August 9, 2025 • 42 mins
Everyone is doing it, or at least should be. We're discussing how to make the necessary changes and prepare our apps for the upcoming Apple OS 26 releases, which will be available in the next couple of months.
Share your thoughts with us
https://compileswift.com/contact
Become a Patreon member and help this Podcast survive
https://www.patreon.com/compileswift
Follow us on Mastodon
https://iosdev.space/@Compileswift
- flanker
- Jay Wilson
- Adam Wulf
- bitSpectre
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Geoff (00:00):
You wanna re you wanna yeah. Restart it, and I will
(00:03):
still interject. Yeah.
Peter (00:06):
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of
the CompileSwift Podcast. Thisweek, we are going to be talking
about our experiences asdevelopers upgrading our apps to
iOS 26, macOS 26, 26,everything. But first of all,
how are you doing, Geoff?
Geoff (00:27):
Yeah. I'm doing just great. I have been spending a
lot of time in the 26 OStrenches, and it's been it's
been an experience. Let's saythat.
Peter (00:38):
Yeah. And I think, no spoilers here, folks, but we've
had two two pretty differentexperiences. Right? However, you
know, we're gonna go throughthese, and I think the best
place to start is with yourexperiences. So let's dive in
here.
We're gonna start with Geoff'sapps and his experiences because
(00:58):
I'm sure he has spent a lot moretime with this than I have. So,
Geoff, how's it been going foryou, buddy?
Geoff (01:05):
Yeah. So I have my big two apps are the ones that I'm
focusing on for this iOS 26update. And we're gonna say iOS
26 throughout the stream today.When I say iOS 26, I also mean
every platform that my apps runon. So for Bark, it truly is iOS
26.
(01:25):
For Black Highlighter, it isiOS, macOS and iPadOS 26, and
the rest of the apps as you seefit. Thank you
Peter (01:36):
for saying that though, because that that's been my
problem as I've been talking topeople. It's like, oh, do I
they're all 26. Can I just say26, but I still say iOS 26?
Yeah. Apple OS 26.
Geoff (01:51):
Yeah. Apple 20 Yeah.
Peter (01:53):
There you go, S. Yeah.
Geoff (01:55):
Let's start with Bark first because I think that the
story is a little bit morestraightforward there. Bark is
gaining a lot from the fact thatit is 100% SwiftUI. And so a lot
of what I want is kind of justbuilt in. Additionally, Bark was
built in the last year. It wasliterally built last year.
(02:15):
And so I think it kind of was upto date with Apple's, let's call
it, information architecture
Peter (02:22):
Okay.
Geoff (02:23):
As it exists in this year. And so it's kind of
adopting a lot of what Apple wasalready expecting an app to look
and behave like. And so when Ijust flip over to Liquid Glass,
then everything more or lesslooks fine. There were
definitely some tweaks that Ineeded to do for especially, the
(02:48):
main kind of library list screenbecause by default, they're
like, oh, yeah. We're assumingthat you didn't get scroll
views.
Right? And so we're just gonnakinda, like, blur stuff at the
top and bottom. And that lookedhorrible. And so just got a
couple of tweaks there and kindajust disabling the scroll edge
effect really did a lot there.And then kinda just cleaning up
(03:09):
the buttons and how the toolbarinteracts really got me most of
the way towards where I want tobe with Bark.
So, that was one that was kindof not a lot of pain to deal
with.
Peter (03:22):
So I got a question. For those who have not seen the Bark
interface and shame on them,explain for those folks who may
not know what you mean about thetop and the bottom blur. Right?
Geoff (03:38):
Yeah. So that is not something that is in iOS 18.
This is something Apple added iniOS 26, which is that when you
scroll above and beyond orsorry. When you scroll such that
content goes off the top of thescreen or off the bottom of the
screen, it gets this scroll edgeeffect where it just kinda
(04:01):
progressively blurs whatever wasat the bottom or top of the
screen. And with Bark, you havea kinda set, it's this like
waterfall grid of barcodes.
And what happens is that you getthat barcode near the end, and
it just smears the barcode. Andit looks it looks like,
basically, you had a barcodeprinted out on paper, and then
(04:23):
you spilled water over it. Andit does not look all that good.
Peter (04:26):
So it looks authentic then. That's what you're saying.
Right?
Geoff (04:29):
It looks real great. And if you look at, say, the Photos
app, Apple doesn't do that inthe photos app because the
content is expected to kind ofbehave, I guess, as as much as
were. Beta users can debatewhether or not that's actually
(04:51):
true, but it is kind of what isexpected to happen. And then,
really, you've just got atoolbar floating over that, and
it's more about making sure thatthe toolbar is doing the right
thing so that you're notfighting with the content. The
scroll edge effect is reallykind of there to be like this
default that exists to go, okay.
(05:12):
We're not gonna fight with thecontent by just mangling the
content, basically.
Peter (05:17):
So oh yeah. Actually what about is it worth me asking
about well, how has it affectedthe watch experience?
Geoff (05:26):
I have not tested that, and I don't know why. That's a
great thing that I shouldprobably test.
Peter (05:33):
Well, the the reason I say it is because when I think
of Bach
Geoff (05:36):
I think of here's the watch. Right? Which is which is
great. Yeah. I mean, that thatis the original version of it
was built Yeah.
Only for the watch. It was astand alone watch app. I think
the answer is I don't think I'veactually installed the beta on
watch on my watch Mhmm. Yet.Okay.
So
Peter (05:53):
Yeah. I did wanna have one of the
Geoff (05:55):
So the answer is yeah. The answer is I have not tried
it. I expect that it probablydoesn't change too much because
there's not really muchinteractivity with Bark on the
watch. So
Peter (06:06):
No. I mean, it's just sort of designed
Geoff (06:08):
to Yeah.
Peter (06:08):
Make the barcode as big as possible. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff (06:11):
I I think that what's gonna happen is that the list of
barcodes, which is just text on,like, just a scrolling list,
that's gonna get a new UI. Butbecause I didn't change or tweak
that UI at all, like, it's justgonna get the standard UI.
Peter (06:25):
Yeah. So it actually probably is beneficial to you
then. Right? Because they sayI've not tried it myself. But
they say everything is at leasta little bit bigger when it
comes to texts and lists and soon.
So that's gonna be nothing butgood. Right? So given that the
the beta versions this year havechanged quite significantly
(06:47):
between each one, and I don'tmean like they do every year,
but obviously we've got a new UIthis year. Which which beta
versions have you been testingit against? And I'm sure it's
more than one.
And, you know, what have what'sbeen your experiences there? Has
it kind of been a redo and aredo and a redo?
Geoff (07:05):
So I've been using the all of the betas from day one. I
installed the developer betas ona test phone. I did follow our
advice that I said at thebeginning and do not install
beta one on your actual phone.You will regret it. And so I had
that on a test phone and kind ofmessed with my two big apps.
And we'll get back to the otherbig one later. But yeah. And so
(07:29):
have been running against that.I hadn't really dug into a
significant amount of work on ituntil recently because, as you
said, things have been kind offlipping back and forth. So
doing a lot of, like, planningand trying to understand the new
design paradigm and that kind ofthing, but not really jumping
into doing a whole lot of workuntil these most recent betas.
(07:50):
Okay. And with these most recentbetas, we did get the public
beta. And so I have nowinstalled the public beta on my
actual phone and have been doingthat. If we want a quick tangent
into a different app of minereal quick, not one of the big
apps, Debigulator will also begetting a iOS 26 redesign. And
(08:15):
it's not getting any changes tothe actual code of the app.
It is simply getting a new icon,composer derived icon, because
the default icon that Applegenerates on iOS 26 is
disgusting. And so I really justwant to go in there, swap out
the icon, and just be like, yep,here's my iOS 26 update. It just
makes the icon not look likegarbage.
Peter (08:36):
Alright. And and to be clear for folks who may not know
what we're talking about there,the iOS 26, OS 26, whatever,
tries to, in air quotes,intelligently apply this modern
look to your icon that you'vealready got in your application.
(09:00):
Sometimes it's a bit of awinner. Sometimes it's not so
great. Personally, think Iprobably will go back and use
that tool that they're releasingthis year to just redo all of
mine, because I'm sure they'restill better designers than I
am.
(09:20):
Hey, folks. If you like whatyou're hearing in this podcast
and you wanna help this podcastto continue going forward and
having great guests and greatconversations, I invite you to
become a Patreon supporter. Youcan go to
patreon.com/compileswift, whereyou will get ad free versions of
the podcast along with othercontent. So I'm gonna take
(09:41):
advantage of that.
Geoff (09:42):
So, yeah, since installing the public beta, I've
gotten a little bit moreunderstanding of Apple's apps
and whatnot. And so that isreally where I'm starting now to
do the updates to my apps andreally take those on.
