The iOS Weekly Brief – Issue #15
Your weekly dose of iOS updates, AI tools, and practical insights to help you build smarter apps and stay ahead of the curve
🆕 What’s New
Updates for apps in the European Union
Apple is making big changes for developers in the EU. You can now promote your offers and direct users to your website, another app, or an alternative marketplace. By 2026, Apple will introduce a new Core Technology Commission fee across App Store, web, and alternative stores, which means it’s time to plan how these updates could impact your app’s business model.
📚 Must Read
Getting Started with Apple's Foundation Models
Apple’s new Foundation Models framework enables you to build AI-powered features directly into your app, all on-device, without requiring cloud services. You can create custom sessions, stream responses, and even connect the model to your app’s tools, like fetching data from Apple Health. This article guides you through building a chat app using Foundation Models and demonstrates how to integrate custom tools for enhanced interactions.
Considerations for New iOS Versions
When a new iOS version arrives, it’s tempting to drop older OS support for cleaner code, but doing so can shrink your potential user base. David Smith explains how requiring the latest iOS version impacts both existing users and new downloads, often cutting off a notable share of future growth.
Dancing with AI: My Month with Claude Code
After a month with Claude Code, Fatbobman reflects on how AI tools have transformed coding, offering powerful automation but requiring thoughtful guidance to avoid subpar results. He argues that while AI can speed up development, it’s most valuable when used to enhance your skills rather than replace them.
The key takeaway:
Don’t Let Vibe Coding Hinder Your Technical Growth
Schedule a countdown timer with AlarmKit
Apple’s new AlarmKit lets you schedule countdown timers, one-time alarms, and repeating alarms that break through silent mode and Focus with guaranteed alerts. This article walks through setting up authorization, scheduling timers, configuring Live Activities for countdowns, and managing active timers in-app. It’s a great practical guide for integrating reliable timers and alarms into your app using SwiftUI.
🛠️ Toolbox
XcodeProjectRenamer
Stewart Lynch explains how the tool automates the tricky task of renaming Xcode projects, including .xcodeproj, .xcworkspace, schemes, folders, and internal references.
🍬 One More Thing…
Discover 5 new AI features of Xcode 26
Xcode 26 introduces powerful AI coding tools that help you explain code, generate documentation, create Playgrounds and Previews with mock data, fix build errors, and make quick code edits via prompts. These features aim to speed up development, but developers should review AI-generated code carefully, especially for production. The author highlights that these tools shine most when used for exploration, learning, and non-production tasks.
🗳️ Weekly Poll
🗓 Upcoming Conferences
July
15-18 — MacAdmins Conference (State College 🇺🇸)
September
2–4 — Swift Island (Texel 🇳🇱)
18-19 — NS Spain 2025 (Logroño 🇪🇸)
24–26 — FlutterCon Europe (Berlin 🇩🇪)
29–30 — Swift Connection (Paris 🇫🇷)
October
2–3 — ServerSide.swift (London 🇬🇧)
6–8 — SwiftLeeds (Leeds 🇬🇧)
24 — DevFest.cz (Prague 🇨🇿)
30–31 — Pragma Conference (Bologna 🇮🇹)
November
👋 That’s it for this week
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Until next Friday — keep shipping 🍏