The iOS Weekly Brief – Issue #20
ChatGPT5, workshops, scroll effects, Sendable deep dive, and on-device AI, everything you need to stay ahead in iOS 26.
🆕 What’s New
Hello Developer: August 2025
Apple’s August edition of Hello Developer just dropped. New workshops are kicking off worldwide, covering the new design system, AI, and visionOS. Also worth checking out are a WWDC25 deep dive session and a spotlight on the Italy-based team behind Sunlitt, which uses Swift to track the sun and moon. A solid bundle of updates to refresh your UI and get inspired.
Introducing GPT-5
OpenAI introduced GPT‑5, their most powerful and useful model yet. It brings major improvements across coding, writing, and reasoning, with a new “thinking” mode for deeper, more accurate responses. I’m excited to explore it further!
📚 Must Read
Exploring the Foundation Models framework
This is the most detailed breakdown of the Foundation Models framework I’ve seen so far. Luca Palmese walks through how to access Apple’s on-device LLMs, use LanguageModelSession, generate structured output with Generable, and even plug in your tools via the Tool protocol. If you're serious about building private, on-device AI features with Swift, this article is your blueprint. Definitely worth bookmarking.
Define the scroll edge effect style of a scroll view for Liquid Glass
A subtle but powerful addition in iOS 26: you can now fine-tune how your ScrollView behaves at the edges using the new scrollEdgeEffectStyle modifier. This is especially handy when working with complex layouts. Antonella shows how to apply soft and hard scroll effects per edge to better align with your app’s design. A small API, big visual impact.
Swift 6: Sendable, unchecked Sendable, sending and nonsending
If Swift’s concurrency keywords like Sendable and sending still trip you up, this guide by Fatbobman is the one to read. It breaks down their purpose, differences, and practical use cases with clarity, especially the newer sending and nonsending modifiers introduced in Swift 6.2. A solid reference for anyone building concurrent code and trying to stay on the safe side of data races.
🛠️ Toolbox
DevCleaner for Xcode
If you’re working with Xcode regularly, you’ve probably noticed how much space it takes up over time, especially in the ~/Library/Developer folder. In my case, it was tens of gigabytes of old cache and debug symbols that weren’t being automatically cleaned up.
I’ve been using DevCleaner for a long time and still find it helpful. It provides a clear overview of what can be safely removed, and it’s been a simple way to keep my Xcode environment clean.
🍬 One More Thing…
Xcode 26 Beta 5 is out
From improved Playground macros and new Swift Testing traits to fixes in Previews, Icon Composer, and SwiftPM, this release brings solid polish across the board. If you're already working with iOS 26 SDK, it’s worth updating!
🗳️ Weekly Poll
🗓 Upcoming Conferences
August
30-31 — iPlayground (Taipei 🇹🇼)
September
2–4 — Swift Island (Texel 🇳🇱)
18-19 — NS Spain 2025 (Logroño 🇪🇸)
24–26 — FlutterCon Europe (Berlin 🇩🇪)
26-27 — Swift Bharat 2025 (Bengaluru 🇮🇳)
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
If you enjoyed this issue of The iOS Weekly Brief, consider forwarding it to a colleague!
Until next Friday — keep shipping 🍏