This Week in Mobile: Java Developer Thoughts on Swift

This week we saw Kickstarter open source their iOS and Android apps this week. It’s certainly a good reference app to add to your collection.

Slightly off-topic, but Android devs who want to get into IoT have things a whole lot easier with Android Things. There’s a good tutorial here that shows how to get started with Android Things on a Raspberry Pi. 

iOS 

Bob Lee gives his Top 10 Ground Rules for iOS Developers that he has picked up as he started using Swift. 

If you’re a Java developer thinking of branching into Swift make sure to read a Java Developer’s View on Swift.

For those with big app ideas running on iPhones and iPads, check out this article on Building a Universal Framework for iOS Using Swift. 

Ray Wenderlich has updated their Swift style guide for Swift 3. If you don’t have a guide yet, just go with this one!

Some projects worth looking at: 

• Kickstarter: Kickstarter’s iOS app 
• SwiftRichString: Elegant & Painless Attributed Strings Management Library in Swift 
• iOS-MultiSelectionTable: Beautiful way of having a multi-selection table on iOS written in Swift
• Swift-Kuery: SQL Database Abstraction Layer 

Android

Ever come across the IllegalStateException on Android? Demystifying Android’s commitAllowingStateLoss() will explain what’s really going on.

Having trouble making your app look good? Make your Android App Look Less Shitty has a few design tips that will make all the difference.

Here are Five Notes on MVP Architecture for Android. If you need convincing in under four minutes, give it a read. 

Some projects to check out: 

• Kickstarter: Kickstarter’s Android app 
• android-Ultra-Pull-To-Refresh: Ultra Pull to Refresh for Android. Support all the views 
• TextLayoutBuilder: An Android library that allows you to build text layouts more easily
• RxWindowIfChanged: An RxJava2 operator which splits an observable into windows using a key selector 

General 

By designing for offline use first, you are creating an app that is much more accessible. In Offline App Architecture: How to Build for the Next Billion you’ll see why it is so important.

Here’s A Useful Cheat Sheet for Penetration Testing on Mobile Applications for both Android and iOS.