I’ve not done anything for ten consecutive years during my career. Until now.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of iOS Dev Weekly! 🎉 I made a big fuss at 500 issues, so I’ll try to keep this short, but I couldn’t let a tenth anniversary go by without even mentioning it.

I was thinking back, and even though I sometimes joke that I’m not very good at sticking with things, I think I might be. I stayed at the first company I joined for nine years, working my way up to CTO, then ran my first company for another nine before it was acquired. My current company has been going for five years too, and I can easily imagine another five. I think it’s clear that I do stick with things.

So you might be surprised to hear I had a reputation as someone who always jumped to the latest “cool” tech for a while. I had been a .net developer for many years, but many things were about to change. I walked into a room at the eTech conference and bought my first Mac that same week. I learned Ruby on Rails, had an idea for a web app, quit my job, started a company and made the first significant change in my career in almost ten years. Then, around a year later, Apple announced the iPhone, and I could not resist it. I had played with Cocoa/AppKit for fun, and I made my second big career move in as many years.

It was also around that time that I started getting into my local tech community. I went to hackathons, BarCamps, and every other event I could find. I met so many wonderful people through that community, and most of them are still friends today. But look at it from their perspective. They met a frustrated .net developer, and within a few months, I’m singing the praises of Ruby and Rails. Wait, what? Now you’re learning Objective-C to be a Mac/iOS developer? It looked like I would jump ship to whatever new hotness was popular that week, and I can see why! 😂

Yet here I am 15 years later, and I wrote some Ruby on Rails code yesterday and some iOS and macOS code with Swift today. I think that was just a time when I needed to change something in my career, and that’s OK. It’s good to learn new technology or glance elsewhere for a while. You never know which technologies you’ll fall in love with and write about for ten years in a newsletter.

Happy Birthday, iOS Dev Weekly! 🎂

Dave Verwer

Oh, and on the subject of birthdays. 🎉 A couple of friends keep telling me I need to mention iOS Dev Weekly Insiders more prominently. So, if you did want to give iOS Dev Weekly an actual birthday present or show your appreciation for ten years of writing, I started a Patreon a few months ago, and I'd love it if you'd check it out.

However, please don't feel any pressure to subscribe! I'm still just as happy as ever if all you want from this newsletter is to read a few paragraphs from me and click a couple of links from the community every week. Please don't feel any need to do more. ❤️

Note: I'm expecting iMessages from both friends who wanted me to do this about that previous paragraph! 😂

A Fast Fix for iOS App Hangs

Only Bugsnag error monitoring has the ability to detect iOS app hangs or freezes. Read our blog to learn how to detect fatal and non-fatal iOS app hangs and fix the underlying problems with full diagnostics, including stack traces and breadcrumbs.

bugsnag.com

With AR glasses, Apple has been "building in public" as much as anyone

I've described Apple's AR plans as "the worst kept secret" a few times in the past, but I much prefer Andrew Hart's take on it. They're working in the open, just without the final connecting piece(s), whatever they may turn out to be. This Twitter thread is a good recap of all the components that might come together one day.

twitter.com

Upcoming tax and price changes for apps and in-app purchases

As someone who lives in the UK, it's been painful to see dollar prices translate directly to pounds on the App Store for the last few years. 😬 Yes, this will result in an immediate revenue reduction, but will the price of your app "feeling" more reasonable in the affected countries counteract that reduction? Maybe! 🤞

apple.com

Automating App Store Screenshots

Whenever I mention using fastlane's snapshot tool for App Store screenshots, I justify it by saying it'll save you time if you have "ten screenshots for every device type in different localisations". In reality, even if you have just two screenshots in one language for your app, you'll still save so much time by doing this. Let Daisy Ramos show you how to make the best of this fantastic tool.

lickability.com

Convincing Xcode to Map Vim Keys

Bryce Pauken summed up this post perfectly when he tweeted about it:

I may have spent longer digging into this than would have been even close to reasonable.

I'd just remove that word "may", Bryce! 😂 Seriously though, if you have any interest in Xcode 13's vim bindings, you need to read this post.

bryce.co

A Companion for SwiftUI v3

Every time I see this app, I can't get over how (as far as I'm aware) both the app and the excellent documentation contained within have been created by one person, Javier Nigro. As with previous years, the app now has updates covering this year's SwiftUI changes, with more than 700 additions from last year. If you haven't purchased it yet, it's really worth the money.

