I’m not against adverts. How could I be? I make a significant portion of my income from sponsorship and job adverts in this newsletter. I feel strongly about how I approach advertising, but I’m certainly not against the principle.

I was sarcastic about Apple’s new App Store ads last week but didn’t make mention of the uproar or quick course correction as I didn’t have anything to add. The topic has been on my mind this week, though.

My sarcasm comes from my gut feeling that the App Store would be better off without ads. Still, I wanted to consider the positive effects for app developers. If advertising works, it should make you money rather than cost anything. If it’s breaking even or losing you money, there’s some part of the complex equation that’s wrong.

I wanted to find some success stories for a couple of reasons. It’s incredibly hard to launch an app as a small developer if you don’t have an existing audience on another platform, and it could be a partial solution to that. Also, I was curious if anyone was having success with the more traditional use of advertising of supplementing and accelerating organic growth. So, I put out a tweet asking for success stories. There’s no point in me pontificating on whether these ads are good or bad. If they’re good for “normal” app developers (rather than casinos and free-to-play games), then people should be making hay with them!

I only received one email from that tweet, from Stephan Lerner, who writes the Monee app. He has had a promising start with the ads, but it’s early days:

I’ve been using advertising in the Appstore for two months and I’m seeing an immense effect on downloads and thus also on the number of subscribers. Whether the whole thing is also economically worthwhile cannot really be said at the moment. But I think it would be much more difficult without the advertising.

This sounds promising. Money goes in, and subscribers come out! As long as the average LTV of a subscriber is more than you’re paying per acquisition, this could be a success story.

There must be more success stories out there. Have you had success with App Store ads? Please drop me a reply to this email (or dave at this domain if you’re reading via RSS) if you have had success, either now or previously, with App Store ads. I’d also be interested to hear comparisons to other advertising you do. I won’t promise to do a follow-up to this, but I may if enough interesting stories get sent my way.

Dave Verwer

Top Three iOS Mobile App Security Myths

It’s easy to get caught up in the myths surrounding mobile app security. But the biggest misconception may just be that iOS security is better than Android. Watch this video to learn about the most common misconceptions of iOS mobile app security and how you can better protect your applications.

guardsquare.com

Spotlight on: The Dynamic Island

I really like this developer news post from Apple on the Dynamic Island. It has plenty of links to all the docs you’ll need but also highlights third-party apps that have done a great job of implementing support for the feature. It’s not just huge apps by major brands, either. It includes a wide range of app developers, from small to large. Love it.

apple.com

Adventures in AI Ethics

Here’s Matthew Waller on developing an app based on stable diffusion and then choosing not to release it. I understand Matthew’s feelings and echoed some of them when I wrote about tools like these in Issues 514 and 568.

The bad news is that all this will mean is that someone less scrupulous than Matthew will release exactly what he was about to ship, or worse. Now isn’t that a happy thought for your Friday? 😬

cephalopod.studio

Running Code Only Once in SwiftUI

Wouldn’t it be great if SwiftUI had a view modifier that would let you execute code when a few first appeared rather than on every appearance? Jordan Morgan and Ian Keen have just the thing.

swiftjectivec.com

Swift Regex Deep Dive

I’ve been waiting for Ventura to arrive before playing with the new regular expression features announced at WWDC. So this article from Shane Crawford came at just the right time. It covers everything from the compile time and runtime improvements to the new syntax. Just what I needed.

bignerdranch.com

Check localizable strings in Xcode

The accented pseudolanguage is such a clever solution to a tricky problem. I love it. What’s that? You’ve not heard of it before? Natalia Panferova is here to fill in that knowledge gap!

nilcoalescing.com

5-Second Test

Here’s Nick Babich highlighting a technique I hadn’t come across before that would work just as well on various screens of your app.

babich.biz

Senior Swift (iOS) Developer @ Nord Security – iOS developer has an essential role in growing the NordPass product and a lot of freedom to make an impact. There is plenty of space for experiments and constant improvement. You would be a part of a very ambitious and enthusiastic team which gives a lot of support and encouragement every day. – Remote (within European timezones)

Senior iOS Engineer @ Doximity – Doximity, the medical network used by over 80% of US clinicians, is hiring passionate iOS engineers (fully remote!). Come be part of an amazing product team + work on an app that is constantly evolving. Use your skills (Swift, TCA, Combine) to be an integral part of our growing telemed feature. – Remote (within US timezones)

Native iOS Engineer @ MartianCraft – Are you someone who enjoys collaboratively solving challenging problems? At MartianCraft, we work together to create innovative software for our clients. You’ll always be surrounded by the best and brightest in the industry. – Remote (within US timezones)

R&D OSS Engineer @ DockYard – DockYard is a digital product consultancy, solving complex problems for enterprise clients like Netflix and Apple. We are an active OSS contributor currently working on a new naitve app framework. We're seeking to hire a SwiftUI Engineer to work within our R&D department to build out the libraries. – Remote (within US timezones)

Senior iOS Developer @ Shape Games – Join a team of talented developers who are passionate about working with Swift. We offer visa and relocation support if you want to join us in lovely Copenhagen. We are also open for fully remote team members. – Remote (within European timezones)

iOS SDK Developer @ Stream – Do you want to work on an open-source chat SDK used by hundreds of high-profile companies and startups that impact billions of users? If you are a product-minded engineer and care about software quality, apply on the link below. – Remote (within European timezones) or on-site (Netherlands)

Freelance Interview Engineer @ Karat – We're dedicated to improving access in tech. If you are too, join us as a Karat Interview Engineer. As such, you'll conduct technical interviews of developers like you on behalf of our hiring clients (including Duolingo, Indeed, and more) using the Karat Platform and its data-tested questions. – Remote (within US timezones)

What do you need to deliver this feature by Monday? 🔷

(Yes, that's the closest emoji I could find to a blue star)