In this edition: Swift 5.6 is almost here with lots of new features, cast your nominations in the 2021 Swift Community Awards, create bouncing rain effects like the iOS Weather app, and more!

Hacking with iOS: Update now available

I’ve just released the iOS 15 update for Hacking with iOS to everyone who bought the book by itself or as part of the Swift Power Pack. This brings all 19 updated SwiftUI projects, including new single-project videos – that’s over 25 hours of video in total!

To access the updated book and videos, visit your Gumroad library at https://www.gumroad.com/library

Swift 5.6 is almost here

Although we’re likely only a few weeks away from Apple announcing WWDC22, there’s still time for the Swift team to squeeze in another set of major language updates in the form of Swift 5.6. It’s currently approaching the end of its beta, but I expect it to be released as final in the next 10 days or so.

While we’re waiting, I wrote an article to help explain all the major new features, including:

The “any” keyword for existential types
Type placeholders for times when you want partial type inference
Improved Codable with the new CodingKeyRepresentable protocol
A new “#unavailable” check that is the inverse of “#available”
More concurrency changes, including an important new warning
Initial support for plugins with Swift Package Manager

As always I’ve provided hands-on code examples so you can see what’s changing and why, but be warned: at least two of these changes will break your existing Swift code when Swift 6 finally arrives.

Read the full article here: https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/247/whats-new-in-swift-5-6

Thanks to sponsors!

I’m really grateful to Sentry for sponsoring the site last month! From error tracking to performance monitoring, Sentry lets developers see what actually matters, solve problems quicker, and learn continuously about their applications – there’s a good reason why over one million developers rely on them!

You can find out more about Sentry here.

Alternatively, they have a live workshop coming up on March 16th at 9am Pacific time – click here to find out more.

Swift Community Awards 2021

Our work wouldn’t be possible without other people, companies, and tools that do a huge amount of work on our behalf. So, for the fifth year in a row the Swift Community Awards are back – your chance to lift up the many great things that make our community so vibrant.

The nomination phase just opened, where you have until March 18th to nominate one entry in each category. Once nominations close I’ll produce a shortlist based on the most popular nominations, at which point there will be a final public vote starting March 21st.

So, submit your nominations now! Which new indie apps do you think deserve praise? Which conference talks taught you the most? Which third-party tools do you consider indispensable? There are categories for each of those and more – click here to submit your nominations now!

What’s new in Hacking with Swift+?

In February I released two new videos in the iOS Weather app series, showing you how to create beautiful rain and snow, and even how to make the weather particles settle on the user interface – just like you see in iOS 15. The end result is really mesmerizing!

I also returned to the Ultimate Portfolio App series where we started the move to macOS. The final app will support iOS, macOS, tvOS, and even watchOS, but we’re starting with macOS because it has the most interesting challenges to solve – I think you’ll be surprised how much code we’re able to share thanks to SwiftUI!

And of course there was another monthly livestream, this time building a macOS command-line app using Swift Argument Parser. You can watch the replay or read the transcript here.

Swift jobs

I have a dedicated forum where folks can post job adverts, and I want to pick out a handful here:

Real Talk are looking for a senior iOS engineer to help complete their proof of concept, working fully remotely.
Peek are hiring several fully remote iOS developers to work on their software platform powering tours and activities.
Tally are hiring their first iOS engineer, so if you’re looking to get in at the ground level and start a new project from scratch this could be for you.

News from friends

Conference season is really taking off now, and I’m really pleased to report that iOSDevUK is coming back this year – it’s such a joyful event where every person leaves having made new friends, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Right now they have an open call for speakers, and they are particularly keen to reach out to a broader range of speakers than they have had in previous years. So, if you’d like to try your hand at speaking I recommend you click here to find out more: https://www.iosdevuk.com/speakercall

In other news, Swift Heroes have given me five free digital tickets for their upcoming event. These are first come, first served, so if you’re able to attend on April 7th and 8th then try your luck with one of the codes below:

* SH2022-7QW6BU4VMBZPMD8U

* SH2022-6WZTBA29CX6LNTP5

* SH2022-WFXNL9Q3UK6M92DK

* SH2022-HQR8X2VEHUMASF3B

* SH2022-BVBZDY3YY7L8TDKX

Be the first person to enter one of those into the following URL, and the ticket is yours: https://pretix.eu/advento/SH2022/

Remember, the tickets are first come, first served!

Discounts on books

Here's a reminder of the supporter's discount codes you can use to save money on all my books:

SwiftUI By Example: https://gum.co/swiftui/hws-thankyou
Hacking with iOS: https://gum.co/hws-book-pack/hws-thankyou
Pro Swift: https://gum.co/proswift/hws-thankyou
Swift Design Patterns: https://gum.co/swift-design-patterns/hws-thankyou
Testing Swift: https://gum.co/testing-swift/hws-thankyou
Swift on Sundays Volume One: https://gum.co/swift-on-sundays-1/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume One: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-1/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume Two: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-2/hws-thankyou
Advanced iOS Volume Three: https://gum.co/advanced-ios-3/hws-thankyou
Swift Coding Challenges: https://gum.co/swiftcc/hws-thankyou
Dive Into SpriteKit: https://gum.co/dive-into-spritekit/hws-thankyou
Hacking with macOS: https://gum.co/hwmacos/hws-thankyou
Hacking with watchOS: https://gum.co/hwwatchos/hws-thankyou
Hacking with tvOS: https://gum.co/hwtvos/hws-thankyou
Server-Side Swift Vapor Edition: https://gum.co/server-side-swift-vapor/hws-thankyou
Hacking with Swift Live Series 1: https://gum.co/hws-live-1/hws-thankyou
Objective-C for Swift Developers: https://gum.co/objcswift/hws-thankyou
Beyond Code: https://gum.co/beyondcode/hws-thankyou

Remember, if you already bought books from either the Swift Power Pack, the Swift Platform Pack, or the Swift Plus Pack and want to upgrade to the full bundle, I can create a custom discount code for you that takes off whatever you already paid – just email me.

One more thing…

I want to help as many people reach their goals with Swift development as I can, and so I spend a lot of time writing Swift, writing about Swift, talking about Swift, and more.

However, this time I want to end the newsletter with something much more important: if you can, please donate to the Ukrainian Red Cross. The need is urgent, and even a small donation will help.

Click here for more information: https://redcross.org.ua/en/donate

Thank you.

Paul

Donate to the Ukrainian Red Cross

1 comment

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: May 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: April 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: March 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: February 2025

Hacking with Swift Newsletter: January 2025

See all posts from Paul Hudson