The iCal format, first defined as a standard as RFC 2445 in 1998, is the universally accepted format for distributing calendar files, mainly used for distributing events.

As part of my QR code scanning app Scanula I added support for detecting events in scanned objects. Thanks to the fantastic libical and the Swift wrapper swift-ical it's fairly easy to parse an iCal feed, but adding it to iOS is a bit trickier.

It's important to test across various screen sizes, which the iOS simulator is good for, but it's also important to test on real devices where possible. I currently have an iPhone 11 Pro, an iPhone 6, and 2 iPod touches. Out of all these I find the iPod touch to be the best device for a lot of iOS development.

With WWDC 2021 just around the corner I've been thinking about what I'd like to see there.

A lot of the popular discourse around this time of year is focussed on features of the operating systems but I want to look at what I'd like to see as a developer for Apple platforms.

I love to develop for Apple platforms but it can often be a painful process. May is like a christmas for Apple developers.

While working on the 2.0 update for Gathered I have been trying to develop the app multiple platforms simultaneously. SwiftUI will solve this problem in the future, but I wish to support some OS versions that SwiftUI does not support.

As part of this I have been creating UI tests to test performance, but ran in to an issue when running the UI tests on macOS using Mac Catalyst:

Running tests...
The bundle “PerformanceXCTests” couldn’t be loaded because it is damaged or missing necessary resources. Try reinstalling the bundle.
(dlopen_preflight(...): no suitable image found.  Did find:
	...: code signature in (...) not valid for use in process using Library Validation: mapped file has no Team ID and is not a platform binary (signed with custom identity or adhoc?))

Gathered 1.3 has been released and is now available on the App Store. Version 1.3 brings 2 new data sources, app-wide speed and UX improvements, and support for various features added in recent versions of iOS.

This update also has lots of behind-the-scenes changes that will make future updates easier to create and deploy, which – along with my features roadmap – should mean more frequent updates.

I wasn't very happy removing the Heart Rate data source but Apple weren't very happy with the use of HealthKit.

Sharing a location on iOS is something that not a lot of apps need, but after requiring it for my latest app, Scanula, I found that there isn't a good resource explaining how to do it properly. This is the first post in a series of planned posts going over a few of the tips, tricks, and common pitfalls I have found while working with iOS Share Sheets.

Gathered 1.0.1 was released a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to write a quick blog post addressing part of the changelog

Touch ID is a wonderful piece of technology, to the point where wouldn't buy an iOS device without it. It had many great uses, such as:

• Unlock the device
• Authorise Apple Pay payments
• Add biometric restrictions within apps

However, I wish to discuss the first of these: unlocking the device.