Tag: WidgetKit

Apple started its annual developer conference with Keynote and Platform State of the Union. First day of WWDC is packed with announcements.

Mac hardware

Apple unveils MacBook Air 15" with M2, and M2 Ultra powered Mac Studio and Mac Pro. The new ‌MacBook Air‌ starts at $1,299. Prices for the second generation Mac Studio start at $1,999. Mac Pro starts at $6999.

MacBook Air 13" with M2 chip is now starting at $999.

iOS / iPadOS 17

iOS 17 gets new features focusing on communications and sharing. Contacts app is revamped with emphasis on photos and typography. Standby view is added for iPhone.

iPadOS has more customization for Lock Screen. Widgets now could be interacted with.

Also, AirDrop now has new experience when users hold their phones close to each other.

macOS 14 Sonoma

macOS 14 Sonoma now has "Game Mode" which improves performance for games, minimizes delays. macOS also gets interactive widgets that could be placed everywhere.

Safari gets a lot of privacy and security improvements. Improved support for web apps is announced.

watchOS 10

watchOS 10 brings support for widgets. New design language is introduced.

tvOS 17

tvOS 17 gets support for Continuity Camera hinting on new tvOS-powered devices with camera hardware.

Vision Pro and visionOS

Apple unveils Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Price is starting with $3,499, US sales are expected to start early next year. Other countries to follow later.

Device has 12 cameras, 6 microphone and many other sensors. Also, device has external display that could show user’s eyes (feature is called EyeSight). During FaceTime calls device will show face by using trained ML model and device cameras.

Vision Pro will be able to run iOS and iPadOS apps in windowed mode. Also, headset supports direct 3D experiences built using RealityKit, ARKit. Unity is also supported as development framework.

Windowed apps could be powered by SwiftUI which is updated to better support depth.

Apple to host labs in multiple cities for developers to try their apps on real device before public launch. Simulator is available as a part of development tools.

visionOS SDK is to be available later this month.

Agreements update

The App Store Review Guidelines, the Apple Developer Program License Agreement, and the Apple Developer Agreement have been updated to support updated policies and upcoming features, and to provide clarification. Please review the changes below and accept the updated terms as needed.

App Store Review Guidelines

• Added to 2.5.18: “Apps that contain ads must also include the ability for users to report any inappropriate or age-inappropriate ads.”
• Revised bullet point 11 of 3.1.2(a): “Cellular carrier apps may include auto-renewing music and video subscriptions when purchased in bundles with new cellular data plans, with prior approval by Apple. Other auto-renewing subscriptions may also be included in bundles when purchased with new cellular data plans, with prior approval by Apple, if the cellular carrier apps support in-app purchase for users. Such subscriptions cannot include access to or discounts on consumable items, and the subscriptions must terminate coincident with the cellular data plan.”
• Added to 4.1: “Submitting apps which impersonate other apps or services is considered a violation of the Developer Code of Conduct and may result in removal from the Apple Developer Program.”
• Revised 4.4: “Apps hosting or containing extensions must comply with the App Extension Programming Guide, the Safari App Extensions Guide, or the Safari Web Extensions documentation and should include some functionality, such as help screens and settings interfaces where possible.”
• Revised 4.4.2: “Safari extensions must run on the current version of Safari on the relevant Apple operating system.”

Developer Program License Agreement

• Purpose; Definitions; Sections 2.6, 3.2, 3.3.4, 3.3.38, 3.3.63, 5.1, 6.3, 6.6, 7, 7.3, 7.5, 7.6, 14.2; Attachment 7: Specified requirements and functionality for apps on visionOS.
• Definitions: Updated requirements for Corresponding Products.
• Definitions; Section 3.1: Specified requirements for universities and their Authorized Student Developers.
• Definitions; Section 3.3.62: Specified requirements for use of the Tap to Present ID API.
• Definitions; Sections 3.3.40, 3.3.64, 5.1, 10; Attachment 10: Specified requirements for use of mobile device management (MDM).
• Definitions; Section 3.3.65: Specified requirements for use of the iWork Document Exporting API.
• Definitions; Section 3.3.67: Specified requirements for use of the Sensitive Content Analysis Framework.
• Definitions; Attachment 3: Updated requirements for development of Passes.
• Section 3.3.9: Added requirements for use of third-party SDKs and certain APIs, clarified restrictions on use of data derived from a device.
• Section 3.3.42: Added requirements for use of certain Apple Pay APIs.
• Section 3.3.63: Specified requirements for providing a partially immersive experience in an app.
• Section 3.3.66: Specified requirements for the use of the Shallow Depth and Pressure feature.
• Section 6.7: Added information on App Analytics.
• Attachment 2: Clarified requirements for use of the In-App Purchase API.

Apple Developer Agreement

• Sections 4, 6: Updated requirements for access to and use of pre-release materials.