Peter (09:56):
So explain what you mean by that. Are you taking, you
know, the Apple apps right nowas they are in the state of '26,
say beta four is this recordingor the public beta, and using
their design principles as aguideline to rework some of
yours? And if so, you know, whatdo you what does that entail?
(10:17):
What does that mean? You're,like, pulling back on some of
that third party design andgoing back to, you know, stock
as it were?
Geoff (10:25):
Yeah. So, basically, what is happening here is that we
have very limited amounts ofinformation on what is expected
out of Liquid Glass and iOS 26style designs. And so we have
Apple's WWDC videos, we have thehuman interface guidelines, and
(10:45):
we have Apple's own apps in iOS26. And so the Hig and the WWC
videos, they're very high level.They're very, you know, here's
the ideals of Liquid Glass, butthey don't really get into the
nitty gritty of, well, Whatkinds of things are you wanting
(11:06):
to have happen?
Yeah. And that is something thatyou do get by looking at, well,
what did Apple actually do inthis scenario? And so being able
to use Apple's apps, the onesthat they have in the betas, is
a way to kind of get an idea forwhat should your app be doing,
(11:26):
what should your app look like.And if we want to segue here
over to my other app, that hashad much more impact on Black
Highlighter than it has on Barkbecause it became obvious that
Black Highlighter's designsensibilities dated as they are
kind of didn't really fit withhow Apple is designing apps
(11:48):
these days.
Peter (11:49):
So, you know, you're saying about how Black
Highlighter feels dated. Solet's talk about that a little
bit. You know, put some numbersto this. When would you say you
know, the the black highlighterwith the interface that it has
now, you know, that's beenaround since since when?
Geoff (12:07):
Yeah. So black highlighter is kinda constantly
going through little tinyupdates, but I think the real,
like, design system as it werewas kinda set down in June 2019.
That's quite a long time ago inin tech terms. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's, this six years ago. Mhmm.And so there are a lot of things
(12:29):
just in terms of how the app islaid out. Not really, you know,
it it not in a lot of waysdesign, like, as graphical
design, but in terms of justinformation architecture. Like,
the very strongly, like, pushand pop driven architecture and
not really having a tab bar.
(12:51):
And it's got a sidebar in there,but it's kinda haphazard, and it
really only exists on iPad andkind of things just they're not
arranged the way that apps arearranged in twenty twenty five.
And so I think that liquid glasskind of assumes that apps are
arranged that way and it'smaking Mhmm. When I apply the
(13:14):
liquid glass styling to thiskind of more dated information
architecture, it's it's reallythrowing into the spotlight
exactly how kind of datedfeeling the design of black
highlighter is.
Peter (13:29):
Okay.
Geoff (13:29):
And it's hard to give exact specifics. You know, I I
did say the sidebar versus, youknow, lacking a tab bar and and
kind of stuff like that. Butreally, it is just the feel of
the application feels out ofplace on iOS 26 in a way that it
was starting to in iOS 18, butthrowing the behaviors of Liquid
Glass onto the design of I mean,twenty nineteen would have been
(13:53):
what iOS 13?
Peter (13:57):
Yeah.
Geoff (13:58):
Definitely does not feel good.
Peter (14:00):
I gotcha. Well, you know, and interestingly, because
you've hit on two the two viewsthat most noticeably changed in
iOS 26, which is, the new tabbar and the new sidebar. And so
Yeah. You know, like you say, ifif it's if you're not up to date
(14:21):
with those, I think those willstand out quite significantly.
And interestingly, one of theapps that I use every day is the
podcast app.
So I have the 26 Beta four on myiPad and I've found actually
that I kind of really like, youknow, the new interface in the
(14:41):
podcast app, and it is a goodexample of dealing with some of
those interesting scenarios,especially the tab bar. You
know, are you gonna takeadvantage, do you think, of that
the new functionality where youcan have I I know it has a name,
and I've forgotten it. There's,like, that mini tab bar, like a
collapsible one. Right?
Geoff (15:01):
Mhmm. Yeah. I I think we might see that on the black
highlighter edit page where it'snot so much the collapsible
toolbar as a whole, but the factthat I do have a search function
in the edit view, which itallows you to look up words in
whatever it is that you'reattempting to redact and go,
(15:22):
okay. You know, I always wannaredact, you know, my name, blah
blah blah. You type in my nameand you hit enter and it just
goes and gets rid of everything.
Gotcha. So that's definitely athing where it's like, oh, well,
they have a new way of doingthis search interface. I
definitely wanna take advantageof that. And things like that is
is kind of things that I cantake advantage of now, but don't
(15:45):
necessarily look right in theway that my app is currently
designed. So I think a big onethat's really kind of causing
this is black highlighter.
When it was designed, you hadthese solid top and bottom bars.
You had the solid nav bar, youhad the solid toolbar, and it
was very clear, here's where thenav bar is, here's where the
(16:06):
content is. And over time, and Ithink especially in like iOS 14
or so, iOS 15 maybe, Apple kindof went, well, let's kind of
hide those bars and just thecontent kind of like goes
beneath it and like maybesometimes it shows. And, you
know, when you scroll, like thenyou see the tab bar, but until
then it's like content in thetab bar, there's no separation
(16:28):
anymore. And I never tookadvantage of that in Black High
I always just left the solidbars on either end.
And now that we've got liquidglass and liquid glass is kind
of floating above the content.Well, in my apps, it's now
floating above just black boxesas
Peter (16:46):
Oh, I gotcha.
Geoff (16:46):
And Okay. That looks kinda gross in in iOS 26. And
it's like, yeah, the the nav barand toolbar, they were already
kind of slightly dated looking,but it didn't really stand out
the way that it does now withiOS 26 where it goes, oh, you
clearly just have a ton of blackspace at the bottom of the view
(17:11):
for no real reason. And Applereally wants that to be you take
that entire area, you fill itwith content, and then you just
have the buttons hovering overthe content rather than hovering
or rather than being containedin their own separate space.
Peter (17:27):
Yeah. I do have to say that, you know, it feels like
Apple's been moving in thisdirection for a while now where,
you know, this seamlessintegration of content and
controls. And I think that thisversion is a natural
progression, and I think it'sgonna be interesting to see
where it goes. But for me, Ifeel very comfortable with it.
Geoff (17:47):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I I it's definitely obviously been a
direction that Apple's beenmoving in for a while, and
liquid glass is kind of just theextreme version of that. And
this is on me for having kindanot kept up for the last couple
years, and now it goes, oh,well, we've got this big jump
with Liquid Glass.
(18:07):
Now I really have to make thatbig jump myself.
Peter (18:10):
Well, you know, and interestingly, I think Apple
making this big jump this yearhas been, in many ways, kind of
freeing for us as developers anddesigners. Right? Because it
gives us that excuse to say, oh,great. I should go back and do
the thing that I know I shouldhave done, but maybe I
procrastinated on it a bit toomuch.
Geoff (18:30):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Peter (18:31):
Okay. So I know from seeing you work on these apps
and seeing these apps in generalthat, you know, Black
Highlighter in particular is,you know, there's noticeable
differences in the currentversions between the UIs, say,
in particular, like the Mac and,say, the iPhone, things like
that. But now that Apple hasgiven us this unified, design
(18:56):
approach on all the platforms,do you think that's gonna play
into your new design and just gofor kind of, okay, one look for
everything? Or do you plan tosort of say, oh, well, I kinda
like the way that there's alittle differences between them?
Geoff (19:11):
Yeah. No. Getting this more unified is definitely a
major goal of my 26 updates.I've really kind of over time
treated it almost like it'srunning on three separate
platforms. You've got iOS,iPadOS, macOS.
And those were kind of almostdesigned entirely separately,
(19:31):
and I'm really wanting to bringthat more together. You know, I
talked about earlier how themain image picker screen on
Black Highlighter has a sidebar,and it's a big deal on iPad, but
it's kinda just buried in iOS,and it's it's not really usable
in iOS.
Peter (19:48):
Mhmm.
Geoff (19:48):
And that is something that I'm gonna have to fix in
'26 and just really make thatmore of a thing. Mac OS is still
gonna be kind of differentbecause of just the nature of on
iOS, Black Highlighter ispicking from your photo library,
whereas on Mac OS, you'rebasically able to use any file
from anywhere on the system.Mhmm. And I think that that's
(20:09):
that's key to the differencesbetween those platforms. So
Black Highlighter's edit screenis fairly similar between the
two, but its image picker screenbasically doesn't exist on
macOS.
And so I'm kinda trying to findways to bring parts of that back
in, but also unify the editinterface a lot more than it
(20:33):
currently is and really havemore of a shared ecosystem
across platforms rather thanhaving the three very separate
designs. Time for a break.
Peter (20:44):
Hey, everybody. It's Peter Widom here from the
compulsive podcast. I'm gonnatell you about Setapp. Setapp is
a service that provides asubscription fee of just $10 a
month, and you get access toover 200 Mac applications, and
it's also available now on iOSas part of that deal. I use the
(21:04):
service because it just has aton of really good first rate
apps that I use all the time.
