Tag: AI

Apple reports fiscal results for Q4 2023. Services revenue are reaching all-time high and iPhone sales are up 3% year-over-year.

However, Mac sales are down 34% year-over-year. Apple expects Mac sales to catch up in holiday season.

Tim Cook highlighted that Apple makes investments in generative AI tools. Also, he describes Apple Vision Pro purchase process as something which will have better experience with visit to Apple Store (while it will be available online).

Apple Newsroom: Apple reports fourth quarter results

References:

• Apple announces Q4 2023 earnings, beating expectations with $89.5 billion revenue
• Apple Reports 4Q 2023 Results: $23B Profit on $89.5B Revenue
• Apple Q4 2023 financial results and charts
• Apple Reports Quarterly Revenue of $89.5 Billion for Q4 2023
• Apple CEO Tim Cook on Generative AI: 'We're Investing Quite a Bit'
• Apple expects iPad revenue to decrease next quarter as no new products were launched in 2023
• Apple's Q4 2023 Earnings Call Takeaways
• Tim Cook again says Apple is working on generative AI ‘responsibly’

Bitwarden shared a report on developer practices in relation to security.

Notable findings include:

• Around 25% of developers pass sensitive information into AI tools, which includes passwords, financial details, customer information, IP, even SSNs;
• And yet, more than 90% of developers pass annual security trainings;
• Passkeys are widely praised by developers, 68% already use passkeys.

Report shows that generative AI tools are getting much more attention from developers; developers also understand potential security threats of using AI.

Passkeys use could decrease password leakage probability, and development community overall starts gradually adopt this technology.

Bitwarden: Decoding tomorrow: Developer secrets, security and the future of passkeys

Reference: Bitwarden releases new developer survey on generative AI, passkeys, and more

Performance oriented Python-like language is now available on Mac platform. Primary use case for Mojo is ML/AI developments, but it could be used as a substitute for Python in other areas too.

Toolchain could be installed using Homebrew.

Modular Blog: Mojo🔥 is now available on Mac

GitHub: mojo

References:

• Swift creator brings new AI programming language to the Mac
• Mojo for Mac

We're gearing towards the end of the year. Here is 41st installment of Good Reads in 2023. Let's see what we've got for this week.

• Monitoring App Usage using the Screen Time Framework by Quentin Zervaas explains use of Apple's lightweight MDM framework;
  
  
• Natascha Fadeeva explains purchase restoration with StoreKit 2 – How to restore in-app purchases with StoreKit 2 for iOS;
  
  
• Using new preview mechanism in UIKit is covered in Replacing IBDesignable with Xcode Previews by Keith Harrison;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov covers haptic feedback APIs in SwiftUI – Sensory feedback in SwiftUI;
  
  
• @preconcurrency: Incremental migration to concurrency checking by Antoine van der Lee is a great guide for gradual adoption of modern Swift concurrency;
  
  
• Tiago Gomes Pereira goes through location tracking with Swift – Updating the User’s Location with Core Location and Swift Concurrency in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Designing for spatial computing: from iOS and iPadOS to visionOS by Emanuele Agosta is a deep dive on spatial computing design;
  
  
• ChatGPT is still a hot topic, here is a take on use of AI in development by Mina H. Gerges – The Do’s and Don’ts of Using AI in Software Development;
  
  
• Peter Meinertzhagen goes through ways of monetizing subscription apps – 9 PR ideas to promote your subscription app;
  
  
• Quinn “The Eskimo!” shares tips on working with Developer ID – The Care and Feeding of Developer ID.

And now, we could get some rest over the weekend. Get back next time – we'll have something interesting. As always :)

Small list for this weekend, so – more time to unwind. Let's go.

• Keith Harrison explores SwiftData fetch options – SwiftData Fetching An Existing Object;
  
  
• Learn how to utilize the Scan and Reduce operators in SwiftUI with Combine by Leonardo Maia Pugliese covers differences between scan and reduce in Combine;
  
  
• Natascha Fadeeva explains how observation works with new @Observable macro – How to manually subscribe to changes of SwiftUI's @Observable objects;
  
  
• Apple recently announced that developers will need to declare reasons to use some of the APIs – How to check if you use a required reason API by Marco Eidinger will help you to prepare for this;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee helps you to prepare to migrate to Swift 6 – Swift 6: Preparing your Xcode projects for the future;
  
  
• The Future is Now: Integrating AI in Software Development  by Beau Nouvelle explores capabilities that AI could bring to your apps;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues his saga on StoreKit 2 – Mastering StoreKit 2. SubscriptionStoreView in SwiftUI;
  
  
• And another hot take on subscriptions by Charlie Chapman – How to use StoreKit views to build a subscription app paywall with SwiftUI;
  
  
• Peter Meinertzhagen talks about good onboarding experiences – Why your onboarding experience might be too short;
  
  
• Invisible Details of Interaction Design by Rauno Freiberg goes through big and small details of interactions in Apple platforms.

