iOS and Mac Dev Delight #4

Dear Readers!

From time to time it makes sense to reflect and discuss the state of the ecosystem we all are developing for. If you rather want to get more hands-on development knowledge, do not despair, we've got you covered too 🙂.

Web developers are mostly independent in choosing their tech stack, tooling and how they release their projects and products, for iOS and macOS developers the world looks different. Here, the directions Apple takes are significant and the ecosystem is often described as "walled garden", which has its up- and downsides. Staying with the metaphor: It's very comfortable to live in such a garden. You pay your fees, follow the rules, and in return the garden is kept maintained. To make this system work, the incentives for developers to follow the rules and for Apple to keep the App Stores clean have to be well-adjusted and sadly this is not always the case as one of this weeks linked articles discusses. Another example is Apple Arcade where game developers are paid depending on how much time users spend playing their games. This model works great for any kind of game that makes the users farm for resources and wait for results. In return, it works very badly for games that are short but maybe highly innovative, something indie developers are mostly known for.

But enough of that, let's dive right in!

Weekly Highlights

A critical view on the QA for the App Stores

The state of 3rd party apps for Apple Watch

Is Apple interested in gaming? (Youtube, 6min)

Custom property wrappers for SwiftUI

Moving from Objective-C to Swift

No matter how happy you are with the state of the App Stores or the ecosystem in general, we hope you're happy with the articles we brought to you this week.

Stay healthy and safe!

Your Coding Friends, Anna, Gabriel, and Julius