This Week in Mobile: Performance Boosts and Xcode 8 Extensions

The next Apple event is almost here, and we'll see what the next greatest phone looks like. It's time to get your apps out there for review for the iOS 10 release. Apple are cleaning up the app store too, and getting rid of abandonware; you'll get a notice from the review team if you need to update your app to keep it in the store. 

iOS 

Xcode 8 extensions are big news. If you haven't been using the beta and are in the dark about what's currently available, this is the list you need.

This is the list I wanted to make, but never had the time - a comprehensive list of Swift 2.3 and 3.0 changes.

Swift +Consuming & Transforming Arrays shows you all the ways that you can use and manipulate arrays in Swift, with simple one-liners.

When talking about Swift, you're looking at Protocol Oriented Programming rather than Object Oriented Programming. The difference? All explained here.

Some projects to check out (and seriously, you really need to look at Relayout!)  

• Relayout: Swift microframework for declaring Auto Layout constraints functionally
• SwiftMessages: A very flexible message bar for iOS written in Swift
• SwiftLocation: Sexy Location Manager and Beacon Monitoring for Swift
• AImage: A animated gif and apng engine for iOS in Swift. Optimized for Multi-Image case.  

Also, make sure to look at LearnSwift, with 50 different Swift projects, it's a great way to get into the real features. 

Android 

The team at Vimeo have put together an article detailing how you can boost application performance using reflectionless (de)serialization. 

For better output, and developing faster, you know you need continuous integration. Here's how you can achieve Android CI with docker.

Here's a list of five best practices for Android developer productivity.

Java 8 on Android doesn't come without some costs. Be aware of them with this excellent talk from Jake Wharton.

Some projects you should try out: 

• Particle: A nice animation that you can use in your splash screen
• tiger: The fastest dependency injection library, from Google
• epoxy: Epoxy is an Android library for building complex screens in a RecyclerView, from Airbnb
• InfiniteCycleViewPager: Infinite cycle ViewPager with two-way orientation and interactive effect
• RingProgress: A circle progress bar with effects
  

General

For some light reading, take a look at this illustration detailing the different approaches to the design process. 

Here's an exclusive look at how AI and machine learning work at Apple, by Steven Levy.

An entertaining and familiar story for any software developer; So a product manager asks you to fix a bug...

Finally, are you guilty of any of these things that developers say?