SWIFT NEWS
Whenever there’s a new version of Swift, Paul Hudson is sure to break down all the new features in a blog post. Even though it’s not officially out yet, Paul has already written an article about what’s new in Swift 5.5, as the beta is bound to be just around the corner with the WWDC taking place in a week. There is a lot to be excited about!
The new concurrency approach is something that will change our Swift lives forever — and for the better. To learn even more about it, take a look at this article by Marin Todorov where he goes into detail about Swift Actors in a practical way, and be sure to check out part two as well!
Property wrappers became an instant hit when they were introduced to Swift, particularly in the context of SwiftUI. Audrey Tam of Raywenderlich has recently written a comprehensive article that explains all the SwiftUI property wrappers and their uses, so that you never have to wonder again what that @Thing is for.
On a similar note, Antoine van der Lee dives deep into Property Wrappers and explains how they work with code examples. If this topic feels a bit like magic to you, give this article a read — it will definitely help you wrap your head around property wrappers.
Swift is a complex language and there’s always an alley that you haven’t explored just yet. If you’re in the mood for a bit heavier reading, Dynamic libraries and code replacements in Swift by Tibor Bödecs may be the right thing for you! After all, when Swizzling is mentioned in the first paragraph, you know it’s going to be interesting.
Would you like to go even deeper into Swift, and have some spare time on your hands? This may be your lucky month; the official Swift Mentorship Program has just been announced! This is a great opportunity to learn and contribute, and anyone 18 years and older is welcome to apply.
BUILDING GREAT USER INTERFACES
Geeking out with Swift is always great, but we still write apps for living. User Interface is what often makes or breaks your app and there’s always a bit more polish that can be done. For some inspiration, take a look at how the teams at Instagram built a gorgeous Fluid User Interface for Threads, their standalone messaging app.
Sometimes, you may even want to add some extra oomph to your app with some 3D graphics and/or animations. Mihaela MJ wrote a nice article about making a 3D cube with Core Animation Layers to get you started on that. If you’re new to Core Animation, this is a great article that teaches about its power.
Once your app is polished, beautiful and ready to go, you may be interested in promoting it. The new Search tab ad placement option in Apple search Ads may be the right option for you.
While there’s so much to talk about, we can’t let this May edition of Swiftly Highlights get too long… so, let’s wrap up with an article about Permanent and Temporary Tabs in Xcode by Leonardo Maia Pugliese. Tabs in Xcode can be a tad confusing and, hopefully, this blog post can help make their use more clear!
That’s it for May! Thank you for reading and see you (virtually) at WWDC!