And for me, it's invaluable as adeveloper to have access to
tools for things like APIs, forplanning projects, writing
emails, writing documentation.And you get all of these things,
including database apps, all ofthat kind of stuff right there
(21:27):
on the Setapp service for just$10 a month. You can use as many
or as few applications as youneed. If you're interested in
checking this out, go topeterwidham.com,
peterwitham.com/setapp,setapp,and you can see the details
there. And it's got a link thatyou can go over and start using
(21:50):
the service and see how it worksout for you.
I strongly recommend this toevery Mac user.
Geoff (21:56):
Break time over.
Peter (21:59):
Yeah. Let's talk about that because, obviously, it is a
big year for iPad. And, youknow, there is no question this
year, iPad and Mac move a lotcloser together. Now I gotta
think that that's gonna causeyou to seriously rethink some of
that interface. Right?
Especially because now there's apossibility that users could be
(22:20):
using it full screen or in awindow.
Geoff (22:23):
Yeah. Exactly. You know, the Windows stuff is gonna make
it so that, you know, the iPadit kinda drags both platforms
closer to the iPad in that, youknow, the window could be shrunk
down, so and you're basicallyseeing the iPhone interface on
the iPad or you've got it, youknow, mostly full screen. But I
think the bigger changes are tostuff like, oh, now we've got a
(22:45):
constant menu bar pulled up. Andthat means that my iPad app has
to kind of go closer to the Macapp in terms of having full menu
bar support and having, youknow, obvious things in there so
that people can quickly accessimportant features, stuff like
that.
Where before, it's like, okay,everything's in that hold down
command view, and it's notreally organized. And maybe that
(23:09):
was what I could get away withfor the last couple releases.
But this means that we've got afar more significant
expectations on iPadOS than wehave in the last couple years.
Peter (23:22):
Yeah. And also, I think there's gonna be a bit of a
learning curve for some users.Right? Because Mhmm. They you
know, if you have never used aMac, and and I hear there are
some people out there like that,they're gonna use iPad, and then
suddenly, they're gonna havethis menu appear and, like,
what's this?
Right? So you've gotta alsopresumably make sure that
(23:44):
anything you're going to do onthe menu or anything you're
going do in the interface inJamboard, you've kind of got to
reflect it in both directions.Right?
Geoff (23:52):
Yeah, exactly. And of course, you've got a little bit
of cross pollination as well. Imean, if you look at Tahoe, for
example, you've got all kinds oficons now in the menus that you
didn't have before. And sothat's gonna be something that
really I kinda need to overhaulmy menu handling entirely. Like,
right now in Black Highlighter,the menu bar stuff is kind of
(24:12):
only compiled at all on the Macversion.
And I'm gonna need to take that,put that into the iPad version,
but then also kind of grab someof the iconography that I have
from iPad buttons and such andmove that into the menu as well.
And so there's gonna be a lot ofgrabbing things from all over
the place and kind of sharingthem across platforms. And
(24:34):
iPadOS is kind of gonna be thecenter of all of that.
Peter (24:38):
Gotcha. And and, of course, that's gonna help you
from a technical perspectivetoo. Right? Because in theory,
I'm guessing it's gonna make ita lot easier for you to make
updates and changes as you goforward or maybe not.
Geoff (24:52):
I I I think a lot of that is gonna have to wait until an
eventual, which I I at thispoint has become inevitable,
SwiftUI. I really kinda had thisarchitecture of SwiftUI on the
outside, wrapping some kind ofUI kit core pieces. And I think
that that's something that Iwould have to do eventually with
Black High Highlighter, whereI've got the UI kit interface
(25:16):
elements that have spent a longtime building and really don't
wanna rebuild in SwiftUI. ButI'm able to kind of move them
around and use them as puzzlepieces inside of a SwiftUI, you
know, scaffolding. Let me let medo that last line a little bit.
Inside of a SwiftUI scaffold, asit were.
Peter (25:39):
So I know some of your application, Black Highlighter,
is not SwiftUI this point.
Geoff (25:44):
The majority of it.
Peter (25:45):
Ah, the majority of it. Even better. Well, maybe not
even better. And that was gonnabe my question was, do you think
that that's gonna make it a lotharder for you? Are you because
you're gonna have to convertthese to SwiftUI, or are you
gonna go with the fact thatApple says, hey.
This new design theory isbackwards compatible. You should
be good. I mean, I'm thinkingin, like, the Mac here, you
(26:08):
know, where you're and that kindof thing.
Geoff (26:11):
Yeah. No. I am not doing a SwiftUI port at the same time.
I am going to keep itsignificantly majority UI kit
even through this update andknow that I will eventually need
to kinda do that SwiftUIreckoning as it were.
Peter (26:26):
Okay.
Geoff (26:27):
But Okay. Through this iOS 26 update, I am going to
stick with it being majority UIkit. And because right now, to
to I go back to what thismajority UI kit is. All of the
photo picker screen, all of thedocument scanner, all of the
editing, all of that, the vastmajority of the app is still
(26:49):
100% UI kit. The only part ofBlack Highlighter that is
SwiftUI is like the settingspage.
And so if you go into settingsand you've got links to, like,
the privacy policy and all myother apps, and then Mhmm. You
go in and you've got the list ofwords that get automatically
automatically. You've got thelist of words that get
automatically redacted. That isall SwiftUI at this point, but
(27:13):
everything else in the app, themain functionality of the app is
still 100 UIKit.
Peter (27:19):
Interesting. So it sounds like some of this is a case of,
a maintenance release in thesense of you you know you've
gotta do this, right, so thatit's sits happy and nice when 26
arrives. And then later on,you'll you'll come along and do
the cleanup. Right?
Geoff (27:35):
Yeah. Yeah. No. Keeping it in UIKit now, I think, is
gonna be the most important partand making sure that I am able
to do the design updates that Ineed. Because in my experience
so far, doing the design updatesthat I need in UIKit is totally
fine.
Like,
Peter (27:52):
they're Interesting.
Geoff (27:53):
They're not sitting here and prioritizing SwiftUI in any
way and saying, you know, oh, ifyou want to do this, you have to
do it in SwiftUI. So it's been agood experience so far with
UIKit going, okay, yeah, no, Ican do this in UIKit. I just
especially wanting to unify thethree platforms a little bit
more is going to be easier inSwiftUI than in UIKit. And it's
(28:17):
that that I need to do as alater maintenance release where
to kind of unify thearchitecture a little bit more.
That's gonna be the part that'seasier in SwiftUI rather than,
oh, I need to adopt LiquidGlass.
That's been totally fine justdoing it in UI kit.
Peter (28:33):
Gotcha. Yeah. I think you know? And thank you, Apple, for
doing that. I I would imagineduring dub dub DC when they
said, you know, oh, hey.
It doesn't have to be SwiftUI.Huge sense of relief to
everybody. Right? I was like,oh, good. However And I I have
next
Geoff (28:49):
I'm happy to yeah. I I'm happy to report that that was
not one of Apple's, you know,white lies. Yeah. That that it
is in fact no. Actually, UIKitworks just fine in And Liquid
Glass and all the things.
Yeah.
Peter (29:03):
And and I'll talk about that a little bit when when I I
talk about my apps because kindof a similar experience. So
yeah. Cool. Alright.
Geoff (29:11):
But yeah. No. I mean, that's that's a good enough
segue as any. Why not starttalking about your apps? Are
Yeah.
How are your apps doing, andwhat what's your experience
been?
Peter (29:20):
Okay. So, you know, first of all, I have one app that I
was actually starting to buildwhen WWDC started. So, you know,
I kinda got lucky there. I wasalready doing it with SwiftUI,
and it's like, oh, great. Well,I just won't do any
customization whatsoever, andwe'll see how it works.
And it works just fine. On myJob Finder tracker app,
(29:42):
interestingly, so far myexperience has been I don't
technically have to do anythingbecause of the way I built it.
It's all built with SwiftUI, butI've got, you know, I colors on
things and and everything else.You really don't get the glass
effect, for the most part. Infact, I I don't recall seeing it
(30:02):
anywhere in the app.
So I could just leave it likethat and not worry about it, but
I actually feel, like Imentioned earlier, this is an
opportunity to go back and say,okay. You know what? I never was
completely satisfied with what Iwanted it to be and what it
ended up as, so I may back out alot of the modifications I've
(30:24):
made and see how it looks withjust the, you know, sort of the
stock glass effect. So that'sgonna be that one. I wanna tell
you about DigitalOcean.
