Tag: Accessibility

This week is quite short in US. So, good reads come early this time.

• How to migrate to a new schema with SwiftData in iOS by Natascha Fadeeva is a good start for those who want to adopt new persistence framework;
  
  
• Small development perspective on Assistive Access by Jordan Morgan – Checking Out Assistive Access;
  
  
• Optimizing paywall placement: The key to unlocking more app subscribers by Peter Meinertzhagen goes through monetization approach for mobile apps;
  
  
• Keith Harrison explores SwiftUI Split View implementations – SwiftUI SplitView Compact Column Control;
  
  
• Mark Szymczyk covers Core Data code generation issues and how to deal with some of those – Dealing with Core Data Duplicate Class Errors;
  
  
• Scoped animations in SwiftUI by Majid Jabrayilov covers animation techniques in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee goes through testing techniques for modern Swift concurrency – Unit testing async/await Swift code;
  
  
• How to Generate a Useful Xcode Gitignore to Avoid Noise in Git by Jon Reid will help to make better project handling with git;
  
  
• Using Observation framework outside of SwiftUI by Natalia Panferova explains use of new observation macros;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese goes through algorithms in Conquering the Climbing Stairs Challenge with Swift: A Dynamic Programming Approach.

And with this, we're wrapping up. See you next week for another pack of good reads!

It's Friday. Actually it is rainy Friday here in Bay Area, so it's a perfect weather to read through some of great reads for developers.

• Natascha Fadeeva guides on how to adopt new localization workflow – How to migrate from Localizable.strings to String Catalogs;
  
  
• If you like to try working in other text editors – The complete guide to iOS & macOS development in Neovim by Wojciech Kulik will be just for you;
  
  
• Another great take by Natascha Fadeeva, this time on subscriptions – How to implemet a free trial period for StoreKit 2 subscriptions in iOS;
  
  
• David Smith experiments with watchOS designs – Matching the Modular Ultra watch face with SF Font Alternatives;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee will help you debug your SwiftUI app – Debugging SwiftUI views: what caused that change?
  
  
• TDD in a SwiftUI World: Let’s Begin! by Jon Reid is a great start into TDD approach;
  
  
• Matteo Altobello continues series on accessibility – Preparing your App for Voice Over: Accessibility Value;
  
  
• Unit Test Expected Failures in Swift by Leonardo Maia Pugliese covers aspect of testing errors that are expected;
  
  
• Emanuele Agosta covers spatial computing concepts in Understanding spatial awareness: immersive experiences;
  
  
• Tiago Gomes Pereira guides through new transitions for numeric values in SwiftUI – Animating numeric text in SwiftUI with the Content Transition modifier.

And this is it for today. We'll be back with new articles next week (probably, a little bit earlier due to Thanksgiving).

Weekend good reads is here with another pack of interesting articles to go over this weekend.

• Natalia Panferova covers SwiftUI hierarchical colors support for backgrounds in iOS 17 – Hierarchical background styles in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Structural type system in Swift is explored by Alex Ozun – Greater type safety with Structural Typing in Swift;
  
  
• Custom Traits and SwiftUI by Keith Harrison is about updates to traits system in iOS 17 and its use in SwiftUI and UIKit;
  
  
• David Smith shares nice approach to make smooth animations for analog clocks – Calculating a Smooth Clock Hands Animation;
  
  
• Visual effects in SwiftUI by Majid Jabrayilov is all about applying transformations to views in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Pasquale Vittorosi provides hints on how to better support VoiceOver in your app – Preparing your App for VoiceOver: customizing the Sort Priority;
  
  
• Domenico De Luca continues topic of accessibility focusing on visual elements – Ensure Visual Accessibility: Glyphs, Icons and Shapes;
  
  
• Adding custom gestures to an AR application with SwiftUI by Matteo Altobello covers augmented reality gestures in SwiftUI.

And that is it for this week. See you next time!

It's almost halloween here, but our regular list of great reads is not spooky at all!