For full disclosure, Javier sent me a copy of the app as he initially launched it back in 2019.

swiftui-lab.com

Modern Concurrency in Swift

Here's a wonderful set of articles from Andy Ibanez that he's been working on since WWDC. It's a seven-part series covering async/await, converting your existing concurrent code, async let, group tasks, unstructured concurrency, detached tasks, and actors. It's going to take you a while to get through the whole set, but give it a go!

andyibanez.com

How to do APIs constraints with @Available in Swift

How much information do you give the other members of your team, or your future self, about the APIs you create in your code? I liked this article from Leonardo Maia Pugliese with a practical example of using Swift's @available attribute.

holyswift.app

Refreshing iOS 15 Safari

Reading this post from Josh Collie on some potential alternatives to the much-debated toolbar from Safari on iOS 15 made me wish more people blogged about mobile design. Is anyone who's talking on this topic missing from the directory?

medium.com

Senior macOS Engineer @ Raycast – Raycast makes it simple, fast and delightful to control your tools (in a Spotlight-like interface). Fully native Mac app (Swift / AppKit). You'll be working on top-notch UI that will make the lives of developers easier. Fully remote, small team, competitive salary, almost no meetings and a lot of time to code. We are backed by Y Combinator, Accel and other great investors. – Remote

Mid/Senior Swift Developer @ Jogg – Jogg is looking for a talented mid/senior Swift developer. We're looking to establish our iOS team to help bring new Jogg products to life. The ideal candidate will have at least 3-4 years of Swift experience and be excited about all things SwiftUI. This will be a great opportunity to build modern SwiftUI apps along with the new async/await features of Swift. – Glendale CA or Remote

iOS Engineer @ onXmaps – Are you an iOS developer who loves the outdoors? Join onX! If you’re passionate about writing great software, love playing outside, and believe in protecting access to public lands – then join our team, where we empower millions of outdoor enthusiasts to explore the unknown! – Bozeman MT, Missoula MT, or Remote within the US

Senior iOS SDK Architect @ Stream – Stream, a high-growth startup focused on Chat and Feeds, is hiring a Senior iOS SDK Architect to help build the future of their native iOS SDK. Join the team in Boulder, CO, Amsterdam, or remote! – Remote, Boulder CO, or Amsterdam

iOS Developer @ Doximity – Doximity, the medical network used by over 80% of US clinicians, is hiring passionate iOS engineers (full-time remote!). You'll get to be part of an amazing product team and work on an app that is constantly evolving. Use your skills (Swift, MVVM, FRP) to be an integral part of our newly launched telemedicine feature. Apply today! – San Francisco CA or Remote within the US

iOS Engineer @ Cuvva – Cuvva is making insurance radically better. We’re creating truly flexible products that meet people’s real needs. Using lightning-fast technology to unlock better experiences and fairer prices for our customers, Cuvva is building the future of insurance every day. – London UK

iOS Engineer @ Starry – Come help us build out applications for Starry customers, as we help bridge the digital divide by bringing affordable, high quality broadband to everyone, including the communities that are underserved. The iOS team also builds numerous internal apps to support the field team, some built entirely in SwiftUI. – Boston MA

iOS Software Engineer @ Sky Betting and Gaming – Do you love iOS development? Do you build large scale apps? Join us in the Bet Engineering team, where you’ll be part of an agile, native app squad responsible for the delivery and upkeep of our flagship Sky Bet product. Our ambitions are to deliver an incredible native betting & gaming experience across all our products! – Leeds, Sheffield, or Remote within the UK

Senior iOS Engineer @ Sky Betting and Gaming – We are looking for an experienced iOS Engineer to join the first iOS squad in our Customer Tribe at Sky Betting & Gaming! Working collaboratively with the squad you’ll be building an account UI and SDK for our full range of products using Swift, Combine and Modern UIKit in order to create the best possible experience for our iOS customers. – Leeds, Sheffield, or Remote within the UK

Principal Mobile Engineer @ Sky Betting and Gaming – The Principal Mobile Engineer role is the ultimate role for an engineer who has been there, done it and got the t-shirts, stickers and battle scars to prove it! Join the Bet Tribe to continue our journey to a fully native iOS app, influence the tribe to think native-first and drive the best possible customer experience! – Leeds, Sheffield, or Remote within the UK

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. As we revolutionize the way people manage their expenses, being part of the Expensify team means building the easiest, fastest, and most efficient platform to automate everything expense-related. – Remote, New York City NY, Portland OR, Ironwood MI, San Francisco CA, London UK, or Melbourne Australia

Senior iOS Engineer @ img.ly – We are that groundbreaking technology provider whose work you came across without knowing it. Bet? It's on! You will be working with us on our flagship products PhotoEditor SDK and VideoEditor SDK, empowering developers at 500+ startups, government & Fortune 500 businesses. You decide where you work best: we tackle the creative world entirely remotely while keeping our team strong and connected. – Remote

Next week would be a great week to get your company's open positions listed on iOS Dev Jobs. Why? There's something new coming next week that might send a few new people to the site, and to see your company's jobs.

Can’t innovate anymore, my a… Errr… well. 😂🛸