Weekly List

Recently, the Swift community established the Swift on Android Community Workgroup, aiming to promote the use of Swift in the Android ecosystem. This initiative follows a similar path to how the Arc browser advanced Swift's development on the Windows platform. Notably, members of the Skip team, which specializes in cross-platform development, have also joined the working group. Although still in its early stages, this undoubtedly marks an important step for the Swift community in breaking down platform barriers.

Recently, I received an email from Apple informing me that an issue I reported last April has been fixed. What’s even more delightful is that this fix applies not only to the latest system but is also backward compatible with iOS 17.5, macOS 14.5, tvOS 17.5, watchOS 10.5, and visionOS 1.3.

This year, I experienced a quieter Spring Festival than usual. For Chinese people, the New Year has always been inseparable from the brilliance of fireworks and the lingering scent of sulfur in the air. In recent years, however, many cities have restricted firework displays for environmental and safety concerns. Even in my city, where fireworks were traditionally unrestricted, core urban areas faced new regulations this year. While the city has indeed grown quieter, something of the festive spirit seems to have dimmed with the silence.

DeepSeek’s new model is undoubtedly one of the brightest stars in the tech world recently. With incredibly low training costs, they have developed an AI system that rivals the performance of leading large models. Based on personal experience, DeepSeek’s V3 and R1 are more than sufficient to meet the needs of most scenarios.

On the evening of the latest weekly newsletter's release, the email subscription count surpassed 3,000. Combined with other distribution channels, each weekly newsletter now reaches at least 6,000 readers in the week following its publication. While this may not be an extraordinary achievement, it has far exceeded my initial expectations when I started this journey.

Large language models have become indispensable assistants in my day-to-day work and personal life. Currently, my primary means of interacting with them is conversational. While this style of communication has grown increasingly smooth and intuitive with the improvement of model capabilities, when various needs are interwoven into a single conversation, the resulting efficiency often falls short of what I’d like. To address this, I’ve recently begun exploring how to tailor prompts for dedicated sessions focused on specific tasks.

My city has a unique setup—the existing airport sits in the heart of the urban area, no more than 10 kilometers from any of the main districts. This ideal location has long made travel remarkably convenient for residents. However, this very location has become a constraint on the airport's growth: for the past decade, the airport has been running at full capacity, with little room to open new routes. Meanwhile, dense residential zones surrounding the airport limit its runway classification and potential expansions.

Despite the unrest in the world, 2024 has been a fulfilling and wonderful year for me. Throughout the year, I wrote 47 articles and published 51 weekly newsletters, and I can feel my understanding of Swift and SwiftUI continuously deepening. What brings me the most joy is that my entire family has stayed healthy and well.

2024 marks the sixth year since I received a kidney transplant. Reflecting on this year, my personal health has been stable and smooth. As the year drew to a close, I received two exciting pieces of news—two groundbreaking advancements in xenotransplantation of kidneys, which fill me with hope for the future

Two years ago, a friend asked me for a programming language recommendation for his six-year-old who was showing interest in coding. Considering he already had an iPad and MacBook, I didn't hesitate to recommend Swift Playgrounds. A few days ago, another friend asked me a similar question, and while I still recommended Playgrounds, I wasn’t as certain as I was two years ago. I’m just not so sure about whether Swift is still suitable for beginners these days.

Last week, one of my belongings needed repair. The shop informed me it would take about two hours, so I set off by car to a shopping mall with only my laptop in tow. It wasn’t until I handed over my item that I realized a glaring oversight: I had forgotten to bring my smartphone. What might seem like a minor slip-up turned out to be the start of a series of unexpected inconveniences over the next two hours.

Last Saturday, a two-way switch in our living room suddenly stopped working. This would have been a mundane electrical fault, but for me, it carried a deeper significance. It was the last of the many smart switches I installed 18 years ago that still functioned, and its "retirement" marked the complete sunset of traditional smart devices in my life.

Why are these annoying articles or short videos always being recommended? How can I block them? This is a question my father has been asking frequently lately. Even though I've taught him some technical methods (like choosing to reduce similar recommendations or blocking specific accounts), the reality is that once a user's 'profile' is formed, it often takes a considerable amount of time to see any changes in the recommended content. This highlights a brutal truth: in the world of algorithmic recommendations, the weight of user choices is far less than imagined; the platform's pursuit of traffic is the fundamental driving force. Under this logic, even traffic generated by negative emotions is still traffic, and 'haters' are also an important part of big data algorithms.