• Quentin Zervaas goes through Focus Filters API to allow all to respond to user's current needs – Showing Relevant Data Using Focus Filters;
  
  
• Introduction to bash scripting for iOS developers by Natascha Fadeeva will make you better shell users;
  
  
• Natalia Panferova navigates through logging changes in Xcode 15 – Filtering logs in Xcode 15;
  
  
• Improving app settings management is covered in User Defaults reading and writing in Swift by Antoine van der Lee;
  
  
• Generating Random Numbers Elegantly in Swift by Jordan Morgan explores random generators in Swift;
  
  
• Pasquale Vittorosi goes through VoiceOver and other accessibility traits in Preparing your App for VoiceOver: use Accessibility Label;
  
  
• Domenico De Luca continues accessibility topic with Ensure Visual Accessibility: supporting the Large Content Viewer;
  
  
• Swift metatypes are not that hard to understand – Leonardo Maia Pugliese covers those in Swift Metatypes: What They Are and Why You Should Care;
  
  
• Holidays are coming soon, learn how to handle special pricing – How to run a holiday sale in App Store Connect for iOS subscription apps by Charlie Chapman;
  
  
• David Smith explains his design decisions in Design Evolution: Offline Map Downloader, and also great new series on visionOS – Introducing visionOS Fridays;
  
  
• Using the ARKit coaching view in a SwiftUI AR application by Matteo Altobello helps navigating users through AR apps.

Wrapping up for this weekend and see you next time in November!

Apple releases next major release of macOS – Sonoma.

macOS Sonoma brings all‑new capabilities that elevate your productivity and creativity. Discover even more ways to personalize your Mac with stunning screensavers and widgets that you can add to your desktop. Elevate your presence on video calls with a new way to present your work that keeps you a part of the presentation. Safari profiles and web apps help you organize your browsing in all-new ways. Game Mode boosts your gaming performance. Sonoma also brings big updates to Messages, Keyboard, and Accessibility. And when you upgrade, you get the latest security and privacy protections available for Mac.

Screen Savers

• Stunning screen savers of locations from around the world seamlessly become your desktop wallpaper when you log-in
• Shuffle settings for rotating through screensavers by theme including Landscape, Cityscape, Underwater, and Earth

Widgets

• Widgets can be placed anywhere on the desktop and adapt to the color of your wallpaper while working in apps
• iPhone widgets can be added to your Mac when your iPhone is nearby or on the same Wi-Fi network
• Interactive widgets let you take actions directly from the widget such as running a shortcut, pausing media, and more

Video Conferencing

• Presenter Overlay keeps you front and center while sharing your screen in FaceTime or third-party video conferencing apps (Mac with Apple silicon)
• Reactions layer 3D effects like hearts, balloons, confetti, and more around you in video calls and can be triggered with gestures (Mac with Apple silicon, Continuity Camera with iPhone 12 and later)

Safari and Passwords

• Profiles keep your browsing separate for topics like work and personal, separating your history, cookies, extensions, Tab Groups, and favorites
• Web apps let you use any website like an app, complete with an icon in the Dock for faster access and a simplified toolbar for easier browsing
• Enhanced Private Browsing locks your private browsing windows when you're not using them, blocks known trackers from loading, and removes tracking that identifies you from URLs
• Password and passkey sharing allows you to easily share accounts with trusted contacts

Messages

• Live Stickers sync from iOS and iPadOS to macOS, giving you access to the Live Stickers you create on your iPhone and iPad
• Search filters for people, keywords, and content types like photos or links help you more easily find what you are looking for
• Swipe to reply inline on any iMessage bubble

Gaming

Game Mode gives games the highest priority on the CPU and GPU, delivering more consistent frame rates and lower latency to wireless controllers and AirPods (Mac with Apple silicon)

Keyboard

• Improved autocorrect accuracy makes typing even easier by leveraging a more powerful transformer-based language model
• Inline predictive text shows single- and multi-word predictions that you can add by pressing the Space bar
• Improved Dictation experience supports using your voice and keyboard together to enter and edit text

AirPods

• Adaptive Audio delivers a new listening mode that dynamically blends Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency to tailor the noise control experience based on the conditions of your environment (AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with the latest firmware)
• Personalized Volume adjusts the volume of your media in response to your environment and listening preferences over time (AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with the latest firmware)
• Conversation Awareness lowers your media volume and enhances the voices of the people in front of the user, all while reducing background noise (AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with the latest firmware)
• Press to mute and unmute your microphone by pressing the AirPods stem or the Digital Crown on AirPods Max when on a call (AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation), or AirPods Max with the latest firmware)
• Improved AirPods automatic switching now detects Mac up to 2X faster (AirPods (2nd and 3rd generation), AirPods Pro (1st and 2nd generation), AirPods Max with the latest firmware)

