MacFormat UK – September 2019

Developer opinion APPLE CORE

SEPTEMBER 2019 | MACFORMAT | 19

much changes everything,” he told us – but
not yet. “Apple has put a stake in the ground
and said this is the future. AppKit and UIKit
are not the future. But that doesn’t mean we
all stop writing our existing apps and throw
everything away. You can adopt SwiftUI
incrementally.” He hadn’t changed his
immediate plans, but would “look into
writing something small in SwiftUI.”
In Amsterdam, Janina Kutyn, an iOS
developer previously at Apple, offered a
litmus test: “What are the things that I can
implement with two lines of code using UIKit,
but will give me a headache if I use SwiftUI?
That’s what will tell me whether or not my
projects are ready for it.”
Scholar Will Bishop thought SwiftUI
would ultimately “get more people involved
in making apps,” but expected developers to
wait until it was old enough to “support the
last three major OS updates.”
Howard Oakley, MacFormat contributor
and developer of macOS command line tools,
pointed out that SwiftUI will only be available
in macOS 10.15 Catalina, which is also the
first version incompatible with 32-bit apps,
drawing a hard line between past and future
that some users wouldn’t be ready to cross.
Relying more on the framework means
SwiftUI apps can easily support system-wide
user options like Dark Mode. Ish ShaBazz
said: “This is a gigantic step forward in the
support of inclusive apps.” Kelly Guimont
joined him in noting the prominence of
accessibility options in iOS 13 and praising
macOS Catalina’s Voice Control.
A WWDC keynote video showed user Ian
Mackay, who’s quadriplegic, working across
Mac apps as easily as with a mouse – “one of
the coolest things I’ve seen,” said ShaBazz.

Guimont thought these initatives showed that

“Apple is absolutely committed to making

sure everyone can use their products.”

Student angle

As the freshest sets of eyes on Apple’s

ecosystem, the scholarship recipients were

excited about WWDC but also analytical.

Sam Miserendino, an 18-year-old

student at New York’s Columbia University,

developed Questlin, an app that links student

volunteers to non-profits. He found WWDC

an amazing experience with great networking

opportunities. He felt that being among adults

representing massive companies was

eye-opening, but added: “People aren’t always

helpful in a way that’s accessible to those just

getting started, and a lot of the programming

isn’t relatable. I would love to see more events

specifically for scholars.”

Julian Schiavo praised the Scholarship

Kickoff, where “scholars could chat to Apple

engineers about their work and how they

started at Apple – it was incredibly

interesting.” Miserendino added that he got to

meet Apple marketing executives and social

policy chief Lisa Jackson, and “really saw

Apple making an effort to reach out to groups

that don’t see enough representation.”

Overall then, the software announcements

seem to have analysts and students alike fired

up for the next stages in Apple’s development.

Personal picks >

Our commentators also picked

out some less prominent

announcements that they found

significant. Will Bishop, who

specialises in Apple Watch apps,

saw evidence that “the Watch is

maturing at a rate not seen since

the early iPhone days” but still

didn’t think it was “quite ready for

widespread developer adoption.”

Despite watchOS 6’s ability to

download apps direct, “it doesn’t

allow developers to process in-app

purchases on device, instead

requiring transactions to be

funnelled through the iOS app.”

Dylan McKee called out Apple‘s

opening up of the iPhone’s NFC

chip in iOS 13 as a move that “users

will benefit the most from”. The UK

government, among others, had

lobbied Apple to allow apps access

to near-field communication –

previously reserved for Apple Pay

• to enable DIY passport renewals.
  Julian Schiavo appreciated how
  “Apple has added OCR to the Vision
  framework and a document
  scanner to the new VisionKit.”
  Kelly Guimont was impressed
  by Sign in with Apple, a privacy-
  guarding alternative to logging in to
  third-party services using accounts
  such as Google or Facebook. It was
  “their privacy stance made
  manifest,” and would be “one of
  the biggest things remembered
  from this year’s WWDC.”

Josh Shaffer demoes SwiftUI in Xcode 11, the next version
of Apple’s software development environment.

Image credit: Sam Miserendino

“ I spent 20 minutes

discussing machine

learning models for

fluid dynamics with

someone from

France ”

Sam Miserendino

Student