Is Apple Killing Swift?
Exploring the impact of corporate governance on swift's evolution
Good morning, developers! Grab your coffee because Jacob Bartlett’s article sheds light on Swift’s journey. The narrative surrounding Swift often feels like a cautionary tale—a once-great programming language now ensnared in a tangled web of corporate interests and governance issues. Since Chris Lattner's departure, the language has drifted significantly from its foundational vision.
Now, Swift bears the burden of excessive keywords and complex syntactic features, many of which appear more like temporary fixes than thoughtful enhancements. Apple's tight grip on the language's direction has shifted the focus from nurturing an open-source community to serving profit-driven motives. As a result, many developers feel sidelined in the evolution of a tool they rely on daily.
As we sip our morning coffee, it's hard not to feel a blend of nostalgia and frustration. The potential for Swift to evolve into a true general-purpose language is overshadowed by its current trajectory, driven by corporate agendas rather than collaboration. Recent efforts to engage more external contributors hint at a glimmer of hope, but whether this will lead to meaningful change remains uncertain.
For now, Swift stands as a reminder of how easily innovation can be stifled when governance and incentives are misaligned. As Jacob Bartlett emphasizes, let’s keep our eyes on this journey, hoping that Swift can rediscover its path back to simplicity and composability while navigating the complex landscape of modern software development. Check out the full article here.
GitHub Copilot code completion in Xcode is now available in public preview
GitHub Copilot for Xcode is now available in public preview, bringing intelligent code completion to Apple developers. This integration enhances productivity with real-time suggestions in languages like Swift and Objective-C, alongside features like multiline suggestions and advanced content filtering for a professional coding experience.
Copilot also includes a duplicate detection filter to avoid suggestions that match public code on GitHub. Users with a Copilot license can access the beta and provide feedback through the GitHub community, enabling developers to innovate and code more efficiently.
GitHub Copilot Expands Developer Choice with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o1-preview
GitHub recently announced the integration of Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s o1-preview and o1-mini models into GitHub Copilot, bringing a new level of choice for developers. This multi-model approach allows developers to select the best AI tools for their needs, enhancing the coding experience across various functions like code review and multi-file editing.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet excels in complex coding tasks, Gemini 1.5 Pro offers impressive multi-modal capabilities, and OpenAI's new models provide advanced reasoning for better code understanding. With these updates, GitHub emphasizes its commitment to giving developers control over the models they use, ensuring a tailored coding experience.
TestFlight enhancements to help you reach testers
TestFlight has rolled out new enhancements to improve the beta testing experience for apps, games, and App Clips. The redesigned invitations now feature a description of your beta app, highlighting new features and allowing you to include screenshots and app categories, making it easier for potential testers to understand what your app offers.
Additionally, you can set enrollment criteria based on device type and OS versions, streamlining the process of finding qualified testers. New metrics for public links help you track the effectiveness of your invites, showing how many testers viewed and accepted them, as well as those who didn’t meet the specified criteria. To start using these features, simply upload your build and invite testers!
Gemini on Android, The story so far
The evolution of AI integration in Android has been remarkable, especially with the introduction of Gemini Nano and the AICore beta program. In less than a year, on-device LLMs have become a reality, enabling Android smartphones to handle sophisticated tasks like smart replies and voice transcript summarization locally.
This shift began with the Pixel 8's Tensor processor, which laid the groundwork for running LLMs efficiently. With the recent rollout of Gemini Nano, developers can now enhance their apps using cutting-edge on-device AI capabilities, marking a significant step toward an AI-first world in mobile development.
React Native: New Architecture is here
The release of React Native 0.76 marks a significant leap forward with the introduction of the New Architecture, which now fully supports modern React features like Suspense and Transitions. This update features a complete rewrite of core systems, enhancing performance by enabling synchronous communication with the native layer and allowing for multiple concurrent updates across threads.