Privacy

• Sensitive Content Warnings can be enabled to help prevent users from unexpectedly viewing sensitive images in Messages
• Expanded Communication Safety protections for children now detect videos containing nudity in addition to photos shared through Messages and the system Photos picker
• Improved sharing permissions let you choose which photos to share and add calendar events without providing access to your entire photo library or calendar

Accessibility

• Live Speech lets you type what you want to say and reads it aloud in FaceTime calls or in-person conversations
• Personal Voice helps users at risk of speech loss create a voice that sounds like them in a private and secure way using on-device machine learning
• Made for iPhone compatible hearing devices can be paired and used with Mac (MacBook Pro (2021), Mac Studio (2022), and Mac computers with M2 chip)

This release also includes other features and improvements:

• One-Time verification code AutoFill from Mail helps you quickly sign into sites in Safari, without leaving the browser
• Inline PDFs and document scans in Notes are presented full-width making them easy to view
• Grocery Lists in Reminders automatically group related items into sections as you add them
• Visual Look Up for recipes helps you find similar dishes from photo
• Visual Look Up in video helps you learn about objects that appear in paused video frames
• Pets in the People album in Photos surfaces individual pets just like friends or family members
• Option to say "Siri" in addition to "Hey Siri" for a more natural way to activate Siri (Mac with Apple silicon, AirPods Pro (2nd generation))
• High performance mode in Screen Sharing supports color workflows and improves responsiveness while remotely accessing a Mac (Mac with Apple silicon)
• Item sharing in Find My allows you to share an AirTag with up to five other people
• Activity History in Home displays a recent history of events for door locks, garage doors, security systems, and contact sensors
• Battery health management updated on 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip to better optimize long term battery health

Some features may not be available for all regions or on all Apple devices.

macOS Sonoma also includes several important security fixes.

Apple Newsroom: macOS Sonoma is available today

Release notes: macOS Sonoma 14 Release Notes

References:

• Apple Releases macOS Sonoma With New Widget Features, Safari Updates, Screen Sharing Improvements and More
• macOS Sonoma: The MacStories Review
• macOS Sonoma Optimizes Latest 13-Inch MacBook Air's Battery Health
• Apple releases macOS Sonoma with interactive desktop widgets, Game Mode, new wallpapers, much more
• macOS 14 Sonoma
• macOS Sonoma includes these 61 security fixes
• macOS Sonoma Features You Should Check Out First
• Apple Explains How Game Mode Works in macOS Sonoma

iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro are arriving to first customers. Hopefully, you've got the model you wanted and now you have some time to go through interesting reads.

• Michael Tsai got list of all interesting changes in Swift 5.9;
  
  
• How to intercept and edit a server response with Proxyman for iOS by Natascha Fadeeva is nice overview of network traffic debugging techniques;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese goes through keyboard support in iOS – Discovering All SwiftUI TextField Keyboard Types;
  
  
• With new iPhones being delivered iPhone 15 Screen Sizes by Keith Harrison will help you build pixel-perfect graphics for your apps;
  
  
• WeatherKit Tutorial: Getting Started by Saleh Albuga will guide you through Apple's framework for weather data access;
  
  
• David Smith explores interactive widgets in Widgetsmith 5: Interactive Widgets for iOS 17;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov covers actors in Thread safety in Swift with actors;
  
  
• App Intent driven development in Swift and SwiftUI by Antoine van der Lee goes through new framework triggering integrations with Siri, Shortcuts and other system features;
  
  
• Jon Reid covers interesting aspects of code refactoring in See the Magic of Iterative Refactoring: A Swift Case Study;
  
  
• DocC: Project documentation structure by Marin Todorov (who also worked on DocC) guides through documentation structure;
  
  
• Domenico De Luca explains adoption of Dynamic Type in Supporting Dynamic Type and Larger Text in your app to enhance Accessibility.

And this is it for today. Have some fun over the weekend (especially if you got your new iPhone) and get back next Friday for another pack of great reads!

Okay, I get it, it's weekend before the show. But why would you drop your routine? Let's go through some great technical and one fun article.

