iOS & Android Development

The Trimodal Nature of Software Engineering Salaries

2022-09-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

The software engineering compensation market becoming trimodal - split into three distinct groups that "spike" and that have little overlaps. Most engineers are not aware of this third, Big Tech pillar and the compensation ranges it introduces, assuming compensation can not go beyond what is offered at the second pillar:

Read more about salary tier strategies and competable compensations:

The Pragmatic Engineer

The Pragmatic Engineer: Netflix’s historic introduction of levels for software engineering

2022-09-05T00:54:00.002-07:00

"Netflix is considering the following leveling system"

- Engineer 1
- Engineer 2
- Senior
- Staff
- Principal

The details of the system are still being worked out, and a proposal has been circulated within engineering. The proposal, understandably, has resulted in lots of questions, especially around whether existing engineers will be getting Staff or Principal titles. The original proposal made it seem that everyone would stay Senior, and with promotions, they could get to the next levels.

Read more about the history and background:

The Pragmatic Engineer

Optimize App Retention with the Hooked Model

2022-09-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

Nir Eyal explores how applying the Hooked Model drives customer retention and engagement by fostering good habits

Trigger. An event that encourages someone to act, which is either an:

External trigger: something in the environment — a ping, a ding, or a ring — that alerts a person to do something.
Internal trigger: the desire to escape from an uncomfortable emotional state.

Action. A behavior that anticipates a reward — opening an app, scrolling a feed, checking a dashboard, or playing a video. The simpler the behavior is to accomplish, the more likely the user is to do it.
Reward. The user gets what they came for.
Investment. The user puts something back into the product that makes it better the next time they use it.

https://www.amazon.de/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/0241184835

iOS In-App Browser JavaScript injections to spy on user behaviour on 3rd party websites

2022-08-21T23:56:00.002-07:00

iOS Privacy: Instagram and Facebook can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser

The iOS Instagram and Facebook app render all third party links and ads within their app using a custom in-app browser. This causes various risks for the user, with the host app being able to track every single interaction with external websites, from all form inputs like passwords and addresses, to every single tap.

KrauseFX

Judo App - Server Driven UI out of the box

2022-06-29T00:43:00.008-07:00

Judo App

Judo brings server-driven UI to your iOS and Android apps. Build user interfaces visually in a fraction of time and publish them instantly without submitting to the app store.

Build Experiences - With No Code

The Judo app for macOS, available through the App Store, is built for design professionals with common keyboard shortcuts and familiar concepts like canvas, layers and inspector panel. Workflow is streamlined with the ability to drag and drop media files directly into your experiences and manage your own Judo files in Finder.

Manage Creative Execution

A Judo experience is interactive and can include text, images, video and buttons. An experience may be part of a screen, a single screen, or more typically multiple linked screens. Judo supports screen transitions, carousels, horizontal scrolling and modals. Clients can add custom fonts and define global colors and these are updates applied universally.

Effortlessly Deploy

Judo Cloud syncs your experiences with your iOS and Android apps making them instantly available to your users. Open-source lightweight SDKs on iOS and Android handle rendering. Experiences are pre-loaded and cached before your users see them to avoid loading indicators.

Add API-Derived Content Using Real Data

Judo experiences can be personalized and dynamic. Judo experiences can connect to an existing CMS or third-party APIs to display live data. Judo handles all the tricky bits like loading state and populating lists. Dynamic content can take many forms such as images incorporating personalized text, merchandise recommendations, and point of interest data.

Judo App

Bundeskartellamt prüft Apples Tracking-Regelungen für Dritt-Apps (ATT, App Tracking Transparency Framework)

2022-06-14T05:39:00.003-07:00

Das Bundeskartellamt hat gegen das Technologieunternehmen Apple ein Verfahren zur kartellrechtlichen Prüfung seiner Tracking-Regelungen sowie des App Tracking Transparency Framework eingeleitet. Das Bundeskartellamt geht dabei insbesondere dem Anfangsverdacht nach, dass diese Regelungen Apples eigene Angebote bevorzugt behandeln und/oder andere Unternehmen behindern könnten.

14.06.2022 Pressemeldung Bundeskartellamt

Now in Android - a new, open source, real-world sample app

2022-05-13T04:17:00.000-07:00

For this first alpha release, the Now in Android app includes:

UI built using Jetpack Compose
Theme components with Material3
Adaptive layouts for different screen sizes
Architecture that follows our official guidance
A reactive programming model with unidirectional data flow, implemented using Kotlin Flows
Room and Proto DataStore for local data storage, offline first
Remote/local data synchronization scheduled using WorkManager with exponential backoff

Android Developers

Simple made Easy: Rich Hickey

2022-04-19T00:47:00.002-07:00

Design system as simple as possible to solve the business problem
Simple system are much easier to scale and extend than complex systems

GitLab and Dropbox: Engineering Career Frameworks, plus collection of tools!