DigitalOcean is a hostingcompany that I use for a lot of
my projects. And I'm gonna tellyou rather than just the usual
thing that you hear on AdWords,I'm gonna tell you exactly how I
use it. It is so simple to setup. You just log in, and I can
(30:46):
set up very quickly with a fewclicks whatever kind of instance
I need on a server with whateverOS or preinstalled apps. I'm
gonna give you a perfect examplehere.
It is so easy to set up Swift onthe server side Vapor, and I did
that recently, and it it waspainless. You know, I went in
there and I set it up. Andbefore you knew it, my Swift
(31:08):
app, I was bouncing off the APIsthat I had created on the server
side and testing everything thatI needed to be tested. But you
don't have to use it forprojects just like that. You can
really use it to host anythingyou want for any length of time
because you're really onlypaying for the resources as you
use them.
You're not paying ahead. Andthey have 14 globally
(31:29):
distributed data centers and99.99% uptime. I'll put a link
in the show notes, but you cango to peterwheedham.com/d0cean.
That's docean. And that'll giveyou some free credits to get
started with.
What's also interesting thoughis in my jobby job, we have one
(31:52):
app which is it's a mixture ofstoryboards, code, and a very,
very small amount of SwiftUI.And we have found that after we
went through everything, again,because we had set, you know,
things like colors and andthings like that, most of the
(32:14):
app was okay. The only areasthat are gonna need some
attention are things like,understandably, tab bars. Some
buttons are a bit weird. Thosekind of things.
You know, like, for example, abutton where you may have set a
custom font color, but youdidn't set a background.
Something like that. Right? And,also, we have a solid background
(32:37):
on the navigation bar just likeyou described, so we've got to
deal with that. But it's beenvery minor.
Now what we did do though is wealso tested and brace yourself
folks, I'm going say the wordhere we've got one that's React
Native. And the React Native oneis no different at all. It it I
(33:00):
I don't know if there'ssomething smart going on there
in the background or what, orit's because we've sort of, you
know, gone with our own designs.And that's what I suspect it is,
is that our designs areoverruling it, but you don't see
glass anywhere and it works justfine. Now there's an interesting
side effect there though, right?
(33:21):
That maybe in the future we candebate is that could hurt you
and it could be beneficial.Right? Not on the first, you
know, it makes it beneficialthat your app stands out because
it doesn't have the glasseffect. Just like they said on
some other podcasts, if peopledon't like glass, that's going
to work in your favor. But ifthey do like glass and you don't
(33:42):
have it, you're going to lookdated, like you said.
So we'll see how that goes. Butultimately, what it tells us is
we don't have to update that appright now, which maybe is the
way to go because I'm wonderingif we're going to have this
well, 26 goes out to the public,get people's opinions, and then
(34:05):
maybe they tweak it a bit inpoint 1.2, whatever, and then we
address it. So that's been myexperiences with it so far has
is I don't know if I wanna sayit got lucky, but things just
work other than some minortweaks is the good news. And,
thankfully, everything under thehood stays the same, so so no
(34:28):
problem there. All of our stuffat this point is swift anyway.
So there you go.
Geoff (34:33):
Awesome. I mean, yeah, it sounds like you kind of run the
gamut a little bit from fullynative to fully not native and
have experiences with all ofthem, but it definitely doesn't
sound like you're running intoany major issues with it.
Peter (34:46):
Yeah. I was very concerned about it.
Geoff (34:49):
It could have gone much, much worse. Yeah.
Peter (34:52):
Yeah. No. I I really was expecting React Native to either
come out like it did and, like,don't have to touch a thing or
honestly to be a completedisaster. And I was I was
prepared for either one. But Ithink, you know,
unscientifically, that's gonnabe my my tip there for folks.
If you've done some kind ofcustomization, regardless of how
(35:13):
you've done it, you know, Swiftor React Native or whatever, I
think Glass is just gonna not doanything and you'll be okay
unless you end up with a mixtureof both. And then it's just the
design choice. All right, so Ithink we've covered it there.
You know, it's still early.Right?
And this is the weird part thisyear is it could still change
(35:36):
between now and and the fallwhen it ships. But I did want to
ask you one more questionbecause we can test and we can
do all the work now and sit andwait on it, but are you gonna
have it ready to ship, you know,when iOS 26 ships and you're
(35:57):
like, okay, pushing the button?Or do you plan to sort of have
it mostly ready and then justwait just a little bit and not
hit that first .o release?
Geoff (36:08):
So the answer I'm gonna give you the two answers. The
answers of what I want to havehappen and what I may have
Correct. Okay. What I would liketo have happen is that both of
them are ready day in date withthe OS releases.
Peter (36:22):
Okay.
Geoff (36:23):
That is almost certainly going to be true for Bark. I
think that there's not reallyany major reason why Bark would
not be just ready to go with iOS26. Because, again, it's only
iOS with Bark and and WatchOS, Iguess. With Black Highlighter, I
would really love for it to beday in date and then really kind
(36:45):
of lean into promoting it basedon the new OSs and say, hey,
look. Here's a new version ofBlack Highlighter that loves iOS
26 and really kind of embracesthe fact that the platforms
themselves are becoming moreunified by making Black
Highlighter more unified.
And really see if I can kindapush Apple to go like, hey,
(37:05):
promote me. I love you.
Peter (37:07):
I was just gonna
Geoff (37:07):
say yeah. And just, you know, I did all this work for
for you. I I mean, we saw howwell that worked with VisionPro,
but it it Yeah. We But, yeah, Imean, it is it is a reason for
me to be posting myself onsocial media and sending my
things to press and all of thatkind of thing to say like, hey,
my app is ready for all the OS26. And so Black Pie Ladder is
(37:31):
kind of also my priority rightnow to kinda say like, that is
the app that I want to haveready for everything because I
want to have it ready foreverything.
Gotcha. And that's the big deal.And so that's kind of why, yeah,
it's the one that's the mostwork and I decided to use that
as the one that's my bigpriority, and so that's why I'm
(37:53):
all stressed out and ridiculous.But yeah, no. That is what I
want to have happen.
I don't know that I physicallywill be able to make it happen
in the amount of time that Ihave left, so we shall see. But
my plan is to have those twoapps ready day and date. Whether
the Debigulator icon is ready intime, I don't know. It's not
(38:16):
that big of a priority. Whetheror not Kineo is ready or do I
have any other apps right now?
I don't think I do. You can cutthat bit out. Whether Kineo is
ready or not, it probably willnot be. I probably will not be
touching that app until a littlewhile later. And so that app is
gonna have the iOS 18 design fora while still, and we shall see
(38:39):
what happens with that down theline.
Peter (38:42):
Alright. Because there is one, you know, like you say, the
Debigulator icon and even justall of these app updates in
general, the other complicationhere is how close does everybody
wait until the, you know, 26submissions can begin to the app
(39:03):
store because you've also got todo the updated screenshots,
right? And at the moment, it'shard to look at something and
go, okay, Unlike other years,you know, this year is a case
of, well, shoot. This glass lookcould still be changing right up
to the wire. Right?
And so how long do you wait todo, like you say, the media kit,
(39:25):
the screenshots, and everythingelse? Because, as you say
Geoff (39:30):
Especially somebody especially somebody like me that
does all my screenshots inSketch, and they are not actual
screenshots in any way, shape,or form.
Peter (39:38):
Well, and that's the other interesting part. Right?
Because those you know, the thethe kit for Sketch is available
from Apple right now, but thatcould still change too. Right?
Yep.
Absolutely. And so you've gotall of that and your videos and
and everything else, you but atsome point, you have to say, I
gotta do this. And I if I wannaif I wanna be there for it on
(39:58):
the submission. So it is aninteresting year, and, you know,
it is gonna be up to the wire, Ithink, for a lot of this stuff.
But I agree with you.
Get as much done as you can nowand hope that the changes are
minor between now and, you know,the time that Apple ships so
that we can ship. Right?Theoretically, we've got at
(40:20):
least, what, couple of monthsbased on previous One
Geoff (40:24):
month. I think we're down to one month as of recording.
Peter (40:27):
Yeah, we're on what? The first public beta. There's going
to be at least what? Well therewill be at least one more,
right? Yeah.
You know, we'll see. All right.Well, I think we've covered it
pretty good here, but is thereanything else you want to bring
up that we haven't covered?
Geoff (40:42):
No, I think we've hit all of the possibilities, Sam.
Peter (40:46):
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, in that case, all at least
Geoff (40:49):
I I think I've gotta get back to working on this. I don't
have to record anymore of thispodcast.
Peter (40:53):
That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. No more podcasts
ever.
Just kidding, folks. Yeah.Alright. Well, in that case,
where can folks find you if youhappen to be out there in the
world on the socials andeverything else and not working
in the cave?
Geoff (41:08):
You can find everything that I have at cocoatype.com.
Peter (41:12):
Alright. And you can find me at peterwitham.com. And, of
course, as you all know, thispodcast is at compileswift.com.
That's it, folks. If you havesome interesting experiences
with going through this processlike we are, hey.
