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The ultimate investment for your iOS career
Hacking with Swift+ is a subscription service that delivers incredible, hands-on Swift tutorials as both video and article, so you can deepen your understanding of Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, and more, and take your career to the next level.
HWS+ costs just $20 per month, and every article includes 4K Ultra HD video.
4K Video
All articles come with 4K Ultra HD video showing the techniques, with live commentary from me so you can understand exactly how something works.
Article + Code
All articles also come as text as well as video so you can read if you prefer, plus copy any code you want to try, and even challenges to help you take your learning further.
Ultimate Portfolio App
Your subscription includes access to my Ultimate Portfolio App series, which is a huge course teaching you to build the ideal app to get your next Swift job.
Exclusive content
All HWS+ articles are available only for subscribers, on topics such as advanced Swift, building custom SwiftUI components, high-performance apps, and more.
Or see below to get a free trial!
How it works
HWS+ was launched June 1st, and many all-new articles plus accompanying videos have already been posted since then including my incredible new Ultimate Portfolio App series.
But it doesn't stop there. We'll keeping adding videos to the courses, and keep adding new courses, to build this up into the ultimate toolkit for advancing your Swift knowledge.
Courses available now
- The Ultimate Portfolio App walks you through the process of building one app that implements best practices for architecture, accessibility, testing, documentation, and more, while also working across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and even watchOS.
- Advanced Swift will focus on improving your core Swift language skills, regardless of whether you use UIKit, SwiftUI, or something else.
- Algorithms helps you understand common algorithms in computer science, all implemented and explained step by step in Swift.
- Custom SwiftUI Components will walk you through building a wide variety of reusable UI components using SwiftUI.
- Data Structures teaches you how to build stacks, lists, trees and more, while working with a variety of common Swift protocols.
- High-performance Apps will teach you techniques for writing faster code, rendering faster views, and more, so you can make best use of your user's device.
- Intermediate Swift is designed to help push your skills further, giving in-depth explanations for generics, optionals, assertions, and more.
- Intermediate SwiftUI is packed with tips and tricks to help you write better SwiftUI code, including customizing common controls with styles, handling size classes better, and working with dynamic properties.
- Making the most of Foundation will go back to the basics of Apple's Foundation framework, exploring how best to use common code such as
UserDefaultsandMeasurement. - Networking covers a core topic in a fresh way, showing you smart ways to make your code simpler and safer using generics, Combine, and more.
- Remaking Apps walks you through building copies of well-known apps from iOS using SwiftUI, showing you how easy it is to get powerful effects with very little code.
- Rendering Charts in SwiftUI shows you how SwiftUI can be used to build complete types of charts from scratch, including pie charts, bar charts, and more.
- SwiftUI Special Effects will teach you how to add some surprise and delight to your user interface using particles, Core Motion, and more.
- Working with Data helps you get to grips with data input, such as creating a custom XML parser, or handling complex or messy JSON.
Each of those courses have had their initial videos published, but many more will continue to come.
And more courses are on the way: debugging, testing, and of course lots more SwiftUI – I have an epic collection of tutorials coming, and I can’t wait to share them all with you.
Your Hacking with Swift+ membership gets you every subscriber-only article and video published now and in the future.
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You can start your HWS+ subscription today and start watching videos immediately, then come back tomorrow and subsequent days to keep getting new content.
If you're not sure whether HWS+ is right for you, you can try a free three-day trial – no payment or credit card needed.
- Get instant access to all past existing Hacking with Swift+ episodes, plus new ones as they are released.
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Here's a sample of what's waiting for you…
24:11
ADVANCED SWIFT
FREE: How to use phantom types in Swift
Phantom types are a powerful way to give the Swift compiler extra information about our code so that it can stop us from making mistakes. In this article I’m going to explain how they work and why you’d want them, as well as providing lots of hands-on examples you can try.
31:55
DATA STRUCTURES
FREE: Trees
Trees are an extraordinarily simple, extraordinarily useful data type, and in this article we’ll make a complete tree data type using Swift in just a few minutes. But rather than just stop there, we’re going to do something quite beautiful that I hope will blow your mind while teaching you something useful.
14:17
ULTIMATE PORTFOLIO APP
FREE: Ultimate Portfolio App: Introduction
While I’m sure you’re keen to get started programming immediately, please give me a few minutes to outline the goals of this course and explain why it’s different from other courses I’ve written.
32:08
CUSTOM SWIFTUI COMPONENTS
FREE: Creating a WaveView to draw smooth waveforms
In this article I’m going to walk you through building a WaveView with SwiftUI, allowing us to create beautiful waveform-like effects to bring your user interface to life.
36:18
HIGH-PERFORMANCE APPS
FREE: Using memoization to speed up slow functions
In this article you’ll learn how memoization can dramatically boost the performance of slow functions, and how easy Swift makes it thanks to its generics and closures.
18:50
MAKING THE MOST OF FOUNDATION
Handling names correctly
There are lots of UI mistakes we can make in programming, but unless our bugs actually get in the way of functionality most users don’t care that much. But there is one exception, and we’re going to look at it here: in this article I’ll show you how to handle names correctly – the most personal data of all.
33:11
DATA STRUCTURES
Binary trees
We already looked at trees, where each node can have zero or more children, and now I want to look at a specialized version called binary trees, where each node has zero, one, or two children. In particular we’re looking to look at how these lead to binary search trees and the remarkable performance advantages they can bring.
