Top Advanced iOS Books and Videos for Pro Developers

Combine: Asynchronous Programming with Swift

Writing asynchronous code can be challenging, with a variety of possible interfaces to represent, perform, and consume asynchronous work — delegates, notification center, KVO, closures, etc. Juggling all of these different mechanisms can be somewhat overwhelming. Does it really have to be this hard? Not anymore!

With Apple’s introduction of the Combine framework in WWDC 2019, it is clear that Apple aims to position declarative and reactive programming in Swift as a long-term investment and a game-changer in how developers perform and compose pieces of asynchronous work, making it a must-have tool at your disposal.

The introduction of Combine as a built-in framework in Apple’s ecosystem is promising news to developers who were interested in frameworks such as RxSwift or ReactiveSwift, but didn’t want the overhead of a third-party dependency; and while experience with either of the above could be useful, it is not a prerequisite for this book. You’ll learn everything from the ground up to become a true Combine master.

Combine: Asynchronous Programming with Swift has 20 chapters over five sections:

• Section I: Introduction to Combine: In this part of the book, you’re going to ramp up over the basics of Combine and learn about some of the building blocks it comprises. You’ll learn what Combine aims to solve and what are some of the abstractions it provides to help you solve them: Publisher, Subscriber, Subscription, Subject and much more.
• Section II: Operators: In this section, you’ll learn the majority of operators Combine has to offer, divided into useful groups: transforming, filtering, combining, time manipulation and sequence. Once you’ve got your operator chops down, you’ll wrap up this section with a hands-on project to practice your newly-acquired knowledge.
• Section III: Combine in Action: These five mini-chapters have a focus on practical approaches for leveraging Combine for specific use-cases. You’ll learn how to leverage Combine for networking, how to debug your combine publishers, how to use timers and observe KVO-compliant objects, as well as learn how resources work in Combine. To wrap up this section, you’ll get your hands dirty and build an entire Combine-backed network layer — how exciting!
• Section IV: Advanced Combine: Start by learning how to use SwiftUI with Combine to build reactive UI experiences, handle errors gracefully, and work with schedulers, custom publishers and backpressure. You’ll wrap up this section by learning how to properly test your new Combine code.
• Section V: Building a Complete App: Mastery takes practice, and practice you shall! You’ve made it through this entire book, an amazing feat by all means. It’s time to truly solidify the knowledge you’ve acquired throughout this chapter and build an entire app using Combine and SwiftUI.

Catalyst by Tutorials

Catalyst by Tutorials shows you how to take all of those great apps you’ve build on iOS and run them right on macOS. But like everything else with Apple, it’s not always as straightforward as you’d like it to be. This book will show you how to design your apps to work well on macOS, what you can and can’t port between the two platforms, and any other “gotchas” to keep an eye out for when building apps under Catalyst.

This book is for developers who have a good handle on building iOS apps and want to learn how to port those apps to run on macOS as well.

Catalyst by Tutorials has 14 chapters over three sections:

• Section I: Making a Great iPad App: In this section, you’ll take an app written to run on iPhone and adapt it to run on iPad. Then you’ll add some features to make it behave like a first-class iPad citizen. And through the magic of Catalyst, these features will make your Mac app better too!
• Section II: Making a Great Mac App: The good news is that most of your code will be useful for both iPad and Mac platforms. But what about the things that are Mac-specific: like mouse support, Touch Bar support and more? In this section, you’ll take the first-rate iPad app from the previous section and add Mac-specific touches to make it work well on macOS.
• Section III: Distributing Your App: Congratulations! You now have a Mac app. But getting that app to your users can be a little different than on iOS. In this section, you’ll learn the options for distributing your app and how those options work.

Free For the Next Three Days!

We’re making all of these Pro-level courses and books absolutely free for the next few days for everyone to enjoy, but only until Thursday, October 29, 2020!

To start watching or reading right away, simply head to any of the Pro courses or books below that you want to dive in to:

• Video Course: Combine in the raywenderlich.com App
• Video Course Intermediate iOS Design Patterns
• Video Course: Advanced MapKit
• Book: Combine: Asynchronous Programming with Swift
• Book: Catalyst by Tutorials

Where to Go From Here?

If you’re interested in digging into one or more of these courses once the free weekend ends, great news — they’re all included as part of an Ultimate Pro subscription, which gives you access to over 4,000+ videos and 40+ books in our online mobile development library. It’s simply the best way to keep your skills sharp and stay at the top of your iOS development game.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Ultimate Pro subscription, we’ve got a handy post here explaining what’s included, or you can head over to our main Ultimate Subscription page to see which subscription is right for you!

Enjoy – and let us know if any of these courses are your favorites, too!