The shower in my home developed a minor leak. Although the leakage was minimal, the issue had been bothering me for some time. I hired an experienced repair technician who arrived equipped with ultrasonic and thermal imaging leak detection tools. However, due to the small volume of leakage, he was unable to pinpoint the source. Amusingly, much like how symptoms often disappear when patients visit a hospital, the leakage stopped entirely after I scheduled the repair.

The release of visionOS 2.2 beta finally brings the long-awaited "wide" and "ultra-wide" virtual display modes to Apple Vision Pro. In ultra-wide mode, users are presented with an expansive display space that transcends physical field of view limitations. Although Apple Vision Pro has its hardware resolution constraints, thanks to Foveated Rendering technology, the virtual display is not only clearer than before but also delivers a visual experience comparable to an 8K display.

Recently, Pixelmator officially announced its upcoming integration with Apple, pending final regulatory approval. They assured that their flagship products—Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator—will remain largely unchanged in the near term.

It's been over 20 years since `Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone` first hit theaters. With recent theatrical re-releases, I've started revisiting this classic series, having just watched the third installment, `Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban` yesterday.

In the digital age, security, convenience, and privacy remain perpetual challenges. According to a recent report from The Register, Apple has proposed a significant change to SSL/TLS certificate lifespans, planning to reduce them from the current 398 days to 200 days in 2025, 100 days in 2026, and ultimately to just 45 days by 2027.

Remember when smart devices were durable goods and luxury items? Today, they've quietly taken on more characteristics of fast-moving consumer goods and decorative items. Somewhere along the line, annual updates and constant innovation became the norm for tech products. Big companies' annual release events have essentially become the tech world's fashion shows, captivating audiences worldwide.

Although there are already many excellent Apple development ecosystem weeklies and newsletters online, I still founded this one. The initial intention was simple: to filter out content that interests me from daily readings and share it with readers from my own perspective. From the first issue published in early October last year until now, it's been a year in the blink of an eye, totaling 51 issues.

After JetBrains announced the discontinuation of updates for AppCode, many developers worried that Xcode would lack competition, lose the motivation to grow, and that there would be fewer alternatives for developing Swift projects. However, with the continuous improvement of the plugin provided by the Swift Server Work Group for VSCode, and the emergence of AI editors like Cursor the ecosystem of Swift development tools is quietly changing. Now, developing Swift projects on VSCode or Cursor is becoming not only increasingly easy but also a better experience.

Since beta 7, I’ve upgraded all my Apple devices to this year’s new system. After using it for a while, I felt this year's update seemed much more stable than the past two years. However, it turns out this was just my personal illusion.

Just hours after Apple released the iPhone 16, Huawei introduced the Mate XT at its own product launch, marking the world's first mass-produced triple-folding smartphone. The device instantly captivated attention with its unique design and intricate mechanical structure.

Half an hour ago, Apple's 2024 annual hardware product launch event just concluded. Due to numerous product leaks prior to the event, I've gradually lost interest in Apple's September keynotes, especially considering the need to stay up late (the event starts at 1 AM local time due to time zone differences). In fact, I've rarely watched Apple's live events in recent years.

A week ago, I received a notification from the Traffic Police App informing me that it was time to renew my driver's license. A decade has passed since my last renewal, during which both the regulations governing licenses and the methods for conducting medical examinations have undergone significant changes.

Recently, I began refactoring one of my apps, with full Swift 6 support being a key consideration. During this process, I first attempted to achieve perfect compilation for my self-built third-party libraries in Swift 6 mode.

Black Myth: Wukong is an action role-playing game developed over several years by the Chinese game studio Game Science, inspired by the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West". It was officially released on multiple platforms on August 20th (the same day this weekly newsletter is published).

Since creating this blog in 2020, I have accumulated nearly 200 articles over the years. Every year, I choose to take a break for a while (1-2 months). This not only gives me an opportunity to enrich myself deeply but also allows me to relax thoroughly, gathering strength for future challenges.

Last weekend, I attended a high school reunion. While I've maintained close contact with many classmates, there were a few I hadn't seen in decades since graduation. During the gathering, many classmates were immersed in reminiscing about our school days, with a projector on the wall displaying a meticulously crafted slideshow of old school photos.

A few months ago, I was invited to write a SwiftUI tutorial, which included a section on SwiftData. Recently, when I started preparing this content, I found the difficulty far exceeded my expectations. On one hand, I needed to find a way to express concepts suitable for beginners; on the other hand, I needed to break free from the confusion caused by my Core Data experience in understanding and explaining SwiftData.

