iOS Newsletter
Hi folks,
Another week, another round of exciting updates from Apple! Following last week’s Beta 5 releases, we’re now diving into Beta 6 across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. The sleek “Liquid Glass” design aesthetic continues to mature, and we’re seeing even more refinements and new capabilities emerge.
This week, we’re particularly excited about the new Phone and Journal apps finally making their way to macOS, alongside a cross-platform Games app – a welcome addition for many! On watchOS, the AI-powered Workout Buddy is shaping up nicely, and visionOS users can look forward to even more refined spatial widgets and lifelike Personas.
It’s clear that Apple is putting the finishing touches on these releases, and the developer experience is only getting better.
Enjoy the selection of articles we have for you this week.
Happy coding!
AI
How Vibe Coding Is Hurting Your Critical Thinking
In this thought-provoking piece, Mohammad Azam explores the concept of “vibe coding” and how the pursuit of coding momentum can inadvertently hinder a developer’s critical thinking and long-term growth.
I AM NOT A CALCULATOR
In this thought-provoking piece, Matt Massicotte explores the nature of AI and whether it can be considered “just a tool.” He delves into the definition of a tool, the distinction between physical and mental capabilities, and the implications of automating intelligence.
SwiftUI
Skeleton Modifier
In this article, Manu presents a simple SwiftUI ViewModifier for creating skeleton/shimmer loading effects. The post includes code implementation and demonstrates how to apply the modifier to views with mocked data to create loading states.
SwiftUI Search Enhancements in iOS and iPadOS 26
This article by Natalia Panferova explores the latest search enhancements in SwiftUI for iOS and iPadOS 26. Learn how to leverage new .searchable() modifiers to add powerful search functionality to your apps.
Building Widgets for visionOS
This article by Joseph Simpson provides a recap of what we’ve learned about Widgets and answers some questions from the community.
Core Spotlight integration for Spotlight and internal app search
In her second featured article, Natalia Panferova dives into Core Spotlight implementation, showing how to make app content searchable both in system-wide Spotlight and within your app. She covers the essential techniques: indexing content, handling deep-links from search results, preventing unnecessary re-indexing, customizing result ranking, and implementing a reindexing app extension.
Data
Data: a swift-foundation deep-dive
This article by Jacob Bartlett provides a deep dive into the Data struct in Swift, exploring its internal workings and performance optimizations. Discover how this fundamental type manages binary data efficiently.
Core Data Migration Incident Analysis - The Hidden Traps We Overlooked
Core Data migrations can be a minefield. Xu Yang shares a war story about a migration that went wrong, and how you can avoid the same fate.