The new Native Module system, built in C++, provides a type-safe environment and lazy loading, reducing startup time and improving efficiency. As a result, developers can now create more responsive, high-performing apps that leverage the latest capabilities of React Native without a steep learning curve.
We're forking Flutter. This is why.
The announcement of a fork of Flutter, named Flock, is a bold move aimed at addressing the significant labor shortage within the Flutter team, which consists of around 50 members supporting approximately one million developers. As Flutter's scope has expanded to multiple platforms, the team has struggled to keep up with support requests, resulting in long backlogs and stagnation, particularly for desktop support.
Flock seeks to empower the community by encouraging contributions and streamlining the review process, ultimately allowing for faster bug fixes and feature implementations without being hindered by the Flutter team's limited capacity. This initiative hopes to unite developers in enhancing Flutter's capabilities while keeping it closely aligned with the original framework.
Apple’s Mac Week: All the Exciting Announcements!
Apple just wrapped up a week full of exciting Mac updates. The star of the show is the new M4 chip, now featured in the refreshed iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini. The iMac sports a vibrant 24-inch display and comes with a base of 16GB RAM, while the MacBook Pro offers three chip options, starting at $1,599, to meet all your performance needs.
The compact Mac Mini is now even smaller but packed with powerful specs and plenty of ports for connectivity. For MacBook Air fans, there's good news: the base RAM for M2 and M3 models has been doubled to 16GB at no extra cost, boosting performance without extra expense.
Lastly, Apple is rolling out Apple Intelligence, featuring a redesigned Siri and AI-driven tools, with a ChatGPT integration planned for December. USB-C ports have also made their way to the Magic Mouse and other accessories, though the charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse still raises eyebrows. Overall, these updates are a solid step forward, enhancing our development experience as we gear up for an exciting 2024.
🚀 Launch of Week
bolt.new
With bolt.new you can prompt fullstack web applications into existence, see them executed in real-time, debug errors as they occur & deploy a fully functional app—all without ever leaving your browser or personally writing a single line of code!
Wand
Wand is an AI-powered design tool for iOS to draw and edit anything. Upload reference material and Wand will create a custom private style based on those images. Use that style to draw anything you can imagine.
BountyHub
BountyHub is a platform where developers can put bounties on their Github issues or earn money by solving them. Secure payments and dispute resolution make BountyHub a reliable way to incentivize open-source contributions.
🧰 Interesting Projects, Tools and Libraries
Device Preview - Device Preview for Flutter allows developers to visualize their apps on different devices. Key features include device previews from any device, orientation changes, and dynamic system configurations (like language and dark mode). It supports adjustable resolution, maintains application state, and features a plugin system for additional functionalities such as screenshots and file exploration.
FeaturesKit - FeaturesKit provides developers for Apple platforms with the ability to display a list of configured features in their apps. This is built using SwiftUI so can be displayed natively from a SwiftUI app or using a UIHostingController in a UIKit app, and has been designed to mimic the style of built-in Apple screens.
finch - Finch offers a customizable debug menu for Android app development. It does not affect production code. Developers can easily add their own custom debugging features with simple steps.
🤝 Career Opportunities
Software Engineer at Chai - Flutter
Senior Android Engineer at Distilled - Android
Software Engineer II Mobile at Github - Android
🗓️ Upcoming Events
DroidCon - Oct 31-01 Nov 2024, London, UK
Do iOS - Nov 12-14 2024, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Firebase Demo Day '24 - Nov 19 2024, Online
Artic Conference iOS - Mar 11-13 2025, Oulu, Finland
✌️Finally…
That’s a wrap for this edition! I hope you found the insights helpful and the updates enlightening. Stay tuned for the next issue, and remember, if you have any thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out! Until then, take care, keep coding, and may your bugs be few, your coffee be strong, and your Halloween treats be debugged! 🎃👻
Thanks for sticking with us to the end! Now it’s your turn, hit reply or jump into the comments and share your thoughts on this edition! 🔥