Last week, I embarked on an "adventure" journey to Hangzhou. During the Let's VisionOS event in Beijing this April, I noticed a tall boy, Ryan Zhu, helping out with various tasks alongside the event organizers. To my surprise, I learned that he was only 17 years old and still in his second year of high school.

Recently, Baidu (China's largest search engine company)'s stock price has risen significantly, which is not unrelated to a widely circulated news story. Reportedly, Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing platform "Apollo Go" deployed 1,000 self-driving taxis in Wuhan, achieving impressive market performance and triggering deep concern among some traditional taxi drivers.

Recently, the head of Microsoft's AI department made a controversial statement in an interview, suggesting that any content published on the open web could be considered "free software" and could be copied and used by anyone. Unsurprisingly, this view has been widely criticized, but people remain deeply concerned that these highly influential tech giants might attempt to legalize their behavior from a legal standpoint, thereby eroding the rights of original creators.

Recently, Apple officially expanded the Apple Vision Pro (AVP) to markets in more countries. Given the uniqueness of AVP, especially the need for custom lenses for eyeglass wearers, allowing consumers to experience the product firsthand will undoubtedly improve their understanding and potentially drive sales. However, without significant improvements in price, wearing comfort, and ecosystem, merely expanding the sales territory may not lead to exciting market performance.

The recent launch of Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been a pleasant surprise. In use, it not only better meets my needs compared to ChatGPT 4, but also seems to have higher response efficiency. The only disappointment is that even with a Pro account, the available token count still feels insufficient.

WWDC 2024 has successfully concluded. Throughout this week, Apple showcased a series of new features and functionalities that will significantly impact the future. I will share my thoughts and feelings about several aspects that particularly resonated with me, reflecting on the highlights of this WWDC.

Yesterday, WWDC 2024 unfolded as scheduled. In the first keynote, artificial intelligence shone as the brightest star. Apple integrated AI technology into various system areas in a rather natural way, maintaining existing user habits unaltered and fully utilizing the contextual information provided by devices. To enhance user privacy, cloud-based AI capabilities are not relied upon unless the device’s local AI is insufficient. Even when accessing the internet, Apple pledged to strictly protect user privacy. In embracing AI, Apple has not loosened its longstanding focus on privacy.

Apple has always been a pragmatic participant in the AI field, providing excellent on-device AI capabilities. However, since the rise of generative AI last year, investors, consumers, and developers alike have been eager for Apple to offer more intuitive and perceptively rich AI technologies. Given the current market demands, it is foreseeable that AI-related content will occupy a very important position at this year's WWDC 2024.

Apple recently made a significant design update to the Developer Forum. The new version not only offers a more elegant visual design but also has rationalized the categorization of the forum. Each category and tag now includes an RSS link, enabling developers to receive information in their areas of interest more promptly.

May 16th (the third Thursday of May every year) marks this year's Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). This annual event aims to remind developers, designers, and related professionals to focus on the accessibility of their digital products and services. The event emphasizes that accessibility in technology is crucial for people with disabilities, as it enables them to use websites, applications, and various digital devices more conveniently.

On May 7, Apple finally updated the iPad series after a year and a half, with the highlight being the new iPad Pro equipped with the latest M4 chip. According to leaked benchmark data online, the M4 significantly outperforms the M2 and even M3 chips.

Last week, The Browser Company officially released the Windows version of the Arc browser. Known for its excellent tab management, diverse themes, and outstanding performance, Arc has made a significant impression on macOS and iOS platforms over the past few years.

Recently, I have been receiving intermittent feedback from blog readers indicating that the access speed is slow, with some readers even needing more than 10 minutes to load

Apple recently updated its App Store Review Guidelines, now allowing emulator apps into the App Store. Just a few days ago, an emulator app named Delta was launched on the store. Delta is an all-in-one emulator designed for iOS, supporting a variety of Nintendo handheld games. This app was actually developed a long time ago but was previously only available to users in non-App Store formats due to policy restrictions.

On April 11, 1976, Apple took a significant step with the debut of the Apple I computer, designed by Steve Wozniak. Although it was just a circuit board that required users to provide their own keyboard and monitor, its historical significance is profound as this product cemented Apple's position in the market.

Since its official debut in 2014, Swift has entered its tenth year of development. Although Swift began supporting Linux at the end of 2015, its promotion and application on non-Apple platforms have been slow over the years, and many still regard Swift as a language exclusive to the Apple ecosystem.

On March 30th to 31st, 2024, I was fortunate to attend the Let's VisionOS 2024 conference in Beijing. This grand event, being the world's first large forum dedicated to VisionOS development, attracted distinguished guests and developers from all corners of the globe. Throughout the conference, speakers generously shared their professional techniques, valuable experiences, design philosophies, and insightful analyses of future trends in the VisionOS development field.

