Every September, Apple comes to us with announcements, and this year wasn't different. Apple held an event unveiling the new Apple Watch Series 6, Apple Watch SE and eighth-generation iPad. On top of that, it was also announced that the newest version of iOS (iOS 14) would be available on the next day... which left some engineers less than happy.
Earlier this year, Apple also announced some changes regarding how IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) works. If you’re not sure how this update could impact businesses (or a business of your own), George Deglin explains How Apple’s IDFA changes will impact developers & marketers in 2021.
SWIFT & IOS 14
iOS 14 also came with the release of Swift 5.3 and along with this new version, UIKit received great updates and new features—such as ColorPicker, DatePicker, Menus and Actions. Everything can be checked out here. Some new accessibility features are also worth a look. As Lori mentions in the article: "Apple makes accessibility top-tier importance, which makes the entire experience better for everyone." This is something we greatly appreciate.
And a little bit about SwiftUI. This month, we bring you some cool material by John Sundell about Encapsulating SwiftUI view styles and How Swift 5.3 enhances SwiftUI’s DSL.
APP STORE
With the new iOS available, our beloved AppStore also got some new updates. This time, it’s all about App Store Review Guideline, User Privacy and Data Use and Details for app privacy questions now available. It's always a good idea to check everything out and keep yourself up-to-date.
GUIDES
Along with Apple documentation and WWDC videos, it's wonderful to see our community providing well-made examples and tutorials about how to adopt new features by explaining the pros and cons. This month, we have two great articles about adopting Diffable Data Sources with Ease and Launching iOS Apps with a Custom URL Scheme.
OTHER
If you’ve never considered using Swift on Windows, you might be surprised by the approach swift.org is taking: Introducing Swift on Windows.
Last but not least, with COVID-19 still being active, we want to remind everyone about the exposure notifications. With iOS 13.5, you can enable your exposure notifications, but you also need to download the app from your local health authority. However, with both iOS 13.7 and iOS 14 beta 4 and later, this gets easier! You can turn on the Exposure Notifications Express system, which doesn't require the installation of the health authority app.
That’s it for today. We'll see you next month!
