The iOS Weekly Brief – Issue #8
External purchase warnings in the EU, mastering .ignoredByLayout(), smart notification scheduling, and Reddit’s full mobile rewrite.
🆕 What’s New
Apple Slaps Warnings on Apps Using External Purchases in the EU
Apple has started labeling apps in the EU that use third-party payment systems with red warning icons and text about external purchases. This follows a €500 million fine and a court order prohibiting Apple from restricting external payment links.
This is another reminder for developers that even formal DMA compliance may come with UX pressure on users.
📚 Must Read
Demystifying SwiftUI’s .ignoredByLayout()
Fatbobman dives deep into the rarely documented .ignoredByLayout() modifier. Learn how it decouples visual transforms from layout logic, solves anchor distortion issues, and prevents unexpected safe-area expansions. If you’re building custom layouts or using GeometryEffect, this is essential reading.
Should you use network connectivity checks in Swift?
Checking network status before making a request may seem helpful, but in reality, it often results in poor UX and missed opportunities. This article argues for letting URLSession handle connectivity, caching, and retries natively, using features like waitsForConnectivity.
Scheduling notifications with time, calendar, and location triggers in iOS
A practical guide to scheduling local notifications using UNTimeIntervalNotificationTrigger, UNCalendarNotificationTrigger, and UNLocationNotificationTrigger. Covers real-world examples like countdowns, daily reminders, and location-based alerts. Great refresher if you’re working with the UserNotifications framework.
🛠️ Toolbox
Connect GitHub to ChatGPT for Deep Research
ChatGPT’s deep research feature now supports GitHub integration. You can connect your project repositories and ask in-depth questions about your code. ChatGPT will perform live analysis, read your files, and return context-aware answers with citations 🔥
🍬 One More Thing…
Reddit quietly rewrote its entire mobile app.
Back in 2021, Reddit started rebuilding its iOS and Android apps from scratch with a new “Core Stack.” Today, the apps span over 2.5 million lines of code and are maintained by 200+ native engineers.
In a new episode of The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast, three leads from Reddit’s mobile platform team share how they pulled it off - from architecture changes (MVP → MVVM), to testing, team structure, and why they bet on Jetpack Compose but passed on SwiftUI (for now).
If you’re into large-scale rewrites or platform engineering at scale, don’t miss this one.
🗳️ Weekly Poll
👋 That’s it for this week
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Until next Friday — keep shipping 🍏