Time flies, and before we know it, it's already the end of March, with just over two months left until WWDC 2024. Recently, some developers have started listing the new features and functionalities they hope to see at WWDC 2024. Every developer within the Apple ecosystem has their own hopes and expectations, what are you looking forward to?

Apple recently notified developers submitting apps for review to include privacy manifest files in their apps if they use specific APIs. This requirement stems from the new policy introduced at WWDC 2023, aimed at compelling app developers and SDK producers to explicitly declare their app's privacy practices. By May 1, 2024, apps that fail to provide a complete privacy manifest will not pass the App Store's review process. Developers are required to provide clear privacy statements for the APIs or third-party libraries used, ensuring transparency and the protection of user privacy.

Last week was a busy one for Apple. They released the MacBook Air equipped with the M3 chip, launched iOS 17.4 allowing European Union users to access third-party app stores, expressed dissatisfaction with Spotify and the EU on their official website, and temporarily suspended Epic's developer account (which is reportedly soon to be restored). Additionally, Apple launched Xcode 15.3, bringing with it the update to Swift 5.10.

Recently, Apple Inc. announced at an internal meeting the termination of its ambitious car project "Titan," marking the official end of this decade-long, costly secret project. With the project's termination, some employees will be shifted to AI research and development positions to accelerate Apple's growth in this area. It is reported that Apple plans to integrate more AI features into products such as Siri, Spotlight, and Xcode, hoping that this personnel adjustment will help close the gap with other AI industry leaders.

Recently, the Swift community announced the release process for Swift 6. Starting March 15, 2024, the release/6.0 branch will be branched off from the main branch, marking a significant acceleration in the Swift 6 project. It is anticipated to be released alongside the new version of Xcode in the second half of this year.

After several months of studying SwiftData, I only recently adopted it in my project. However, I found that coding efficiency has decreased compared to using Core Data. This is not because SwiftData is difficult to use; in fact, even though SwiftData is developed based on Core Data, to use and understand it correctly, I had to abandon many of the Core Data experiences I previously mastered and try to adopt programming logic more aligned with the design philosophy of SwiftData, leading me to start over several times.

Apple Vision Pro started shipping to customers a few days ago, with the first batch of deliveries exceeding expectations impressively. Feedback from various quarters indicates that aside from its weight and price, the Apple Vision Pro surpasses its competitors in most aspects of the experience. Numerous users have already showcased videos on social media of using the device in various scenarios such as driving, exercising, walking, and working, hinting at the emergence of a new cyberculture. We look forward to this trend continuing and hope to see breakthrough applications soon that fully leverage the potential of the Apple Vision Pro.

On December 25th last year, my blog was officially launched after a redesign. A significant change in this revision was the provision of articles in both Chinese and English versions, and I also stopped updating articles on other technical platforms in China. A month later, from December 25th to January 23rd, the blog's traffic data showed significant changes

On January 19th, the Apple Vision Pro finally went on sale. Judging from the response speed of the Apple Store and the estimated delivery time of the product, the initial batch showed signs of being in high demand. Despite its high price, consumers (with developers and self-media expected to make up a significant portion of the first batch) still showed keen interest. However, how long this situation will last and what the public opinion will be after the product is delivered remains to be seen.

I recently began redeveloping my "Health Notes" application. With the new version only supporting devices running iOS 17 and above, I've found greater freedom in choosing the technical direction. This week, I restructured the state management code in my project using the Observation framework, and the results were surprisingly good. Beyond performance improvements, this class-based approach to state management has brought me many new insights, making it more aligned with SwiftUI practices. It has freed state splitting and combination from being confined to purely state management code.

Recently, the iOS 17.3 Beta 2 version released by Apple encountered an unexpected issue, causing a boot loop problem in several devices, including the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Currently, it seems the only solution is to download and install the IPSW firmware. Although the Beta version is primarily aimed at developers, the emergence of such a serious issue is still surprising.

Welcome readers to the brand new year of 2024! First of all, I sincerely wish each and every one of you a happy new year, filled with happiness and success. Looking back at 2023, I have briefly summarized my achievements in writing. In that year, I wrote a total of 34 blog posts, covering a diverse range of topics.Among the articles I published in 2023, the top five most popular ones among English readers were (according to Medium's statistics)

After more than a month of hard work, I am pleased to announce that the new version of "Fatbobman's Blog" has been launched as scheduled before the end of 2023. I am looking forward to your visits and welcome everyone to provide valuable opinions and suggestions. This update not only achieved my preset goals but also gave me a deeper understanding of the latest front-end development technologies. I will write an article to record the insights and experiences during this update process.

