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Migrating to Swift for iOS Developers
5-day class for iOS developers: Migrate your own Obj-C app to Swift, and explore new iOS 8 features. First class led by Homebrew pro developer Max Howell.
Swift Around the Web
The Design of Types
This is a great overview of how to think beyond just using enums for their rawValue.
A Look At Swift's Elusive ~> Operator
Apparently there are several functions in the Swift library defined for the ~> operator. I wouldn't recommend using it in production, but it's fun to explore what it does!
Code
Working with Handoff in iOS 8
This is a very in-depth tutorial for implementing Handoff. It's tough to get it working, so good luck!
Design
The Screen-Size Debate: How the iPhone 6 Plus Impacts Where We Read & Watch
TL;DR: The bigger your phone’s screen, the more time you’ll spend reading / watching on it.
Random Cool Stuff
In Case You Missed It
WatchKit: Let’s Animate!
One of the most surprising things about WatchKit is that we no longer get to use our favorite UIKit components. Instead, we’re dealing with Interfaces, which do not have a layer property for us to animate with. Instead, to animate on the Watch, we have to essentially flip through many images...
WatchKit: Actionable Notifications
Notifications on Apple Watch facilitate quick, lightweight interaction in two parts: the Short Look and the Long Look. Here is how you can customize your Apple Watch Notifications...
Swift: Using Map to Deal with Optionals
I’m currently re-reading the Functional Programming in Swift book, and I came across a very interesting way of dealing with optionals...
Tutorials
Beginning Alamofire Tutorial
I'm not sure I'm comfortable using Alamofire just yet, but this is a great tutorial for getting started with it if you'd like to experiment. Also make sure to check out the Intermediate Alamofire Tutorial!
Videos
Swift for CLI tools
Marin Usalji, creator of Alcatraz, xcpretty and ObjectiveRecord gave a great talk about using Swift for CLI tools at the SLUG meetup. He covered the current state of the language, CLI basics, and what needs to be done.
Functional Voodoo
Wrapper Types
I love the idea of creating types for simple things like an Int. It makes the code a lot more readable and safer.
Running Totals and Force Unwraps
Yep, the pain of optionals never goes away in Swift! @AirspeedSwift explores different options (instead of force unwrapping of course) to produce an array of running totals for a game he's been working on.
WATCH
WatchKit Swift Tutorial - Download Xcode 6.2 Beta and Start Making Apple Watch Apps
This is a great summary of the limitations of WatchKit. And if that wasn't enough, this post includes 6 (yes, 6!) short video tutorials for building a timer for the Apple Watch one step at a time.
Positioning Tutorial in WatchKit
Positioning on the Apple Watch isn't nearly anything as difficult as what we're used to with AutoLayout, but I love the use of Groups in this tutorial for positioning two labels horizontally.
Podcasts
WatchKit with Ben Morrow
Great overview of the limitations and of course possibilities for the first version of WatchKit. My favorite part is when Ben Morrow goes through a list of apps made by Apple partners in time for WatchKit release - they're all so useful! There's definitely a lot there on our dev wishlist, but what we have with WatchKit so far is definitely a great start.
NSBrief » WatchKit Hackathon
Interviews from pioneer WatchKit hackers at the world's first Apple Watch Hackathon! I love hearing everyone's ideas and thoughts on WatchKit.
Swift Code
frosty/Flipbook
A Swift tool to render UIViews to image sequences for use with WatchKit, and accompanying sample WatchKit project.
Ramotion/animated-tab-bar
RAMAnimatedTabBarController is a Swift module for adding animation to tabbar items.
Swift Thoughts
I've been thinking a lot about these program design principles while preparing for my Functional Swift Conference talk this week:
- Favor immutability (let FTW!)
- Avoid maintaining state
- Treat functions as variables