16:43
WORKING WITH DATA
Parsing XML the easy way
Although we mostly prefer JSON for data transfer, many major languages make it easy to parse and traverse XML documents. Swift does not, but that’s something we can fix in under a 100 lines of code by writing our own implementation of MiniDOM – Python’s lightweight implementation of the document object model.
30:31
ALGORITHMS
Flood fill path finding
The flood fill approach to path finding is one of the easiest to learn, works great in games with small maps, and is also commonly used in software – filling a picture with color, for example. In this article I’ll walk you through how the algorithm works, and help you build a visual representation of it in action.
27:34
CUSTOM SWIFTUI COMPONENTS
Creating a FilteringList to filter a list using text input
Many apps show lots of data in a list, and allow users to filter that list by typing in a text view. In this article we’re going to build that in SwiftUI, then pull it out into a reusable component you can apply anywhere.
11:12
CUSTOM SWIFTUI COMPONENTS
Creating an AccessibleStack that flips stack axis based on Dynamic Type
There are several times when you might want to flip between a HStack and VStack, but one useful option is to look at the Dynamic Type size. Apple uses this itself to switch list rows to a vertical layout when using larger fonts, and in this tutorial I’ll show you how it’s done.
22:27
NETWORKING
Merging multiple requests with Combine
In a previous article I showed you a smart, simple and safe way of fetching data from the internet using Combine. This article I want to look at how to handle multiple network requests safely, ensuring that both complete before you update your user interface.
8:47
INTERMEDIATE SWIFT
Creating a spaceship operator
When it comes to learning operator overloading, there is one operator that Swift lacks, that many other languages have, and is genuinely useful. In this article I’ll show you how to build the spaceship operator in Swift – it’s surprisingly easy, and useful too.
19:50
SWIFTUI SPECIAL EFFECTS
Shadows and glows
SwiftUI gives us a modifier to make simple shadows, but if you want something more advanced such as inner shadows or glows, you need to do extra work. In this article I’ll show you how to get both those effects and more in a customizable, flexible way.
1:01:16
ALGORITHMS
Flocking with boids
If you watch a flock of birds you’ll see it exhibits all sorts of complex behaviors as they swarm around in the air – they often stay together but not too close, they move in the same direction but also seem to change direction at the same time. In this article we will create flocking behavior in SwiftUI, using Craig Reynolds’ classic boids algorithm.
18:36
MAKING THE MOST OF FOUNDATION
Using dates safely and effectively
Working with dates in software is hard, and if you don’t understand why then think about time zones, think about leap years, or think about how it’s the year 2563 in the Thai calendar. Apple gives us many tools for making them easier but they can be hard to discover, so in this article I’m going to try to provide some clear guidance for what to use and when.
19:32
ADVANCED SWIFT
Advanced string interpolation, part two
In part one of this tutorial we looked at how to customize string interpolations on a type-by-type basis, giving you more control over how your code works. In this second part we’ll look at a second powerful use for interpolation: building whole types from scratch.
17:58
MAKING THE MOST OF FOUNDATION
Converting measurements safely
Apple’s Foundation framework makes it easy for us to convert any kind of measurement into any other kind of measurement. In this article I’ll show you how to make the most of these APIs, but also why it’s so useful that they work with Swift features such as operator overloading, plus important protocols such as Comparable, Equatable, and Codable.
26:15
REMAKING APPS
Remaking the iOS lock screen
In this article we’re going to look at how easy it is to rebuild the iOS lock screen. Yes, this isn’t hard, but along the way I think you’ll pick up a few cool SwiftUI tricks, including better date formatting, haptic buttons, and more.
26:05
WORKING WITH DATA
Parsing difficult JSON
If you have nice, clean JSON then using Swift and Codable is like a dream come true. But what if you have messy JSON, or JSON where you really don’t know what you’ll receive ahead of time? In this article I’ll show you how to handle any kind of JSON in an elegant way, without relying on third-party libraries.
FAQ
How much does it cost?
Hacking with Swift+ costs $20 a month, paid monthly. Your membership includes all subscriber-only videos and articles available now and published in the future, for as long as your membership remains active. You can cancel your membership at any time, and your access will continue until your term ends.
Why is there no yearly subscription term?
At this time Hacking with Swift+ is only available as a monthly term, because it makes it easier to launch. In the future we might add an annual subscription option, and you'll be able to switch over to it.
How often are you releasing new videos?
Everything starts from zero, and Hacking with Swift+ is no different. But I'm keen to get off zero as fast as possible, which means publishing a lot of new tutorials in these early days. The pace will slow a little once the back catalog is bigger, but there will still be many new tutorials every month.
Are there exercises?
Yes! All Hacking with Swift+ articles end with challenges to help you take your learning further – code to try, problems to solve, questions to consider, and more.
Why do I need a Hacking with Swift account?
Your Hacking with Swift account links your Gumroad purchase to this site, so we can unlock your subscription. This account also allows you to post to the forums if you want to.
Does this give me all your books?
No; the articles produced for Hacking with Swift+ are all new and exclusive to subscribers. The books are separate products and will carry on receiving updates.
How can I cancel my subscription?
If at any point you want to cancel your Hacking with Swift+ subscription, you can do so directly through your Gumroad account. Your access to the subscriber-only content will remain active until your subscription term ends, at which point it will cease.
Will there be sales tax or VAT added to the price?
If you live in a country or state where tax is applied to digital purchases, that will be added to your subscription price. As you might imagine there isn't a lot I can do about that.
Will you still make free tutorials?
Yes, absolutely! I believe it's important to help everyone learn, so I will still be publishing as many free tutorials as I can. This won't be affected by Hacking with Swift+.