Last week, Apple released the latest update version 17.2 for iOS. In this version, Apple finally introduced the "Journaling" app that was previewed at WWDC 2023. Due to its simplistic design and seemingly limited functionality, "Journaling" did not leave a deep impression on most users at first. I started using "Journaling" since version 17.2 beta 1, and like many other users, I also had doubts about why Apple took such a long time to develop such a "simple" app. But as I delved deeper into using it, I gradually realized the ambition behind it an information collection and aggregation tool based on local devices and AI algorithms.

In the past week, I have frequently encountered cookie consent pop-ups while browsing popular websites. Despite the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European Union for many years, it seems that more websites have only recently started to strictly comply. As someone with a legal background, I deeply understand the efforts made by the European Union to protect individuals' privacy. However, achieving a perfect balance between safeguarding privacy and not hindering technological advancements undoubtedly poses a challenge.

Recently, I have been busy with refactoring my blog website. This is not only an update project, but also an opportunity to learn new programming languages and modern web development frameworks. As a bilingual blog, I plan to add a simple logic on the homepage to automatically redirect visitors to the corresponding language page based on their browser language settings. During the testing process, I found that different browsers handle the system language list differently, which is a common challenge in frontend development. Although in most cases, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript standards behave consistently across different browsers, there are still slight differences.

On November 22nd, the CEO turmoil at OpenAI finally came to an end with Sam Altman's return. Along with his return, the company's board of directors underwent restructuring.In the past two weeks, I have been using ChatGPT intensively to help me create new projects (see the article in this issue of the blog for details). I'm not sure if it's related to the recent events, but the stability of ChatGPT has been quite unsatisfactory lately. I hope that with the re-stabilization of the company's management team, the quality of the service will also improve.

Last week, Tony Stubblebine, the CEO of Medium, published an article titled Let a thousand programming publications bloom on Medium. In the article, he announced the temporary suspension of the highly acclaimed publication, Better Programming, in order to make room for other programming publications, as the title suggests.Better Programming is popular on Medium and is one of the most subscribed technology publications. Some of the articles I have published on Medium have been accepted and recommended to more readers through Better Programming. However, as the IT field continues to specialize, Better Programming's readers are receiving many excellent articles that are not directly relevant to their interests. This not only disperses the readers' attention but also hinders the formation of closer connections between readers and authors.

According to a report by MacRumors, Apple engineers have been instructed to pause ongoing development of new versions and focus on fixing existing bugs and improving software performance. This pause is expected to last for one week.We won't discuss whether one week is enough time to fix the numerous issues in the current system, frameworks, and development tools. But at least Apple is showing the intention and determination to address the bugs, something that many developers and users have been expecting for a long time.

On October 31, Apple held the shortest product launch in history. As expected, Apple released the MacBook Pro and iMac based on the M3 chip.Based on the data, the M3 chip shows moderate improvement in the CPU aspect, but its GPU performance is outstanding, especially with hardware-level ray tracing support.

Yuque is a well-known cloud note service provider in China, positioned as a knowledge base tool, highly favored by IT companies and developers. However, last week Yuque encountered a severe online outage that lasted for a whole 7 hours. Coupled with the founder's departure a few months ago, various speculations circulated on the internet. Eventually, the problem was resolved, and in order to appease public opinion, Yuque offered six months of free membership as compensation to its users.

Last week, Alexandre Colucci released his annual report analyzing the usage of Swift and SwiftUI in the latest version of iOS. The report's findings were consistent with expectations, showing an increase in usage of both Swift and SwiftUI in iOS 17. Particularly exciting is the significant growth in the adoption of SwiftUI in Apple's own applications.

From the launch of the first beta version at WWDC 2023, SwiftData has been around for four months in the blink of an eye. In the past month, I have devoted considerable effort to researching and learning it, and have written several articles about it.SwiftData largely addresses several major criticisms of Core Data. This is mainly reflected in the following

A few months ago, the "摸鱼周报" officially came to an end after completing 100 issues. As an editor for the content recommendation section, I felt very relaxed and happy during the period that just ended, no longer needing to prepare articles every week. However, after some time, I realized that those articles I carefully selected, read, and recommended left a deep impression on me when I searched for technical clues from memory. Although I still read many articles and blogs every day after the publication ceased, the impression is not as profound as when I was an editor. Therefore, I have decided to create a new electronic newsletter where I can share excellent works and information while also gaining something from the process of collecting and organizing.