This month was ultra generous. As expected. there were some hardware updates as well as long-time-awaited software updates. Bet everyone was keen to get their hands on the new lock screens. We definitely were!
Apple
Let’s start with the Apple goodies. During the September event, Apple introduced quite a lot of new hardware. In case you missed it, here’s a nice recap that you can go through, or you can listen to our special Next Level Show podcast episode.
TL;DR: new Watch, new iPhones, new AirPods, new iOS, SOS, car crash detection.
In terms of software, exciting updates here, too. Apart from the expected iOS 16 features like a new lock screen and passkeys, Apple introduced an unexpected feature called Dynamic Island, which seems to be one of the main selling points of the iPhone 14 Pro. Not to be dramatic, but we need it now!
We finally got our hands on non-beta Xcode 14, but for those who like living on the edge, you can go back to beta right away; Xcode 14.1 Beta is available, which is necessary if you want to explore the Live Activities or play with the Dynamic Island.
Swift
Xcode 14 brings us the long-awaited Swift 5.7, which includes a lot of handy features that will make your code even “swiftier.” Creating regex expressions and making them work properly can be a bit of a struggle, but it looks like the new native API will make things much easier.
Another great language feature that will definitely solve a lot of POP headaches are the changes to existential types and the “any / some” keyword, especially the type erasure.
SwiftUI
Of course, with iOS 16 there are some new things available in SwiftUI as well. An interesting feature that can help you make more responsive layouts is the new ViewThatFits container, which lets you easily adjust views for different screen sizes. In case that wouldn’t be sufficient enough in terms of layout, you can create your layout with the new Layout protocol. This gives us a little more insight into how SwiftUI works internally. In general, SwiftUI can sometimes feel like a magic black box; however, there is a hidden private API that can make our lives a bit easier and helps us understand what’s happening.
One last thing! There is a great overview of accessibility in SwiftUI; we suggest following the #365DaysIOSAccessibility hashtag — there are some great insights!
Hope you enjoyed our September Highlights and that you’re already trying out the new updates. Let’s see what exciting stuff Apple brings in October. Until next time. ✌️