• Let's follow the hype with some ChatGPT related topics from Michal Tynior – Pitfalls of the ChatGPT and Fine-tuning OpenAI models;
  
  
• Natascha Fadeeva provides review of CI/CD concept – Continuous integration and delivery for iOS;
  
  
• Network Path Monitoring by Keith Harrison provides modern way to monitor network availability;
  
  
• Marco Eidinger shares interesting hints on debugger usage – Skip code during debugging in Xcode;
  
  
• Mastering Swift Foundation Formatter API. Basics by Majid Jabrayilov refreshes knowledge on data formatting in Swift;
  
  
• Point-Free Pointers provide guidance on navigation in Composable Architecture – Navigation tools come to the Composable Architecture;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee explores code sharing between server and client code in Swift – Share Swift Code between Swift On Server Vapor and Client App;
  
  
• SwiftUI: Trailing label TextField by Magnus Jensen is great example of making nice task-focused UI control;
  
  
• Natalia Panferova gives hints using compositing groups in SwiftUI – Using compositing group for unifying shapes within buttons in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Tiago Gomes Pereira gives great overview of accessibility in SwiftUI – Preparing your App for Voice Over: Labels, Values and Hints;
  
  
• Amazing post on sophisticated debugging techniques by Bruno Rocha – Performance Trace Profiles in iOS: Debugging performance issues you can't reproduce.

And, as promised, fun one – refresh your Apple history knowledge with WWDC 2023: The Pregame Quiz by Jordan Morgan.

Get ready for WWDC23 – next week will be definitely packed with new stuff we'll be learning the whole summer!

Apple is celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day by announcing new accessibility features coming to its platforms later this year.

Assistive Access

Assistive Access is designed to help people with cognitive disabilities by simplifying app's interface to its essential features and removing cognitive load. This feature targets iPhone and iPad specifically.

It is not fully clear, if applications will be able to detect presence of Assistive Access mode and adjust their interface, however, at this point it seems to be reasonable to have similar option for complicated apps.

Live Speech and Personal Voice

Live Speech provides an option for people to type the text to have it spoken out loud during phone calls or live conversations. Frequently used phrases could be saved for quick access.

Users who are at risk of loosing their ability to speak could create Personalized Voice by reading phrases for 15 minutes. This voice could be used to read phrases via Live Speech.

Detection Mode in Magnifier

Magnifier now supports pointing to objects with finger to announce the object. Demo shows button text announcement on microwave oven. This feature significantly improves magnifier app for visually impaired people.

Several other features are added across Apple platforms that improve overall accessibility.

Apple Newsroom: Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice, and more new accessibility features

AppleVis published their annual Apple Vision Accessibility report.

Overall, platforms perform well on the report, however, macOS noticeably gets lower scores for VoiceOver and other accessibility features.

AppleVis: Apple Vision Accessibility: the AppleVis Report Card

Reference: 2022 Apple Vision Accessibility Report Card

Spring is coming, and we're continuing our tradition of weekend reads. Let's see what we've got for this week.

• Matej Bukovinski goes through SDK development with Swift – Swift's Approach to SPI;
  
  
• Couple of great articles from David Smith – some trigonometry in Learning from my Mistakes, review of apps and tools for developers – Indispensable Tools and approach to accessibility – Accessibility: Try, then Listen;
  
  
• Automate debugging SwiftUI and UIKit with dataTile by Marin Todorov explains view debugging techniques with new dataTile tool;
  
  
• Sarun W. covers new approach to manage subscriptions – Allow users to manage In-App Subscription in SwiftUI;
  
  
• New passkeys are explained in Developer guide on passkeys for iOS by Natascha Fadeeva;
  
  
• John Sundell helps to distinguish views and view modifiers in SwiftUI – SwiftUI views versus modifiers;
  
  
• Interestingly, similar topic is covered in View Composition using ViewModifiers in SwiftUI by Antoine van der Lee;
  
  
• Improve code documentation with The visual reference guide for documenting your Swift code by Marco Eidinger;
  
  
• Good hint on error pattern matching by Ole Begemann – Pattern matching on error codes;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues series on charts in SwiftUI with accessibility – Mastering charts in SwiftUI. Accessibility.;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng dives into configurable widgets in How to Create Configurable Widgets With Dynamic Options?;
  
  
• Setting Up Different Environments in SwiftUI: Command Line Arguments and Build Configurations by Leonardo Maia Pugliese explains work with various build and execution options in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Michael Tsai comments on new way to wire outlets – NSViewController.ViewLoading.

And that is it for today. Have some rest and get back next week.