spend less time managing expenses and more time pursuing their real goals. – Remote (Anywhere) with some on-site work (Australia, United Kingdom, or United States in CA, MI, NY, or OR)

It has been a while since Objective-C got a mention in the newsletter. Does that make it a good time to link to this well-researched history of nil messaging? I think it does! 🙇