No AR/VR glasses but at least RoomPlan will let you make rapid 3D room maps
WWDC Apple this week at its Worldwide Developer Conference delivered software development kits (SDKs) for beta versions of its iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS 13, tvOS 16, and watchOS 9 platforms. For developers sold on seeking permission from Apple to distribute their software and paying a portion of revenue for the privilege, it’s a time to celebrate and harken to the message from the mothership. While the consumer-facing features in the company’s various operating systems consist largely of incremental improvements like aesthetic and workflow enhancements, the developer APIs in the underlying code should prove more significant because they will allow programmers to build apps and functions that weren’t previously possible. Many of the new capabilities are touched on in Apple’s Platforms State of the Union presentation. Apple’s Xcode Cloud CI/CD system has emerged from beta testing and is now available to Apple Developer Program members. It provides a way to build app code, in conjunction with build status, reports, and automatic build distribution to testers and users. Eligible devs get 25 hours of free time through December. Thereafter prices start at $14.99/month for 25 hours. SwiftUI, Apple’s framework for user interfaces on its various operating systems, has a new stateful navigation API called NavigationStack, for UI screen navigation based on data, and a way to insert a TextField in an Alert. It also incorporates Swift Charts, a data visualization framework, among other enhancements. Developers may wish to review the recent changes to Apple’s Swift programming language, including improvements in Swift Concurrency, Swift Async Algorithms, Swift Regex, and Swift Package plugins. Apple’s WidgetKit has been extended to allow devs to build complications for watchOS 9 and widgets for the iOS 16 Lock Screen for iPhone. And later this year, following a planned iOS 16 update, the Live Activities API should be available to create real-time widgets.
