State of the Platforms

This is a raw notes post.. if I get things wrong.. please let me know! As I am consuming the firehose today.

After many network issues here at home, I was able to get to the State of the Platforms keynote. While I had seen little of the hype at the beginning before losing network access.

Package plugins, allows for extending Xcode via Swift. This really seems like a team based development tool. Definitely see ability to help enterprise development teams focus on standardization of code and documentation.

Significant Swift improvements under the hood should make it faster for startup and linking.

SwiftUI abstractions have been improved to create more standard controls and patterns for users. Love the term “Strong Opinions” for SwiftUI. This allows intelligent defaults based on platform.

Enhancements:

Navigation Style API. New Grid API and Customer Layout API. Customer Layout API allows you to reuse your layout logic. Added Tasksheet and ShareSheet (this uses a new transferable approach).

New Frame work: Data visualization via Swift Charts framework. Declarative framework of swiftUI to present information – line, bar, heat maps, and many other types. So out of the box voice over and other accessibility features. Previews are live by default.

Implicit view stack, now you can add “ViewThatFits”.

New NavigationSplitView.

Mac has new MenuBarExtra(API).

Deeper dive on the Lock Screen and API that support it:

• WidgetKit have been added to the “All day Lock Screen”. As thought, this is based on the designs from AppleWatch Complications. So we now have:
  • Circular, Rectangular, Inline, and all widgets work on both iOS and WatchOS – I will look at moving my Apple Watch Complications from Wasted TIme to the iPhone Home Screen.

Additional updates:

• Messages Collaborative API – allows for Sharing and works with privacy and security..
  • You can drag and drop content with sharing so users will be familiar with the UI interactions.
• App Intents Framework – makes your apps features available to the system
  • Today you have to do it manually, but new framework will make it automated.
  • Expose your shortcuts when people search for your app in Spotlight
  • This should greatly increase app short cut coverage and discoverability.
  • There’s a new SiriTip modifier in SwiftUI
• Passkeys designed to be easy to use and provide a good transition away from passwords.
  • websites need to be setup to support Passkey and Password based logins
  • Uses Public Key Cryptography – only the public key is stored on the server reducing risk to website owners
  • WebAuthn standard is used by PassKey.

iPadOS:

• Find and replace is automatically enabled for your textviews.
• DriverKit is now available for iPad, (Same API as on macOS) so this should enable significant updates for hardware connections
• CallKit has voice over IP mode. to improve Watch

TvOS 16:

• adding connection between iPhone and
• added device discovery and connection for you

Phone and iPad

• SKAddNetwork – API to improve campaign performance with out tracking users
• ScanKit and RoomPlan create USD and USDZ format to improve 3D experiences.
• Focus Filters are now enabled on top of App Intents – so app can just show appropriate information based on specific focus modes

Metal updates:

• by improving resource loading, app can focus on other activities to improve the gamers experience
• Offline Shader compilation allows for improved performance based on combo if Apple Silicon and Metal (the benefit of a closes system)
• New Mesh Shader API allows you to optimize the mesh creation and shading to reduce need to access device memory.
• MetalFX upscaling – allows you to render the frame at a lower resolution and then allow metal to create temporal upscaling to reduce dropped frames.

MapKit updates:

• 3D city experience is available to all Apps now.
• Allowing for better context and precision so users can show where POIs are in more detail.
• You can position cameras in 3D Space, pitch, tilt and more can all be controlled. By default elevation is flattened but you can enable 3D terrain.
• Look around uses high res 3D animation.
• New – Apple Map Server APIs – restful APIs allows backend services.

Weather App:

• now on iPad and Mac
• Also available as a Rest API
• Native Swift API WeatherKit
• APIs are available for you to add to your own app.
• Forecasts are 10 days for hour by hour data.
• Data is never shared or sold, and adheres to apple’s privacy policies
• 500k API calls per month free with Developer account

Live Text:

• visionKit – two new APIS
• Live Text API – allows for text and QR codes in videos and pictures
• Data Scanner API – allows for live feed analysis
• You need to add your own overlays to tailor to your app

Xcode Cloud:

• Announced their pricing. Nice to see that existing developer will get bottom tier for free thru 2023. I’ve been using Xcode Cloud for an app I’ve been playing with and the CI/CD pipeline really works well.