Beta download: Operating Systems

Apple Developer:

• WWDC23 schedule and lab requests now available Systems
• Xcode 15 beta now available
• What’s new in privacy on the App Store
• Updated agreements and guidelines now available
• WWDC23 Overview
• Updated agreements and guidelines now available
• Introducing Apple Vision Pro and visionOS
• Spotlight on developing for visionOS

Apple Newsroom:

• Apple introduces the 15-inch MacBook Air
• Apple introduces M2 Ultra
• Apple unveils new Mac Studio and brings Apple silicon to Mac Pro
• AirPods redefine the personal audio experience
• Apple announces powerful new privacy and security features
• iOS 17 makes iPhone more personal and intuitive
• iPadOS 17 brings new levels of personalization and versatility to iPad
• Apple provides powerful insights into new areas of health
• macOS Sonoma brings new capabilities for elevating productivity and creativity
• Introducing watchOS 10, a milestone update for Apple Watch
• tvOS 17 brings FaceTime and video conferencing to Apple TV 4K
• Introducing Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer

References:

• Apple announces new Mac Pro powered by M2 Ultra: PCI expansion, $6999 starting price
• Apple Announces New 'NameDrop' Contact Sharing Feature Coming in iOS 17
• Apple announces macOS Sonoma with aerial screensavers, Game Mode, and more
• Apple Announces macOS Sonoma With Desktop Widgets and More
• Apple Announces watchOS 10 With Widgets, Redesigned Apps, and More
• Apple Announces New Intelligent AirPlay Features With Hotel Room Support
• This is Apple Vision Pro, the mixed reality headset for spatial computing
• Apple Reveals 'Vision Pro' Headset and visionOS

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!

Lucky episode of good reads today! And we've got a lot to cover on last day of March.

• Marcel Voss explains how to deal with new Swift features conditionally – Enabling Upcoming Swift Language Features;
  
  
• And good tip on source code checks for Swift features – SDK conditional code with canImport(module, _version: "1.2.3.4") by Marco Eidinger;
  
  
• How the relative size modifier interacts with stack views by Ole Begemann continues topic of complex layouts in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Keith Harrison explains sort options on SwiftUI tables – Custom Sort Comparators;
  
  
• How to change JSON keys by using Swift's CodingKey protocol by Natascha Fadeeva is covering Codable customizations;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov goes into details on new approaches of sharing content in SwiftUI – Sharing content in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Morphology in Swift by Jordan Morgan goes deep into Swift number localization techniques;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng continues his series on Widgets – How to Hide Sensitive Widget Data When Device Is Locked?;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee explains location debugging practices in simulator – Location Simulation in Xcode’s Simulator;
  
  
• How to fix "You are not authorized to make purchases of this InApp in Sandbox at this time" error by Sarun W. helps to fix development issues with in-app purchases;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese provides extensive guide on persistence solutions for iOS apps – SQLite vs Core Data in iOS Development: Which One Should You Choose?

We're finishing with video by David Smith on design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqb-lINegqc

With this – have a great weekend and see you in April!

It's middle of March, summer is closer and closer. We've got eleventh pack of great articles for this year.

• Developer guide on machine learning for iOS with Core ML by Natascha Fadeeva gives great start on how to add machine learning capabilities to your app;
  
  
• Interesting trick by Magnus Jensen – Blendmode trick: SwiftUI reverse mask;
  
  
• Keith Harrison continues his series of articles on various SwiftUI elements – Context Menus for Tables;
  
  
• Keep your CoreData store small by vacuuming by Marco Eidinger shows usually unseen side of keeping data in local database;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng talks about making widgets interactive – How to Handle Tap Gestures on Widgets?;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov shows how to use XCTest framework to do performance testing – Performance testing in Swift using the XCTest framework;
  
  
• SwiftUI Toolbar: Everything You Need to Know by Leonardo Maia Pugliese is a great guide on toolbars from SwiftUI perspective;
  
  
• Peter Meinertzhagen discusses importance of localization in the apps – Why localization has been so important for kids app, Pok Pok;
  
  
• Donny Wals goes through structured concurrency in Swift – The basics of structured concurrency in Swift explained.

And that is it for today. Have a great spring weekend!

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.

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!

It's already February... Well, we still have couple of interesting reads for you.

• Setup a 3D Chessboard With SwiftUI and RealityKit by Mark Lucking – nice intro into AR apps in modern era;
  
  
• Andrew Barba shares guide on Vercel, new solution allowing deployment of server-side Swift apps – Deploy server side Swift applications on Vercel;
  
  
• How to import Objective-C types as optionals or non-optionals into Swift by Natascha Fadeeva reminds developers on how to improve interoperability between Swift and Objective-C;
  
  
• Automatically run Swift code when your framework gets initialized by Marco Eidinger also finds good use of Objective-C in modern projects;
  
  
• John Sundell explains how to use scrollable views in SwiftUI – Observing the content offset of a SwiftUI ScrollView;
  
  
• Kasper Lahti covers styling in SwiftUI – Styling Components in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Xcode Simulator Directories Exploration by Antoine van der Lee is a great guide on iOS Simulator directory structure;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng provides hints on keeping widgets up to date – How to Fetch and Show Remote Data on a Widget?;
  
  
• Mastering Error Handling in SwiftUI: A Guide to Presenting Errors by Leonardo Maia Pugliese guides developers on ways to respond to errors in SwiftUI application;
  
  
• Did you ever wanted to print incoming JSON in nice formatted way – Jordan Morgan got you covered in Converting Data into a Formatted JSON Swift String;
  
  
• David Smith continues his design notes diary series – Reasons for a Staycation Greycation and DND 21: Byte Compression for Watch Connectivity;
  
  
• Peter Meinertzhagen provides great hints on monetization – What’s the Best Way to Monetize Kids Apps?;
  
  
• We all get and give feedbacks, good article on how to make those better – How to Write Impactful Peer Feedback by Michael Katz.

