What Is the Difference Between Private and Fileprivate in Swift 4

Last year, I wrote about the difference between private and fileprivate in Swift 3. With the impending release of Swift 4, it's time for an update. Access control underwent several important changes since the introduction of the Swift language, several years ago.

in Swift

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift: Part 3

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift

This is the third and last installment of a series that teaches you how to mock and stub system classes in Swift. In this tutorial, we unit test the AddLocationViewViewModel class.

in Testing

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift: Part 2

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift

Remember from the previous installment of this series that our goal is to mock the Core Location framework and stub the responses of any geocoding requests we send to Apple's location services. This is necessary if we want to create a fast and reliable test suite. Being in control of the test environment is key if your goal is creating a robust test suite.

in Testing

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift: Part 1

How to Mock and Stub a System Class in Swift

Speed and reliability are key elements of a robust test suite. But for a test suite to be fast and reliable, you need to be in control of the environment in which the test suite is run. You don't want to write a unit test that depends on the response of an API request. Right? For such a unit test to be fast and reliable, the API your application interacts with needs to be mocked and its response stubbed.

in Testing

Should Outlets Be Optionals or Implicitly Unwrapped Optionals

Last week, I wrote about weak and strong outlets. But there's another question about outlets that comes up frequently. Should outlets be declared as optionals or implicitly unwrapped optionals? This tutorial zooms in on the pros and cons of each of these options.

in Swift

PixelCut and PaintCode

The Business of Software

A few weeks ago, I got in touch with Peter Krajcik from PixelCut to talk about running a software company focused on the Apple ecosystem. While the name may not sound familiar, you may be familiar with PaintCode, PixelCut's flagship product.

in Business

An Introductory Core Data Tutorial

If you're reading this, then I assume you are new to Core Data. You may have heard about Core Data and you'd like to find out whether it's a good fit for you or the project you're working on. If this description fits you, then take a seat. This Core Data tutorial teaches you everything you need to know to better understand what Core Data is and isn't.

in Core Data

Five Reasons CloudKit Notifications Are Not Arriving

CloudKit is a powerful, robust, and scalable solution for mobile and desktop applications. If you want to avoid common pitfalls, you need to understand how the framework runs under the hood. Don't immediately blame the tools if something goes wrong.

in CloudKit

Should Outlets Be Weak or Strong

Should outlets be declared weak or strong? It’s a question that pops up surprisingly frequently. In this tutorial, I’d like to definitively answer this question. I also explain the why of the answer.

in Memory Management

What Is Notification.Name and How to Use It

Swift underwent drastic changes with the release of version 3 of the language. As you probably know, those changes weren't limited to the language and the standard library. Apple made many, many changes to the Foundation framework, for example.

in Foundation

Five Simple Tips to Make User Friendly Forms on iOS

Even though forms aren't difficult to implement on iOS, they can be frustrating to use. In today's tutorial, I'd like to share five simple tips that can drastically improve the usability of the forms in your iOS applications.

in Tips and Tricks

How to Make a Custom Control Reactive With RxSwift

Earlier this week, I showed you how to create a custom control using a bitmask. In this episode, we take it a step further by making the custom control we built reactive using RxSwift.

in RxSwift