In this issue: three new book updates are available with more to come, the Swift Career Accelerator has launched with a bang, and I'm building another app!

Progress on book updates

I've already finished major updates for three books in the last month:

Pro Swift has been fully updated for Swift 6, while also adding new chapters on if and switch expressions, typed throws, key path expressions as functions, and more.
Swift Design Patterns has also been updated for Swift 6, also adding discussion on modern observation using @Observable and more.
Beyond Code also got a refresh for the latest version of the macOS command line tools.

Pro Swift and Beyond Code have had all their videos re-recorded in HD, and Swift Design Patterns also gained videos for the first time, covering the 22 platform, language, and classic design patterns.

All these updates were free for everyone who bought the books individually or through a bundle – use your original receipt to download it, or visit your Gumroad library.

Even better, there are more book updates still to come: Swift Concurrency by Example is up next, Swift Coding Challenges follows soon after, and then Testing Swift – each getting a full refresh, plus all-new videos for the first time.

Again, each of these book updates will be completely free to everyone who bought them previously. I know some other folks charge for new editions, but that's something I refuse to do – when you trust me with your learning, I want to go above and beyond what you expect!

Say hello to the Swift Career Accelerator

Last month I launched the biggest ever expansion of Hacking with Swift: for the first time I'm building a curriculum that spans all my work – the 100 Days of SwiftUI, Hacking with Swift+, and all the books I've written.

It's called the Swift Career Accelerator, at it includes content from across my free tutorials and Hacking with Swift+, but also takes content from Pro Swift, Pro SwiftUI, Beyond Code, and Swift Design Patterns.

This adds up to 233 videos and counting available right now, each with accompanying transcriptions so you can read or watch depending on how you prefer to learn.

Every topic has been graded at one of five levels depending on where you are right now. So, whether you're looking to find your first job or you're ready to move up to lead a development team, there are tutorials aimed directly at helping you get there.

Hopefully you can see how my book update plans fit into the bigger picture: as the updates for Swift Concurrency by Example, Swift Coding Challenges, and Testing Swift arrive, they'll take their place in the larger Swift Career Accelerator curriculum.

My goal is to make a teaching resource that rivals a university software engineering degree, so everyone can reach their goals with Swift development - getting a job they love, leading a development team, or just building a great indie app for their hobby.

Best of all, the complete Swift Accelerator Curriculum – all five levels with hundreds of videos – is available to everyone who has subscribed to Hacking with Swift+ for at least 18 months.

If you haven't subscribed already, you can take out a two-year subscription to gain immediate access to all of Hacking with Swift+, the complete Swift Career Accelerator, and also my online reading library where you can read my books for free online!

Learn more about the Swift Career Accelerator

Upcoming Hacking with Swift+ dates

The next Hacking with Swift+ live streams are:

October 19th
November 16th
December 14th

All streams start at 5pm UK time, and as always we're building complete apps from scratch each time – see you there!

Thanks to sponsors!

I'm grateful to the Hacking with Swift sponsors from last month:

RevenueCat's Paywalls allow you to remotely configure and A/B test your entire paywall UI without any code changes or app updates. Learn more here.
Essential Developer is running a free course for mid/senior iOS devs who want to take their technical and practical skills further. Learn more here.
Superwall lets you build and test paywalls easily: run experiments, offer sales, segment users, and more – and it's free for up to 250 conversions a month! Learn more here.

News from friends

New iOS releases are a great chance to take advantage of new APIs to ship something brilliant, and this year I've been really impressed by two releases:

Meshing by Rudrank Riyam takes just one API from SwiftUI this year – mesh gradients – and builds a whole app around it, showing once again just how many app ideas are waiting to be developed.
CardPointers 6 by Emmanuel Crouvisier adds a new Lock Screen control telling you which bank card you should pay with wherever you are, so you can earn the most reward points – it's so good it's almost invisible. Watch the video here.

Discounts on books

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

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…

Recently I tweeted that I had already come up with the apps we'll be building in the next two Hacking with Swift+ live streams, and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you over the coming weeks.

In a reply, someone asked why I didn't ship my own apps, and I want to answer this in three parts.

First: I have shipped a huge number of apps over the years, both personally and professionally. I literally just went to App Store Connect and counted 127 apps there under my personal account, and I shipped easily another 100 more professionally.

My professional work ended up being used by some huge companies: Autodesk, Xerox, Fender, UBS, and even Apple used it, and I had so much fun building and working with them.

In fact, I realized this year marks 15 years since I shipped my first app for iPhone, and because I've been programming for 30 years it means now literally half my career has been building for iPhone, iPad, and other Apple platforms. I even shipped a new app a few months ago: Spatial Symphony for visionOS, which is a theremin-like instrument for Apple Vision Pro that lets you make music with your hands.

So, that's the first thing: I've shipped a lot of apps already!

The second thing is that I devote almost all my working time to helping other people get the same success I did. I can't tell you how much I love my job – every day I get to sit down at my laptop and share something new with you that I'm excited about, and I've lost track of how many careers started with my tutorials.

Not only does this mean I already have a lot of work on my hands updating my books, writing new things, and preparing live streams (see above!), but it also means when I get to the end of my current task list I find myself staring at many other hundreds of other things I should be doing just for Hacking with Swift.

But that leads me to the third thing I want to say: clearly there's a desire for me to ship something new, so let's do it. I'm going to do the same thing I encourage you all to do: take one of the (many!) apps we build in the monthly Hacking with Swift+ live streams, add some polish, and put it on the App Store.

What's more, I'm going to ship it before the next Hacking with Swift newsletter. That way I don't take too much time away from writing, but also hopefully show you what it takes to get an app through to the App Store.

As part of this I'm going to try to document a little of the process: some of the code changes I made to the project, some of the design process, and some of the submission process, just in case it helps someone else else along the way. It's not going to be comprehensive – I do have an absurd number of other things to cover – but I'll do my best.

So: I've shipped a ton of apps already, today I spend most of my time trying to help others ship apps rather than building my own, but as a special request I'll do one more and try to write a little about the process – and I'll do it before the next newsletter too.

Anyway, enough from me for now – I think I need to get back to work!

Paul

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