And, in case you missed it – couple of books are available for free, maybe you'll find something useful there. See you next week!

Tough week for IT engineers, but let's try to spend weekend improving our technical skills. There are many articles to go through today, so choose wisely.

• David Smith continues his design-related series: DND 16: Building Custom Controls and DND 17: Kind, Friendly Designs;
  
  
• You can make files of your app visible in system Files app – Make your app's files user-visible on the iPhone by Marco Eidinger covers exactly this topic;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee explains working with task groups in Swift – Task Groups in Swift explained with code examples;
  
  
• The Difference between Entity and Value Object, and How They Relate to Swift's Identifiable and Equatable Protocols by Christian Tietze explains value and reference types and their differences;
  
  
• Point-Free Pointers share their view on SwiftUI development – Modern SwiftUI;
  
  
• Couple of articles dedicated to animations start with Understanding basic animations in SwiftUI by Natascha Fadeeva;
  
  
• Then How to create Sound Wave Animation with TimelineView and Canvas in SwiftUI by Leonardo Maia Pugliese;
  
  
• Good tip on UIKit interoperability by Sarun W. – How to use SwiftUI as UIViewController in Storyboard;
  
  
• Majid Jabrayilov continues his series on Charts in SwiftUI – Mastering charts in SwiftUI. Mark styling.;
  
  
• SwiftUI Toolbar Title Menus by Keith Harrison explains how to make navigation title interactive in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Lee Kah Seng guides on how to refresh widgets – How to Update or Refresh a Widget?;
  
  
• And the last piece for today – great reverse engineering article by Alin Panaitiu – Reverse engineering the MacBook clamshell mode.

That is it for today. Have a great weekend and come back next Friday for another pack of great reads!

2023 is here! And it's time for next edition of good reads. There is a bunch of interesting articles this time.

• Let's start with article by Peter Friese on SwiftUI previews – Previewing Stateful SwiftUI Views;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee shares his approach on being better engineer – Engineering goals: How to become a more successful developer;
  
  
• If you plan to find new job – Preparing for a technical iOS job interview with questions and answers by Natascha Fadeeva might help you get prepared;
  
  
• How to Support Multiple Widgets When Using WidgetKit? by Lee Kah Seng continues topic of WidgetKit exploration;
  
  
• Working with keyboard in SwiftUI sometimes needs some tricks – How to disable custom keyboards in iOS SwiftUI-based applications by Marco Eidinger covers that;
  
  
• Magnus Jensen made a good guide on raw strings in Swift – Overview: Raw Strings;
  
  
• What’s New With PhotosPicker in iOS 16 by Felipe Laso-Marsetti guides through ways of accessing photos by your app;
  
  
• Great tutorial on long tap gestures by Leonardo Maia Pugliese – Mastering Long Press Gestures in SwiftUI: A Mini-Game Tutorial;
  
  
• Alejandro Martinez explains cooperative pool in Swift's structured concurrency model – Limit Swift Concurrency's cooperative pool;
  
  
• UIKit and SwiftUI interoperability is covered by Sarun W. – Using SwiftUI in UIKit as UIViewController.

And finishing up with conference talk – "TBC" by Marcin Krzyzanowski.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wSemTmZECG8&list=PLleLsCcywRxL7-7pUQdFDJeIRQYLHAvwr&index=3

And this is how we start New Year. Come back next week for more great reads!

It's Christmas weekend, and to give you time to celebrate, we've made slightly smaller list of articles. But those are really good.

• Peter Tretyakov is back with Code Signing Hell with XCFramework (by the way, he hinted that ChatGPT actually helped him to improve readability of the article);
  
  
• David Smith continues his design notes diary – DND 11: Better Dynamic Type Designs and DND 12: Sparkle Magic;
  
  
• How to Create an iOS Lock Screen Widget? by Lee Kah Seng explores use of WidgetKit for Lock Screen widgets;
  
  
• Moritz Philip Recke provides a guide on DocC usage on GitHub Pages – Configuring the Hosting Base Path in Xcode to Publish DocC Documentation on GitHub Pages;
  
  
• How to perform a lightweight migration in Core Data by Natascha Fadeeva guides through simple but important process working with Core Data;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese explains new concurrency usage in SwiftUI – Efficiently Managing Multiple Async Tasks in SwiftUI.

And that is it for today. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!