I'd love to hear them aboutthem. We'd love to talk about
them. You can reach out to uscompileswift.com/contact and let
(41:34):
us know. Otherwise, that's itfolks. Speak to you in the next
one.
Geoff (41:38):
Goodbye.
You wanna re you wanna yeah. Restart it, and I will
(00:03):
still interject. Yeah.
Peter (00:06):
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of
the CompileSwift Podcast. Thisweek, we are going to be talking
about our experiences asdevelopers upgrading our apps to
iOS 26, macOS 26, 26,everything. But first of all,
how are you doing, Geoff?
Geoff (00:27):
Yeah. I'm doing just great. I have been spending a
lot of time in the 26 OStrenches, and it's been it's
been an experience. Let's saythat.
Peter (00:38):
Yeah. And I think, no spoilers here, folks, but we've
had two two pretty differentexperiences. Right? However, you
know, we're gonna go throughthese, and I think the best
place to start is with yourexperiences. So let's dive in
here.
We're gonna start with Geoff'sapps and his experiences because
(00:58):
I'm sure he has spent a lot moretime with this than I have. So,
Geoff, how's it been going foryou, buddy?
Geoff (01:05):
Yeah. So I have my big two apps are the ones that I'm
focusing on for this iOS 26update. And we're gonna say iOS
26 throughout the stream today.When I say iOS 26, I also mean
every platform that my apps runon. So for Bark, it truly is iOS
26.
(01:25):
For Black Highlighter, it isiOS, macOS and iPadOS 26, and
the rest of the apps as you seefit. Thank you
Peter (01:36):
for saying that though, because that that's been my
problem as I've been talking topeople. It's like, oh, do I
they're all 26. Can I just say26, but I still say iOS 26?
Yeah. Apple OS 26.
Geoff (01:51):
Yeah. Apple 20 Yeah.
Peter (01:53):
There you go, S. Yeah.
Geoff (01:55):
Let's start with Bark first because I think that the
story is a little bit morestraightforward there. Bark is
gaining a lot from the fact thatit is 100% SwiftUI. And so a lot
of what I want is kind of justbuilt in. Additionally, Bark was
built in the last year. It wasliterally built last year.
(02:15):
And so I think it kind of was upto date with Apple's, let's call
it, information architecture
Peter (02:22):
Okay.
Geoff (02:23):
As it exists in this year. And so it's kind of
adopting a lot of what Apple wasalready expecting an app to look
and behave like. And so when Ijust flip over to Liquid Glass,
then everything more or lesslooks fine. There were
definitely some tweaks that Ineeded to do for especially, the
(02:48):
main kind of library list screenbecause by default, they're
like, oh, yeah. We're assumingthat you didn't get scroll
views.
Right? And so we're just gonnakinda, like, blur stuff at the
top and bottom. And that lookedhorrible. And so just got a
couple of tweaks there and kindajust disabling the scroll edge
effect really did a lot there.And then kinda just cleaning up
(03:09):
the buttons and how the toolbarinteracts really got me most of
the way towards where I want tobe with Bark.
So, that was one that was kindof not a lot of pain to deal
with.
Peter (03:22):
So I got a question. For those who have not seen the Bark
interface and shame on them,explain for those folks who may
not know what you mean about thetop and the bottom blur. Right?
Geoff (03:38):
Yeah. So that is not something that is in iOS 18.
This is something Apple added iniOS 26, which is that when you
scroll above and beyond orsorry. When you scroll such that
content goes off the top of thescreen or off the bottom of the
screen, it gets this scroll edgeeffect where it just kinda
(04:01):
progressively blurs whatever wasat the bottom or top of the
screen. And with Bark, you havea kinda set, it's this like
waterfall grid of barcodes.
And what happens is that you getthat barcode near the end, and
it just smears the barcode. Andit looks it looks like,
basically, you had a barcodeprinted out on paper, and then
(04:23):
you spilled water over it. Andit does not look all that good.
Peter (04:26):
So it looks authentic then. That's what you're saying.
Right?
Geoff (04:29):
It looks real great. And if you look at, say, the Photos
app, Apple doesn't do that inthe photos app because the
content is expected to kind ofbehave, I guess, as as much as
were. Beta users can debatewhether or not that's actually
(04:51):
true, but it is kind of what isexpected to happen. And then,
really, you've just got atoolbar floating over that, and
it's more about making sure thatthe toolbar is doing the right
thing so that you're notfighting with the content. The
scroll edge effect is reallykind of there to be like this
default that exists to go, okay.
(05:12):
We're not gonna fight with thecontent by just mangling the
content, basically.
Peter (05:17):
So oh yeah. Actually what about is it worth me asking
about well, how has it affectedthe watch experience?
Geoff (05:26):
I have not tested that, and I don't know why. That's a
great thing that I shouldprobably test.
Peter (05:33):
Well, the the reason I say it is because when I think
of Bach
Geoff (05:36):
I think of here's the watch. Right? Which is which is
great. Yeah. I mean, that thatis the original version of it
was built Yeah.
Only for the watch. It was astand alone watch app. I think
the answer is I don't think I'veactually installed the beta on
watch on my watch Mhmm. Yet.Okay.
So
Peter (05:53):
Yeah. I did wanna have one of the
Geoff (05:55):
So the answer is yeah. The answer is I have not tried
it. I expect that it probablydoesn't change too much because
there's not really muchinteractivity with Bark on the
watch. So
Peter (06:06):
No. I mean, it's just sort of designed
Geoff (06:08):
to Yeah.
Peter (06:08):
Make the barcode as big as possible. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff (06:11):
I I think that what's gonna happen is that the list of
barcodes, which is just text on,like, just a scrolling list,
that's gonna get a new UI. Butbecause I didn't change or tweak
that UI at all, like, it's justgonna get the standard UI.
Peter (06:25):
Yeah. So it actually probably is beneficial to you
then. Right? Because they sayI've not tried it myself. But
they say everything is at leasta little bit bigger when it
comes to texts and lists and soon.
So that's gonna be nothing butgood. Right? So given that the
the beta versions this year havechanged quite significantly
(06:47):
between each one, and I don'tmean like they do every year,
but obviously we've got a new UIthis year. Which which beta
versions have you been testingit against? And I'm sure it's
more than one.
And, you know, what have what'sbeen your experiences there? Has
it kind of been a redo and aredo and a redo?
Geoff (07:05):
So I've been using the all of the betas from day one. I
installed the developer betas ona test phone. I did follow our
advice that I said at thebeginning and do not install
beta one on your actual phone.You will regret it. And so I had
that on a test phone and kind ofmessed with my two big apps.
And we'll get back to the otherbig one later. But yeah. And so
(07:29):
have been running against that.I hadn't really dug into a
significant amount of work on ituntil recently because, as you
said, things have been kind offlipping back and forth. So
doing a lot of, like, planningand trying to understand the new
design paradigm and that kind ofthing, but not really jumping
into doing a whole lot of workuntil these most recent betas.
(07:50):
Okay. And with these most recentbetas, we did get the public
beta. And so I have nowinstalled the public beta on my
actual phone and have been doingthat. If we want a quick tangent
into a different app of minereal quick, not one of the big
apps, Debigulator will also begetting a iOS 26 redesign. And
(08:15):
it's not getting any changes tothe actual code of the app.
It is simply getting a new icon,composer derived icon, because
the default icon that Applegenerates on iOS 26 is
disgusting. And so I really justwant to go in there, swap out
the icon, and just be like, yep,here's my iOS 26 update. It just
makes the icon not look likegarbage.
Peter (08:36):
Alright. And and to be clear for folks who may not know
what we're talking about there,the iOS 26, OS 26, whatever,
tries to, in air quotes,intelligently apply this modern
look to your icon that you'vealready got in your application.
(09:00):
Sometimes it's a bit of awinner. Sometimes it's not so
great. Personally, think Iprobably will go back and use
that tool that they're releasingthis year to just redo all of
mine, because I'm sure they'restill better designers than I
am.
(09:20):
Hey, folks. If you like whatyou're hearing in this podcast
and you wanna help this podcastto continue going forward and
having great guests and greatconversations, I invite you to
become a Patreon supporter. Youcan go to
patreon.com/compileswift, whereyou will get ad free versions of
the podcast along with othercontent. So I'm gonna take
(09:41):
advantage of that.
Geoff (09:42):
So, yeah, since installing the public beta, I've
gotten a little bit moreunderstanding of Apple's apps
and whatnot. And so that isreally where I'm starting now to
do the updates to my apps andreally take those on.
Peter (09:56):
So explain what you mean by that. Are you taking, you
know, the Apple apps right nowas they are in the state of '26,
say beta four is this recordingor the public beta, and using
their design principles as aguideline to rework some of
yours? And if so, you know, whatdo you what does that entail?
