iOS Newsletter
Hey hey!
iOS 18.2 brought some more Apple Intelligence to the masses in a release so important to Apple that Tim Cook even tweeted about it.
This week, we’re focusing on the UI/UX aspect by looking at the new powers that SwiftUI ScrollView has gained, how to render Markdown from variables, and some practical applications of SFSymbols. There’s also content on app debugging, regex named capture groups, and a security-related article that we don’t want you to miss.
Enjoy!
Swift
Fixing the Xcode 16 LLDB error “Couldn’t realize type of self”
This article takes a look at what’s happening under the hood on the LLDB side of things when we debug our codebase, and more importantly—how to fix some unexpected bugs that are originating in Xcode 16’s linker. Hopefully, the need to manually specify the modules for the Debug configuration will be sorted by Apple sometime soon.
Named capture groups in Swift regular expressions
Working with regular expressions can be tricky, but, as with many things, good planning and breaking the problem into smaller tasks is key. This article describes a neat approach to using named capture groups to split large expressions into manageable chunks and then combine them to create something really impressive.
UI/UX
Using ScrollView to Build an Image Carousel
SwiftUI, as awesome as it is, still lacks power in some areas. The ScrollView component used to be one of these areas, but with the introduction of iOS 17, it got some much-needed love. Being able to interact with it programmatically enables us to implement some common UI design patterns. This article looks at how to implement an image carousel based on it.
Custom Paging UI in SwiftUI
Another area where SwiftUI lacks some power is the availability of a standalone paging component. We know that TabView ships with a custom style that allows you to have pagers overlaid on top of the content, but that is very limited to using the aforementioned component. But what if you want to use it with a custom carousel (like the one described in the article above)? In that case, you may have to implement such a component by hand, and this article guides you through the process.
How to render dynamic Markdown strings in SwiftUI?
It’s needless to describe how useful Markdown is for various applications. Using it in SwiftUI, though, has some caveats, especially if you want to render it from a variable. This bite-sized article gives you the gist of how to overcome it.
SF Symbol: How to for Swift & SwiftUI
SFSymbols has been around for over five years now, and they have evolved into an absolutely incredible set of symbols that we can use in any app. Moreover, the support for multicolored symbols, localizable symbols, and symbol animation can make it your first choice when designing your next app. Here’s all you need to know about them. You can even use an SFSymbol as an app icon (see below).
Define your iOS App Icon with SFSymbols in Info.plist
If you’ve ever used the Swift Playgrounds app on the iPad or your Mac, you may have stumbled upon the mini UI that allows you to configure an icon for your app/project using a predefined set of symbols. Here’s what lies behind it.
Security
iOS Passkeys Journey
Of all the security features that Apple introduced in recent years, passkeys are probably the most important one. Not only do they eliminate the need to store user-related data on the server, but they are also faster and easier to use than typing your username/password pair. They are also more secure than two-factor authentication, and most of the big players have already adopted them. If you need to implement one thing in your apps next year—may it be the passkey support, please! This resource has all you need.