That is it for today. Have a great weekend and come 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!

Setapp conducted Mac Developer Survey recently and now shares the results.

Notable findings are reported by 9To5Mac:

• 60% of the surveyed Mac developers are interested in distributing their iOS apps through third-party app stores, given the opportunity. Key motivations — growing the number of users and adding a revenue stream.
• Almost 1⁄3 of the surveyed Mac developers distribute their apps solely outside the Mac App Store.
• 39% of respondents have already implemented ChatGPT in their development flow, while another 41% are working on that.
• 44% of respondents have already implemented AI/ML models in their apps, and 28% are working on it.
• 87% of developers put effort into making their apps accessible, with visual impairments getting the most focus.
• 75% of the surveyed Mac developers have felt the impact of the economic downturn on their businesses.

Setapp: Mac Developer Survey 2023

Reference: Setapp Dev Survey results: Third-party iOS app store interest measured, ChatGPT adoption, more

One week closer to WWDC (we're even considering taking a break for good reads on WWDC week). But we still have more than a month for weekends filled with great articles.

• Let's start with nice recap on Swift 5.8 by Sarun W. – What's New in Swift 5.8;
  
  
• And also another one for those who has to use Rosetta during development – How to Open using Rosetta in Xcode 14.3;
  
  
• Natascha Fadeeva guides on QR code scanning with VisionKit – How to scan QR codes with VisionKit for iOS;
  
  
• Homage to Objective-C approach to Bool type – Converting A Swift String To A Bool by Keith Harrison;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov covers Canvas drawing in SwiftUI – Mastering Canvas in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Auto-updating macOS apps without App Store via Sparkle is explained in Sparkle by Sarah Reichelt;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng deals with sensitive information in widgets – How to Create Custom Redacted Effects on Widgets?;
  
  
• Unit testing async/await Swift code by Antoine van der Lee covers important aspects of unit testing in structured concurrency world;
  
  
• Coincidentally Donny Wals provides good review on Tasks in Swift – Understanding unstructured and detached tasks in Swift;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese covers one of the important aspects of maintainable code – Cyclomatic Complexity in Swift: Understanding How it Affect Your Code Quality;
  
  
• Okay, Copilot is now works in Xcode – Christian Tietze proves in in Copilot for Xcode Works Okay.

And finishing with great book available for free – Make Something Wonderful – Steve Jobs in his own words (also available in Apple Books). Book provides new perspective to Steve Jobs and is very inspirational.

See you next week!

Apple requires BlueMail app developers to set its rating to 17+ due to use of generative AI models which potentially could provide responses not suitable for children.

This rule could be then extended to all apps working with generative models, especially GPT models which are getting traction recently.

References:

• Apple Seemingly Restricting Generative AI Apps to 17+ or Older App Store Rating
• Apple blocked ChatGPT-powered email app BlueMail; requires 17+ age restriction
• Apple Blocks Update of ChatGPT-Powered App, as Concerns Grow Over AI’s Potential Harm

Weekend is here, and so are good reads for Apple developers. Let's go!

• Keith Harrison shares great productivity tips on multi-cursor editing in Xcode – Xcode Multi-Cursor Editing;
  
  
• Article by Marco Eidinger explains some aspects of string case – Transforming the Case of Strings in Swift;
  
  
• Automate your CI/CD pipelines with fastlane – Quick guide on fastlane for iOS development by Natascha Fadeeva;
  
  
• Using User Defaults to store preferences in Swift by Antoine van der Lee goes into one of the persistence option in Swift;
  
  
• Okay, ChatGPT is everywhere, let's build an app for that – Creating a SwiftUI App to interact with the OpenAI ChatGPT API by Moritz Philip Recke;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng covers widget configuration – How to Create Configurable Widgets With Static Options?;
  
  
• And Krzysztof Zabłocki continues his series on widgets too – Widget Architecture - Part 3;
  
  
• Swift Regex Tutorial: Getting Started by Ehab Yosry Amer goes through modern approach to regular expressions in Swift;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues his series on charts – Mastering charts in SwiftUI. Customizations.;
  
  
• DocC is getting more attention lately – How we migrated our SDK docs to DocC at RevenueCat by RevenueCat provides interesting insights on actual migration to it;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese covers animations in SwiftUI – The Art of Sequential Animations in SwiftUI: Tips, Tricks, and Examples;
  
  
• Styling in SwiftUI is covered in Composable Styles in SwiftUI by Kasper Lahti;
  
  
• One important hint by Christian Tietze if you're dealing with files in your apps – PSA: FileManager.trashItem (Maybe) Uses NSFileCoordinator Under the Hood Automatically, So You Shouldn't to Prevent Deadlocks;
  
  
• Reading keyboard modifiers on iPad in SwiftUI by Natalia Panferova helps to make your iPad app more keyboard-friendly.

And that is it for today. See you next week with another pack of great articles!