iOS Newsletter
Hi folks,
With the introduction of iOS 18.5 this week we have finally seen something that not many of us expected - Apple started rolling out the new version of CarPlay to some vendors, with Aston Martin being the first to announce it. Not only that but the announcement came in a TV show. You can find the link to the video, featuring a walkthrough of what’s new with CarPlay among the links below.
Enjoy!
Swift
From 180 cm to 5′ 11″: A Complete Guide to Swift Measurement
Tailoring our apps to users of different profiles can be challenging, as we often have to deal with supporting different units, localization, formatting, precision and rounding. Starting with iOS 10 Apple added a comprehensive Measurement API to Foundation, with the aim of taking all that work off our hands. This article walks you through its usage and best practices.
UI/UX
Choosing between LazyVStack, List, and VStack in SwiftUI
Dony Wals looks at SwiftUI’s LazyVStack, List and VStack and highlights their strengths and weaknesses to give us some insights on how we can decide between these three components that all place content on top of each other.
Universal Links implementation on iOS
Universal Links allow you to link to content inside your app when a user opens a particular URL. With the right integration, webpages will open in the app browser by default, but you can configure specific paths to open in your app if the user has it installed. This behavior is well known as “deep-linking” into your app. Antoine van der Lee explains.
SwiftUI View Model Ownership
Chris Eidhof did an exploration around using View Models with SwiftUI. It’s an interesting dive into how do we set the relationship so that the view model goes away when the view goes away. The example view models are built on top of the Observation framework, so the setup is pretty much in line with the latest trends.
Mastering StoreKit 2
StoreKit provides us with an opportunity to make revenue from our apps, allowing us to set up the purchase flow for in-app purchases and subscriptions. It has been around for a while and that shows in the way its API is designed. The new version, StoreKit 2, introduces a modern Swift-based API to build type-safe in-app purchases. This article by Majid Jabrayilov is an entry point to a series of posts about StoreKit 2 that you may not want to miss.
Customizing an App Intent
Customization can mean a lot of things when talking about intents. It can be about the text you want the system to display, or speak when requesting a value, or about asking if the user wants to add optional parameters without automatically skipping them, or about providing a dialog for the result of the intent. This tutorial walks you through all of the above and more.
Videos
New Apple CarPlay Ultra: Apple Just Took Over Your Car!
We are not too surprised to see Apple introducing the new version of CarPlay (named “Ultra”) that they were talking about at WWDC 2023. What surprised us is where it got introduced - in probably the most famous car-related show on the planet - TopGear. Here’s the short announcement by the editors of the program:
Apple iPhone users and (modern) car owners rejoice: Apple CarPlay Ultra is upon us, and it more deeply integrates your iPhone into your car than ever before. Aston Martin is the first car company in the world to feature the next generation of CarPlay, and it extends across both the central touchscreen and driver instrument cluster, with masses of personalization options. We’ve tried it out, in an Aston Martin DBX, so here is how new Apple CarPlay Ultra works
Apple’s Widget Backdoor
This awesome hackish video, looks at a private Widgets API that Apple uses to make the seconds handle rotate in the Clock app’s icon. But that’s just the beginning, as the video dives into many different ways to get creative with it. Hats off, Bryce Bostwick.