A colleague recently asked how I stay up-to-date with all the new changes constantly being released by Apple and the Swift team. After realizing the answer wasn’t so simple, I figured I’d finally document it!
Below are all the resources and tools I use to stay informed, and hopefully you’ll find value in them too.
WWDC
If nothing else, I highly recommend every iOS engineer dedicate time to watch some of Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. Granted, there are a lot of sessions available, but here’s what I’d consider the essentials:
Keynote
Platforms State of the Union
What’s new in Swift
What’s new in SwiftUI
What’s new in Xcode
What’s new in Privacy
Other relevant “What’s new in…” sessions depending on your app(s)
You can find past sessions at Apple Developer Videos.
Subscribing to RSS Feeds
RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format.
There are plenty of websites and apps available for you to start tracking various RSS feeds. Feel free to pick your favorite! If you just want to get started now, Feedly is a popular free option.
Below are some RSS feeds to get you started:
“Official” Feeds
- A mix of important announcements that may require your attention and more general news that’s worth keeping an eye on.
- Stay informed on Swift language updates and interesting Swift uses around the community.
Newsletters
- Great resource if you just want someone else to curate recent blog posts from the community!
Individual Blogs
In no particular order, here are several blogs I’ve found producing some great content worth following:
Additional Resources
- A massive list of blogs to pick from, though warning that not all will be very active
- With an RSS Feed available, this is a great way to now when a new version of Xcode has dropped and see what’s new
Curating a Social Feed
A lot of folks in the iOS community don’t write up longer form blog posts that often, however there’s a ton of great discussion happening across sites like Mastodon. Whether you want to participate or just lurk, it’s a great place to discover valuable nuggets of information.
To begin building a list of people to follow, you can start by finding your favorite:
Blog or newsletter authors
Conference speakers
Indie app developers
Open-source tool developers
Tip: Once you start finding a few individuals you enjoy following, check out who they follow for even more inspiration
Other Sources of Information
- See what features have been added and what bugs have been found and/or fixed
- Key an eye on changes being proposed to the Swift Language