To new beginnings 🎉

It’s been a while since I sent out a newletter. It’s almost been a month actually! But wow, I have some news for you this time.

Starting in July, I will start a new career as a freelance/indie iOS engineer. In short, this means that I will have a lot more time to work on my books, blog, and workshops while also taking on client work to fill in any financial gaps.

This is a huge decision for me, and it’s one that I spent a lot of time on.

Quitting my job at Disney Streaming was not an easy choice. It provided me with not just a lot of security and stability, but it also was a good place to work at, and they gave me all the room I needed to grow as an engineer. That said, it feels like this is the time for me to try something new.

So yeah, we’ll see how all of this pans out! I think that I have a good starting point for this new adventure, and depending on what happens at WWDC I already have some ideas for a new book that I want to write in the second half of this year. I won’t share the topic just yet until I’m absolutely sure that I’m doing it.

Speaking of WWDC, it’s almost here! The excitement is building up for real. This year will be huge for concurrency in Swift, and I’m sure that Apple will show off a lot of interesting new SwiftUI features that will make it a much more capable framework than it already is.

I’m especially curious to see how Swift’s new async features will impact Combine. I’m sure it will obsolete some patterns that we use today, but I’m also sure that Combine (and Functional Reactive Programming for that matter) will not be made obsolete by Swift’s new async features.

Anyway, I hope you all have a good WWDC, and I’m going to try my best to get the newsletter back on a weekly cadence.

Donny

Practical Core Data

Practical Core Data helps you learn Apple's Core Data framework without requiring any prior knowledge. You'll learn how to integrate Core Data in UIKit and SwiftUI applications. The book also covers data modeling, synchronizing your store with a custom backend or CloudKit, profiling and improving performance in a Core Data app, and using Core Data in unit tests.

By the end of the book, you'll know exactly how you can start using Core Data in modern applications.

Practical Combine

Practical Combine is a book that will help you learn Combine from scratch. You will learn about all aspects of Combine in a natural flow where you're eased into functional reactive programming with simple examples, and the difficulty gradually builds up to complicated integrations in later chapters.

🎶 Currently on repeat 🎶

If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I play guitar. I'm a huge music lover and want to share this with you. In this section I will share a new album that I've been enjoying a lot every week.

Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! - Bitter Have you ever wondered what would happen if Simple Plan had breakdowns in the style of A Day To Remember? Wonder no longer because that’s basically what Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! is. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music

Other content that I really want to share with you

WWDC Community repository

This repository that was created by Paul Hudson is intended to be a source for as much community content as possible. It’s curated by a bunch of folks from the iOS community (myself included) and we welcome any and all WWDC content that’s created by the community. If you’re planning to writing anything about WWDC this year, make sure to open a PR and share your link in this repo!

The iOS Developer’s guide to WWDC 2021

WWDC is always a busy time for iOS developers. In this post I wanted to collect some tips to help newcomers in the iOS community navigate the firehose of new APIs and content that Apple is about to unleash on us all with as little stress as possible.

An article by Donny Wals

WWDC community week

Last year, Michie organized WWDC watch party which a gathering of iOS developers that lasted all of WWDC. This year, she’s back and the event is bigger than ever. A ton of volunteers have signed up to help her make this year’s WWDC an amazing community experience for everybody. Check out this link to see what the community week is all about, and don’t forget to register and join for an amazing experience!

New app: Carter Metronome

As a guitarist, a metronome is a must-have for me. After spending a lot of time using some of the metronome apps on the App Store I figured I’d go ahead and build my own app as an experiment. I figured it turned out good enough, so I pushed it to the app store. Nothing special, just a very simple metronome to help you keep time.