(10:17):
What does that mean? You're,like, pulling back on some of
that third party design andgoing back to, you know, stock
as it were?
Geoff (10:25):
Yeah. So, basically, what is happening here is that we
have very limited amounts ofinformation on what is expected
out of Liquid Glass and iOS 26style designs. And so we have
Apple's WWDC videos, we have thehuman interface guidelines, and
(10:45):
we have Apple's own apps in iOS26. And so the Hig and the WWC
videos, they're very high level.They're very, you know, here's
the ideals of Liquid Glass, butthey don't really get into the
nitty gritty of, well, Whatkinds of things are you wanting
(11:06):
to have happen?
Yeah. And that is something thatyou do get by looking at, well,
what did Apple actually do inthis scenario? And so being able
to use Apple's apps, the onesthat they have in the betas, is
a way to kind of get an idea forwhat should your app be doing,
(11:26):
what should your app look like.And if we want to segue here
over to my other app, that hashad much more impact on Black
Highlighter than it has on Barkbecause it became obvious that
Black Highlighter's designsensibilities dated as they are
kind of didn't really fit withhow Apple is designing apps
(11:48):
these days.
Peter (11:49):
So, you know, you're saying about how Black
Highlighter feels dated. Solet's talk about that a little
bit. You know, put some numbersto this. When would you say you
know, the the black highlighterwith the interface that it has
now, you know, that's beenaround since since when?
Geoff (12:07):
Yeah. So black highlighter is kinda constantly
going through little tinyupdates, but I think the real,
like, design system as it werewas kinda set down in June 2019.
That's quite a long time ago inin tech terms. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's, this six years ago. Mhmm.And so there are a lot of things
(12:29):
just in terms of how the app islaid out. Not really, you know,
it it not in a lot of waysdesign, like, as graphical
design, but in terms of justinformation architecture. Like,
the very strongly, like, pushand pop driven architecture and
not really having a tab bar.
(12:51):
And it's got a sidebar in there,but it's kinda haphazard, and it
really only exists on iPad andkind of things just they're not
arranged the way that apps arearranged in twenty twenty five.
And so I think that liquid glasskind of assumes that apps are
arranged that way and it'smaking Mhmm. When I apply the
(13:14):
liquid glass styling to thiskind of more dated information
architecture, it's it's reallythrowing into the spotlight
exactly how kind of datedfeeling the design of black
highlighter is.
Peter (13:29):
Okay.
Geoff (13:29):
And it's hard to give exact specifics. You know, I I
did say the sidebar versus, youknow, lacking a tab bar and and
kind of stuff like that. Butreally, it is just the feel of
the application feels out ofplace on iOS 26 in a way that it
was starting to in iOS 18, butthrowing the behaviors of Liquid
Glass onto the design of I mean,twenty nineteen would have been
(13:53):
what iOS 13?
Peter (13:57):
Yeah.
Geoff (13:58):
Definitely does not feel good.
Peter (14:00):
I gotcha. Well, you know, and interestingly, because
you've hit on two the two viewsthat most noticeably changed in
iOS 26, which is, the new tabbar and the new sidebar. And so
Yeah. You know, like you say, ifif it's if you're not up to date
(14:21):
with those, I think those willstand out quite significantly.
And interestingly, one of theapps that I use every day is the
podcast app.
So I have the 26 Beta four on myiPad and I've found actually
that I kind of really like, youknow, the new interface in the
(14:41):
podcast app, and it is a goodexample of dealing with some of
those interesting scenarios,especially the tab bar. You
know, are you gonna takeadvantage, do you think, of that
the new functionality where youcan have I I know it has a name,
and I've forgotten it. There's,like, that mini tab bar, like a
collapsible one. Right?
Geoff (15:01):
Mhmm. Yeah. I I think we might see that on the black
highlighter edit page where it'snot so much the collapsible
toolbar as a whole, but the factthat I do have a search function
in the edit view, which itallows you to look up words in
whatever it is that you'reattempting to redact and go,
(15:22):
okay. You know, I always wannaredact, you know, my name, blah
blah blah. You type in my nameand you hit enter and it just
goes and gets rid of everything.
Gotcha. So that's definitely athing where it's like, oh, well,
they have a new way of doingthis search interface. I
definitely wanna take advantageof that. And things like that is
is kind of things that I cantake advantage of now, but don't
(15:45):
necessarily look right in theway that my app is currently
designed. So I think a big onethat's really kind of causing
this is black highlighter.
When it was designed, you hadthese solid top and bottom bars.
You had the solid nav bar, youhad the solid toolbar, and it
was very clear, here's where thenav bar is, here's where the
(16:06):
content is. And over time, and Ithink especially in like iOS 14
or so, iOS 15 maybe, Apple kindof went, well, let's kind of
hide those bars and just thecontent kind of like goes
beneath it and like maybesometimes it shows. And, you
know, when you scroll, like thenyou see the tab bar, but until
then it's like content in thetab bar, there's no separation
(16:28):
anymore. And I never tookadvantage of that in Black High
I always just left the solidbars on either end.
And now that we've got liquidglass and liquid glass is kind
of floating above the content.Well, in my apps, it's now
floating above just black boxesas
Peter (16:46):
Oh, I gotcha.
Geoff (16:46):
And Okay. That looks kinda gross in in iOS 26. And
it's like, yeah, the the nav barand toolbar, they were already
kind of slightly dated looking,but it didn't really stand out
the way that it does now withiOS 26 where it goes, oh, you
clearly just have a ton of blackspace at the bottom of the view
(17:11):
for no real reason. And Applereally wants that to be you take
that entire area, you fill itwith content, and then you just
have the buttons hovering overthe content rather than hovering
or rather than being containedin their own separate space.
Peter (17:27):
Yeah. I do have to say that, you know, it feels like
Apple's been moving in thisdirection for a while now where,
you know, this seamlessintegration of content and
controls. And I think that thisversion is a natural
progression, and I think it'sgonna be interesting to see
where it goes. But for me, Ifeel very comfortable with it.
Geoff (17:47):
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I I it's definitely obviously been a
direction that Apple's beenmoving in for a while, and
liquid glass is kind of just theextreme version of that. And
this is on me for having kindanot kept up for the last couple
years, and now it goes, oh,well, we've got this big jump
with Liquid Glass.
(18:07):
Now I really have to make thatbig jump myself.
Peter (18:10):
Well, you know, and interestingly, I think Apple
making this big jump this yearhas been, in many ways, kind of
freeing for us as developers anddesigners. Right? Because it
gives us that excuse to say, oh,great. I should go back and do
the thing that I know I shouldhave done, but maybe I
procrastinated on it a bit toomuch.
Geoff (18:30):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Peter (18:31):
Okay. So I know from seeing you work on these apps
and seeing these apps in generalthat, you know, Black
Highlighter in particular is,you know, there's noticeable
differences in the currentversions between the UIs, say,
in particular, like the Mac and,say, the iPhone, things like
that. But now that Apple hasgiven us this unified, design
(18:56):
approach on all the platforms,do you think that's gonna play
into your new design and just gofor kind of, okay, one look for
everything? Or do you plan tosort of say, oh, well, I kinda
like the way that there's alittle differences between them?
Geoff (19:11):
Yeah. No. Getting this more unified is definitely a
major goal of my 26 updates.I've really kind of over time
treated it almost like it'srunning on three separate
platforms. You've got iOS,iPadOS, macOS.
And those were kind of almostdesigned entirely separately,
(19:31):
and I'm really wanting to bringthat more together. You know, I
talked about earlier how themain image picker screen on
Black Highlighter has a sidebar,and it's a big deal on iPad, but
it's kinda just buried in iOS,and it's it's not really usable
in iOS.
Peter (19:48):
Mhmm.
Geoff (19:48):
And that is something that I'm gonna have to fix in
'26 and just really make thatmore of a thing. Mac OS is still
gonna be kind of differentbecause of just the nature of on
iOS, Black Highlighter ispicking from your photo library,
whereas on Mac OS, you'rebasically able to use any file
from anywhere on the system.Mhmm. And I think that that's
(20:09):
that's key to the differencesbetween those platforms. So
Black Highlighter's edit screenis fairly similar between the
two, but its image picker screenbasically doesn't exist on
macOS.
And so I'm kinda trying to findways to bring parts of that back
in, but also unify the editinterface a lot more than it
(20:33):
currently is and really havemore of a shared ecosystem
across platforms rather thanhaving the three very separate
designs. Time for a break.
Peter (20:44):
Hey, everybody. It's Peter Widom here from the
compulsive podcast. I'm gonnatell you about Setapp. Setapp is
a service that provides asubscription fee of just $10 a
month, and you get access toover 200 Mac applications, and
it's also available now on iOSas part of that deal. I use the
(21:04):
service because it just has aton of really good first rate
apps that I use all the time.
