Apple Developer Weekly #220 We’re Back to Weekly Updates!
13 on March 10, 2025
13 on March 10, 2025
From 13
Hello dear readers!
Let me share with you that I recently left my company and am currently without a full-time job. However, I'm actually busier than when I was employed because I have so many things I want to do.
One of these things is resuming this developer newsletter!
If there are important or urgent developer news, I'll try my best to share them with everyone weekly.
Since it's been a while since the last update, this issue will have more content than usual.
For those interested in more advanced iOS development knowledge, personal insights, AI tool usage experiences, and other topics, or if you simply want to support my writing, feel free to subscribe to 13's iOS Developer+.
Here's a preview of all content.
13 on March 10, 2025
‼️App Store Requires Xcode 16 Starting April 24
This issue contains a lot of content, but this is the most important message.
Please take time to upgrade to Xcode 16.
Also, I want to remind those unfamiliar with Swift 6: Although Xcode 16 includes the Swift 6 compiler, existing projects can still use Swift 5 Language Mode.
For Swift 6 migration strategies, please refer to the official documentation.
I've written articles about Swift 6 Official Release and Response Strategies and Is Swift 6 Ready? Observing Community Trends on iOS Developer+ for those who need reference.
🧪Apple Releases & News
Xcode 16.3 Beta 2 (16E5121h) Notably, Instruments added the Processor Trace Instrument, which can accurately reconstruct program execution with minimal hardware resources on the latest Mac and iOS devices (requires M4 or A18 SoC). I haven't had the chance to try it yet, but it looks very interesting.
iOS 18.4 Beta 2 (22E5216h) Includes the newly released Apple Vision Pro app. Unlike the Apple Watch app, this app emphasizes introducing new spatial media
🏗️Apple Open Sources Swift Build
This news is from early February, but since I haven't written the newsletter in a while, I'm including it
A major milestone for Swift
It's a high-level build system that can integrate with existing SPM, Xcode, and xcodebuild
Cross-platform (we all know Swift has been working on expanding beyond Apple operating systems)
Repository is here: https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-build
💻Apple Announces Multiple New Hardware
iPhone 16e: Despite lacking some features, it seems quite suitable as a development or testing device, unless you need to develop for Dynamic Island or camera features
iPad Air M3: Basically just a SoC upgrade. Some might find it uninspiring, but iPad has always been a product that competes with itself
MacBook Air M4: The most attractive points this generation are probably the beautiful sky blue color (reminds me of iPhone 13 Pro Sierra Blue) and the price drop to starting at $999. Don't forget that all Macs now have at least 8GB RAM, and with the super-fast single-core M4, the value proposition is excellent. I'm tempted to buy one myself. However, I remind myself that work computers should have active cooling (fans). I love my MBA M2 but it tends to thermal throttle when running Xcode, which is why I switched back to MBP. One thing to note is that upgrading the MBA M4's GPU to 10 cores costs extra, but if you upgrade the memory or SSD, these 2 cores come "free"
Mac Studio M4 Max and M3 Ultra: The M3 Ultra version can go up to 512 GB of memory. Many people might buy it to run local large language models? As for why not M4 Ultra, perhaps Apple is saving it for the future Mac Pro. Also, looking at the official website, with the same M4 Max, memory, and SSD specifications, the MBP16 is about 42,000~44,000 more expensive than the Studio
📆Apple Invites
A new paid service from Apple (requires iCloud+ to create invitations).
I find the convenient photo uploading to shared albums particularly interesting. Should be great for iOS developers organizing public events.
✍️13's New Book "Learning SwiftUI" Serial
Over the years, I've created various iOS development resources (like blogs, newsletters, podcasts, YouTube videos, talks), but never written a book.
Recently, I started writing a book called "Learning SwiftUI".
Unlike other SwiftUI content books, I want to address various SwiftUI learning barriers I've observed, hoping to help those who've tried SwiftUI but couldn't quite grasp it.
Writing a book is a big challenge for me, so I chose to serialize it weekly on 13's iOS Developer+. Paid members can observe the book's creation firsthand, and once I finish writing, they'll receive the complete e-book.
If you'd like to support this book's creation, consider subscribing to iOS Developer+, thank you.
📚Nil Coalescing Publishes "SwiftUI Fundamentals"
Speaking of SwiftUI e-books, I recommend SwiftUI Fundamentals written by former Apple SwiftUI engineer Natalia Panferova.
I've reported multiple times about Natalia's website Nil Coalescing, which has many excellent SwiftUI-themed articles. If you want to access pure SwiftUI knowledge, it's worth referencing.
📂Xcode Virtual Directory Perennial Problem Investigation and My Open Source Tool Solution──ZhgChgLi
If you have a large Xcode project you want to migrate to Xcode 16's Folder structure, consider checking out ZhgChgLi's open source tool XCFolder.
🎟️Developer Events & Community Updates
try! Swift Tokyo 2025 is almost sold out. I'll be attending, hope to meet and exchange ideas!
Swift Official Takes Over VS Code Swift Extension, Repo is swiftlang/vscode-swift
Swift Official Community Expands to Mastodon & Bluesky, at https://bsky.app/profile/swift.org and https://mastodon.social/@swiftlang respectively
🤖AI Tools Section
GitHub Copilot for Xcode now supports Chat
ChatGPT Mac App supports Code Edits, can directly modify Xcode files now (official demo). Seems like both Copilot and ChatGPT's new features are converging
NSHipster's Mattt introduces Model-Context-Protocol (MCP). He used LSP as an analogy, which should be easy to understand for those following Swift's use in other editors
I wrote an article on iOS Developer+ about "How to Avoid AI Anxiety and My Ways of Using Various AI Tools", sharing some ways to use AI tools
🌞Summary
Previously, my newsletter writing workflow heavily relied on Twitter for collecting materials. Since many developers left Twitter, and tweets can no longer be embedded in Substack (this newsletter platform), I was struggling.
Fortunately, I've found a new workflow now. Whenever I encounter topics worth writing about, I have ChatGPT record them for me. When it's time to edit the newsletter, I ask it to categorize and list points, then I write the content.
Although I love using various AI tools, I insist on writing myself because that's where the joy lies.
I believe 13 Report readers also prefer human-written content rather than AI-generated content, right?
That's all for this week's Apple Developer Weekly. Feel free to like❤️, comment💬, or reply✉️ to share your thoughts.
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