App Intents

If you’ve ever thought Apple isn’t opinionated on app architecture, look again. App Intents has a type called AppDependencyManager built-in, which promotes injection of dependencies, and they even recommend using it in the main app target, setting it up in your App’s init. Buttons and Toggle can take an AppIntent. It’s almost like Apple built their own optional alternative to PointFree’s TCA. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/244/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/275/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/260/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/281/

March 24, 2026 · 1 min

Breaking down Swift Playgrounds 4.6

Apple has released the long-awaited Swift Playgrounds 4.6 update, or as it’s now known, Swift Playground! The release notes read as follows: This update includes a new document browser to easily create a new playground or find a recent one, and provides bug fixes and improved stability. Let’s see what’s new! iOS 18 Support! Despite the description, the update does include support for targeting SDKs up to iOS 18.1. Interface changes The update also includes the new document browser demoed in June last year which is a big win for organising projects!...

January 31, 2025 · 2 min

My iPad coding wishlist for 2025

The story so far Last year, I developed and released Medlied from my iPad using Swift Playgrounds. I cut out the Mac from my workflow completely, enjoyed live on-device previews that update in seconds, and I even got the privilege of doing a talk on my experience using Swift Playgrounds at Leeds Mobile! Unfortunately, this setup still has some holes which I ran into with my next project. First, Swift Playgrounds support for iOS 18 has failed to materialise....

January 30, 2025 · 3 min

App development on iPad

In the last year, I’ve gone all-in on building apps using an iPad. I’ve never met another Playgrounds developer, and a lot of the community are surprised this is even possible! This post should clear up what is and isn’t possible when it comes to app development on iPad, and I hope to encourage others to give this a try too! I use my iPad hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor for most serious work, with both screens set to More Space....

October 12, 2024 · 8 min

Effective SwiftUI Previews

Previews are a handy tool for getting a live look at all possible states of a view, and I often finding myself creating loads without thinking. Yet I find people often have trouble getting previews to work nicely. This is my attempt to break down my approach for those people. If you use TCA, which ties architecture very deeply to the view, my best advice is to look to their docs on the topic....

April 28, 2024 · 9 min

Welcome to my blog!

A mutating and functional blog for whatever is on my mind. Expect Swift and iPad topics published from my iPad!

October 16, 2023 · 1 min