And for me, it's invaluable as adeveloper to have access to
tools for things like APIs, forplanning projects, writing
emails, writing documentation.And you get all of these things,
including database apps, all ofthat kind of stuff right there
(21:27):
on the Setapp service for just$10 a month. You can use as many
or as few applications as youneed. If you're interested in
checking this out, go topeterwidham.com,
peterwitham.com/setapp,setapp,and you can see the details
there. And it's got a link thatyou can go over and start using
(21:50):
the service and see how it worksout for you.
I strongly recommend this toevery Mac user.
Geoff (21:56):
Break time over.
Peter (21:59):
Yeah. Let's talk about that because, obviously, it is a
big year for iPad. And, youknow, there is no question this
year, iPad and Mac move a lotcloser together. Now I gotta
think that that's gonna causeyou to seriously rethink some of
that interface. Right?
Especially because now there's apossibility that users could be
(22:20):
using it full screen or in awindow.
Geoff (22:23):
Yeah. Exactly. You know, the Windows stuff is gonna make
it so that, you know, the iPadit kinda drags both platforms
closer to the iPad in that, youknow, the window could be shrunk
down, so and you're basicallyseeing the iPhone interface on
the iPad or you've got it, youknow, mostly full screen. But I
think the bigger changes are tostuff like, oh, now we've got a
(22:45):
constant menu bar pulled up. Andthat means that my iPad app has
to kind of go closer to the Macapp in terms of having full menu
bar support and having, youknow, obvious things in there so
that people can quickly accessimportant features, stuff like
that.
Where before, it's like, okay,everything's in that hold down
command view, and it's notreally organized. And maybe that
(23:09):
was what I could get away withfor the last couple releases.
But this means that we've got afar more significant
expectations on iPadOS than wehave in the last couple years.
Peter (23:22):
Yeah. And also, I think there's gonna be a bit of a
learning curve for some users.Right? Because Mhmm. They you
know, if you have never used aMac, and and I hear there are
some people out there like that,they're gonna use iPad, and then
suddenly, they're gonna havethis menu appear and, like,
what's this?
Right? So you've gotta alsopresumably make sure that
(23:44):
anything you're going to do onthe menu or anything you're
going do in the interface inJamboard, you've kind of got to
reflect it in both directions.Right?
Geoff (23:52):
Yeah, exactly. And of course, you've got a little bit
of cross pollination as well. Imean, if you look at Tahoe, for
example, you've got all kinds oficons now in the menus that you
didn't have before. And sothat's gonna be something that
really I kinda need to overhaulmy menu handling entirely. Like,
right now in Black Highlighter,the menu bar stuff is kind of
(24:12):
only compiled at all on the Macversion.
And I'm gonna need to take that,put that into the iPad version,
but then also kind of grab someof the iconography that I have
from iPad buttons and such andmove that into the menu as well.
And so there's gonna be a lot ofgrabbing things from all over
the place and kind of sharingthem across platforms. And
(24:34):
iPadOS is kind of gonna be thecenter of all of that.
Peter (24:38):
Gotcha. And and, of course, that's gonna help you
from a technical perspectivetoo. Right? Because in theory,
I'm guessing it's gonna make ita lot easier for you to make
updates and changes as you goforward or maybe not.
Geoff (24:52):
I I I think a lot of that is gonna have to wait until an
eventual, which I I at thispoint has become inevitable,
SwiftUI. I really kinda had thisarchitecture of SwiftUI on the
outside, wrapping some kind ofUI kit core pieces. And I think
that that's something that Iwould have to do eventually with
Black High Highlighter, whereI've got the UI kit interface
(25:16):
elements that have spent a longtime building and really don't
wanna rebuild in SwiftUI. ButI'm able to kind of move them
around and use them as puzzlepieces inside of a SwiftUI, you
know, scaffolding. Let me let medo that last line a little bit.
Inside of a SwiftUI scaffold, asit were.
Peter (25:39):
So I know some of your application, Black Highlighter,
is not SwiftUI this point.
Geoff (25:44):
The majority of it.
Peter (25:45):
Ah, the majority of it. Even better. Well, maybe not
even better. And that was gonnabe my question was, do you think
that that's gonna make it a lotharder for you? Are you because
you're gonna have to convertthese to SwiftUI, or are you
gonna go with the fact thatApple says, hey.
This new design theory isbackwards compatible. You should
be good. I mean, I'm thinkingin, like, the Mac here, you
(26:08):
know, where you're and that kindof thing.
Geoff (26:11):
Yeah. No. I am not doing a SwiftUI port at the same time.
I am going to keep itsignificantly majority UI kit
even through this update andknow that I will eventually need
to kinda do that SwiftUIreckoning as it were.
Peter (26:26):
Okay.
Geoff (26:27):
But Okay. Through this iOS 26 update, I am going to
stick with it being majority UIkit. And because right now, to
to I go back to what thismajority UI kit is. All of the
photo picker screen, all of thedocument scanner, all of the
editing, all of that, the vastmajority of the app is still
(26:49):
100% UI kit. The only part ofBlack Highlighter that is
SwiftUI is like the settingspage.
And so if you go into settingsand you've got links to, like,
the privacy policy and all myother apps, and then Mhmm. You
go in and you've got the list ofwords that get automatically
automatically. You've got thelist of words that get
automatically redacted. That isall SwiftUI at this point, but
(27:13):
everything else in the app, themain functionality of the app is
still 100 UIKit.
Peter (27:19):
Interesting. So it sounds like some of this is a case of,
a maintenance release in thesense of you you know you've
gotta do this, right, so thatit's sits happy and nice when 26
arrives. And then later on,you'll you'll come along and do
the cleanup. Right?
Geoff (27:35):
Yeah. Yeah. No. Keeping it in UIKit now, I think, is
gonna be the most important partand making sure that I am able
to do the design updates that Ineed. Because in my experience
so far, doing the design updatesthat I need in UIKit is totally
fine.
Like,
Peter (27:52):
they're Interesting.
Geoff (27:53):
They're not sitting here and prioritizing SwiftUI in any
way and saying, you know, oh, ifyou want to do this, you have to
do it in SwiftUI. So it's been agood experience so far with
UIKit going, okay, yeah, no, Ican do this in UIKit. I just
especially wanting to unify thethree platforms a little bit
more is going to be easier inSwiftUI than in UIKit. And it's
(28:17):
that that I need to do as alater maintenance release where
to kind of unify thearchitecture a little bit more.
That's gonna be the part that'seasier in SwiftUI rather than,
oh, I need to adopt LiquidGlass.
That's been totally fine justdoing it in UI kit.
Peter (28:33):
Gotcha. Yeah. I think you know? And thank you, Apple, for
doing that. I I would imagineduring dub dub DC when they
said, you know, oh, hey.
It doesn't have to be SwiftUI.Huge sense of relief to
everybody. Right? I was like,oh, good. However And I I have
next
Geoff (28:49):
I'm happy to yeah. I I'm happy to report that that was
not one of Apple's, you know,white lies. Yeah. That that it
is in fact no. Actually, UIKitworks just fine in And Liquid
Glass and all the things.
Yeah.
Peter (29:03):
And and I'll talk about that a little bit when when I I
talk about my apps because kindof a similar experience. So
yeah. Cool. Alright.
Geoff (29:11):
But yeah. No. I mean, that's that's a good enough
segue as any. Why not starttalking about your apps? Are
Yeah.
How are your apps doing, andwhat what's your experience
been?
Peter (29:20):
Okay. So, you know, first of all, I have one app that I
was actually starting to buildwhen WWDC started. So, you know,
I kinda got lucky there. I wasalready doing it with SwiftUI,
and it's like, oh, great. Well,I just won't do any
customization whatsoever, andwe'll see how it works.
And it works just fine. On myJob Finder tracker app,
(29:42):
interestingly, so far myexperience has been I don't
technically have to do anythingbecause of the way I built it.
It's all built with SwiftUI, butI've got, you know, I colors on
things and and everything else.You really don't get the glass
effect, for the most part. Infact, I I don't recall seeing it
(30:02):
anywhere in the app.
So I could just leave it likethat and not worry about it, but
I actually feel, like Imentioned earlier, this is an
opportunity to go back and say,okay. You know what? I never was
completely satisfied with what Iwanted it to be and what it
ended up as, so I may back out alot of the modifications I've
(30:24):
made and see how it looks withjust the, you know, sort of the
stock glass effect. So that'sgonna be that one. I wanna tell
you about DigitalOcean.
DigitalOcean is a hostingcompany that I use for a lot of
my projects. And I'm gonna tellyou rather than just the usual
thing that you hear on AdWords,I'm gonna tell you exactly how I
use it. It is so simple to setup. You just log in, and I can
(30:46):
set up very quickly with a fewclicks whatever kind of instance
I need on a server with whateverOS or preinstalled apps. I'm
gonna give you a perfect examplehere.
It is so easy to set up Swift onthe server side Vapor, and I did
that recently, and it it waspainless. You know, I went in
there and I set it up. Andbefore you knew it, my Swift
(31:08):
app, I was bouncing off the APIsthat I had created on the server
side and testing everything thatI needed to be tested. But you
don't have to use it forprojects just like that. You can
really use it to host anythingyou want for any length of time
because you're really onlypaying for the resources as you
use them.
You're not paying ahead. Andthey have 14 globally
(31:29):
distributed data centers and99.99% uptime. I'll put a link
in the show notes, but you cango to peterwheedham.com/d0cean.
That's docean. And that'll giveyou some free credits to get
started with.
What's also interesting thoughis in my jobby job, we have one
(31:52):
app which is it's a mixture ofstoryboards, code, and a very,
very small amount of SwiftUI.And we have found that after we
went through everything, again,because we had set, you know,
things like colors and andthings like that, most of the
(32:14):
app was okay. The only areasthat are gonna need some
attention are things like,understandably, tab bars. Some
buttons are a bit weird. Thosekind of things.
You know, like, for example, abutton where you may have set a
custom font color, but youdidn't set a background.
Something like that. Right? And,also, we have a solid background
(32:37):
on the navigation bar just likeyou described, so we've got to
deal with that. But it's beenvery minor.
Now what we did do though is wealso tested and brace yourself
folks, I'm going say the wordhere we've got one that's React
Native. And the React Native oneis no different at all. It it I
(33:00):
I don't know if there'ssomething smart going on there
in the background or what, orit's because we've sort of, you
know, gone with our own designs.And that's what I suspect it is,
is that our designs areoverruling it, but you don't see
glass anywhere and it works justfine. Now there's an interesting
side effect there though, right?
(33:21):
That maybe in the future we candebate is that could hurt you
and it could be beneficial.Right? Not on the first, you
know, it makes it beneficialthat your app stands out because
it doesn't have the glasseffect. Just like they said on
some other podcasts, if peopledon't like glass, that's going
to work in your favor. But ifthey do like glass and you don't
(33:42):
have it, you're going to lookdated, like you said.
So we'll see how that goes. Butultimately, what it tells us is
we don't have to update that appright now, which maybe is the
way to go because I'm wonderingif we're going to have this
well, 26 goes out to the public,get people's opinions, and then
(34:05):
maybe they tweak it a bit inpoint 1.2, whatever, and then we
address it. So that's been myexperiences with it so far has
is I don't know if I wanna sayit got lucky, but things just
work other than some minortweaks is the good news. And,
thankfully, everything under thehood stays the same, so so no
(34:28):
problem there. All of our stuffat this point is swift anyway.
So there you go.
Geoff (34:33):
Awesome. I mean, yeah, it sounds like you kind of run the
gamut a little bit from fullynative to fully not native and
have experiences with all ofthem, but it definitely doesn't
sound like you're running intoany major issues with it.
Peter (34:46):
Yeah. I was very concerned about it.
Geoff (34:49):
It could have gone much, much worse. Yeah.
Peter (34:52):
Yeah. No. I I really was expecting React Native to either
come out like it did and, like,don't have to touch a thing or
honestly to be a completedisaster. And I was I was
prepared for either one. But Ithink, you know,
unscientifically, that's gonnabe my my tip there for folks.
If you've done some kind ofcustomization, regardless of how
(35:13):
you've done it, you know, Swiftor React Native or whatever, I
think Glass is just gonna not doanything and you'll be okay
unless you end up with a mixtureof both. And then it's just the
design choice. All right, so Ithink we've covered it there.
You know, it's still early.Right?
And this is the weird part thisyear is it could still change
(35:36):
between now and and the fallwhen it ships. But I did want to
ask you one more questionbecause we can test and we can
do all the work now and sit andwait on it, but are you gonna
have it ready to ship, you know,when iOS 26 ships and you're
(35:57):
like, okay, pushing the button?Or do you plan to sort of have
it mostly ready and then justwait just a little bit and not
hit that first .o release?
Geoff (36:08):
So the answer I'm gonna give you the two answers. The
answers of what I want to havehappen and what I may have
Correct. Okay. What I would liketo have happen is that both of
them are ready day in date withthe OS releases.
Peter (36:22):
Okay.
Geoff (36:23):
That is almost certainly going to be true for Bark. I
think that there's not reallyany major reason why Bark would
not be just ready to go with iOS26. Because, again, it's only
iOS with Bark and and WatchOS, Iguess. With Black Highlighter, I
would really love for it to beday in date and then really kind
(36:45):
of lean into promoting it basedon the new OSs and say, hey,
look. Here's a new version ofBlack Highlighter that loves iOS
26 and really kind of embracesthe fact that the platforms
themselves are becoming moreunified by making Black
Highlighter more unified.
And really see if I can kindapush Apple to go like, hey,
(37:05):
promote me. I love you.
Peter (37:07):
I was just gonna
Geoff (37:07):
say yeah. And just, you know, I did all this work for
for you. I I mean, we saw howwell that worked with VisionPro,
but it it Yeah. We But, yeah, Imean, it is it is a reason for
me to be posting myself onsocial media and sending my
things to press and all of thatkind of thing to say like, hey,
my app is ready for all the OS26. And so Black Pie Ladder is
(37:31):
kind of also my priority rightnow to kinda say like, that is
the app that I want to haveready for everything because I
want to have it ready foreverything.
Gotcha. And that's the big deal.And so that's kind of why, yeah,
it's the one that's the mostwork and I decided to use that
as the one that's my bigpriority, and so that's why I'm
(37:53):
all stressed out and ridiculous.But yeah, no. That is what I
want to have happen.
I don't know that I physicallywill be able to make it happen
in the amount of time that Ihave left, so we shall see. But
my plan is to have those twoapps ready day and date. Whether
the Debigulator icon is ready intime, I don't know. It's not
(38:16):
that big of a priority. Whetheror not Kineo is ready or do I
have any other apps right now?
I don't think I do. You can cutthat bit out. Whether Kineo is
ready or not, it probably willnot be. I probably will not be
touching that app until a littlewhile later. And so that app is
gonna have the iOS 18 design fora while still, and we shall see
(38:39):
what happens with that down theline.
Peter (38:42):
Alright. Because there is one, you know, like you say, the
Debigulator icon and even justall of these app updates in
general, the other complicationhere is how close does everybody
wait until the, you know, 26submissions can begin to the app
(39:03):
store because you've also got todo the updated screenshots,
right? And at the moment, it'shard to look at something and
go, okay, Unlike other years,you know, this year is a case
of, well, shoot. This glass lookcould still be changing right up
to the wire. Right?
And so how long do you wait todo, like you say, the media kit,
(39:25):
the screenshots, and everythingelse? Because, as you say
Geoff (39:30):
Especially somebody especially somebody like me that
does all my screenshots inSketch, and they are not actual
screenshots in any way, shape,or form.
Peter (39:38):
Well, and that's the other interesting part. Right?
Because those you know, the thethe kit for Sketch is available
from Apple right now, but thatcould still change too. Right?
Yep.
Absolutely. And so you've gotall of that and your videos and
and everything else, you but atsome point, you have to say, I
gotta do this. And I if I wannaif I wanna be there for it on
(39:58):
the submission. So it is aninteresting year, and, you know,
it is gonna be up to the wire, Ithink, for a lot of this stuff.
But I agree with you.
Get as much done as you can nowand hope that the changes are
minor between now and, you know,the time that Apple ships so
that we can ship. Right?Theoretically, we've got at
(40:20):
least, what, couple of monthsbased on previous One
Geoff (40:24):
month. I think we're down to one month as of recording.
Peter (40:27):
Yeah, we're on what? The first public beta. There's going
to be at least what? Well therewill be at least one more,
right? Yeah.
You know, we'll see. All right.Well, I think we've covered it
pretty good here, but is thereanything else you want to bring
up that we haven't covered?
Geoff (40:42):
No, I think we've hit all of the possibilities, Sam.
Peter (40:46):
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, in that case, all at least
Geoff (40:49):
I I think I've gotta get back to working on this. I don't
have to record anymore of thispodcast.
Peter (40:53):
That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. No more podcasts
ever.
Just kidding, folks. Yeah.Alright. Well, in that case,
where can folks find you if youhappen to be out there in the
world on the socials andeverything else and not working
in the cave?
Geoff (41:08):
You can find everything that I have at cocoatype.com.
Peter (41:12):
Alright. And you can find me at peterwitham.com. And, of
course, as you all know, thispodcast is at compileswift.com.
That's it, folks. If you havesome interesting experiences
with going through this processlike we are, hey.
I'd love to hear them aboutthem. We'd love to talk about
them. You can reach out to uscompileswift.com/contact and let
(41:34):
us know. Otherwise, that's itfolks. Speak to you in the next
one.
Geoff (41:38):
Goodbye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.