2022-02-18T00:00:00.001-08:00

GitLab

These are the expected behaviours of Engineers at GitLab. Most engineers at GitLab are Intermediate or Senior, so the priority is to address these levels first.

Moving between levels, you should see that as engineers advance in their careers, their duties should encompass a higher degree of complexity, the scope of their influence should expand, and their contributions should become more impactful.

These behaviors should not be considered as a checklist for promotion. Excellent Engineers may struggle with one or two aspects of their job and their strengths in certain areas should make up for deficits in others. However, it is important to show a significant number of strengths to be considered for promotion.

Each of these behaviors should be achievable inside of normal working hours. If you feel that you need to work additional hours to be successful in your role you should talk to your manager.

Junior engineers are still included on this framework even though we are not actively hiring at this level. Further discussion about junior engineers can be found on the career development page.

Value Alignments

Collaboration
Results
Efficiency
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
Iteration
Transparency

Technical Competencies

Quality
Complexity
Security
Technical Stewardship
Performance
Open Source

Leadership Competencies

Growing Others
Communication
Ambiguity
Business Acumen
Process

GitLab

Dropbox

What’s a Career Framework?

The Engineering Career Framework is your source for how to achieve impact for your role and team and how to grow in your engineering career. For managers, it can help you set expectations with your teams and hold them accountable for their work.

What the Career Framework is not

This framework is not a promotion checklist for your role; rather, it’s designed to help you figure out what your impact could look like at the next level.

This framework is not an exhaustive list of examples and behaviors; each responsibility includes three to four key behaviors that serve as guide for how to think about your work. Consequently, you’ll need to meet with your manager to define your impact goals and align on the expectations for your role.

What’s in a Career Framework?

This framework is broken down into two components:

Level Expectations define the scope, collaborative reach, and levers for impact at every level; these expectations are the what that determines the difference between an IC3 and IC4, for example

Core and Craft Responsibilities define the key behaviors specific to your role and team; these behaviors help you identify how you work to deliver impact based on your level expectations.

Dropbox

Collection of tools

Collection of progression frameworks and career ladders

Writing High-Performance Swift Code

2022-01-26T02:26:00.003-08:00

Enabling Optimizations
Whole Module Optimizations (WMO)
Reducing Dynamic Dispatch
Dynamic Dispatch

Advice: Use 'final' when you know the declaration does not need to be overridden
Advice: Use 'private' and 'fileprivate' when declaration does not need to be accessed outside of file
Advice: If WMO is enabled, use 'internal' when a declaration does not need to be accessed outside of module

Using Container Types Efficiently

Advice: Use value types in Array
Advice: Use ContiguousArray with reference types when NSArray bridging is unnecessary
Advice: Use inplace mutation instead of object-reassignment

Wrapping operations

Advice: Use wrapping integer arithmetic when you can prove that overflow cannot occur

Generics

Advice: Put generic declarations in the same module where they are used

The cost of large Swift values

Advice: Use copy-on-write semantics for large values

Unsafe code

Advice: Use unmanaged references to avoid reference counting overhead

Protocols

Advice: Mark protocols that are only satisfied by classes as class-protocols

The Cost of Let/Var when Captured by Escaping Closures

Advice: Pass var as an inout if closure not actually escaping

Unsupported Optimization Attributes

GitHub Apple

20 things learned in 20 years of software development

2021-11-19T02:37:00.008-08:00

Some good points:

4. Best code is no code - less code to maintain

6. Sometimes you just have to get started

9. Nobody asks enough about “Why”

11. One of the biggest differences between junior and senior devs is the latter have a well founded, dedicated opionen about tools, with the skill to come to an agreement with others what to use in which context

17. Keep processes as lean as possible

20 Things I’ve Learned in my 20 Years as a Software Engineer (Simple Thread)

20 Dinge, die ich in 20 Jahren als Entwickler gelernt habe (Golem)

PS. I would add: Having a vision helps to at least roughly steer all activities in the right direction. It needs to be accepted that the vision might change and steering will be adopted!

Software Engineering Salaries at Google: A Guide

2021-11-16T01:10:00.000-08:00

Google Engineer Levels

Software Engineer II (L3 | 0-1 year of experience)
Software Engineer III (L4 | 2+ years of experience)
Senior Software Engineer (L5 | Manager I equivalent)
Staff Software Engineer (L6 | Manager II equivalent)
Senior Staff Software Engineer (L7 | Senior Manager)
Principal Engineer (L8 | Director)
Distinguished Engineer (L9 | Senior Director)
Google Fellow (L10 | Vice President)
Senior Google Fellow (L11 | Senior Vice President)

Google Software Engineer Salary

Base compensation
Bonuses
Stock

Google Software Engineer Stock Options
Benefits of Working at Google

Insurance & Wellness
Transportation
Home, Financial, other

Google vs Other Technology Companies

vs Microsoft and Amazon avg

https://careerkarma.com/blog/software-engineering-salary-google/

Different takes on A/B testing with native apps in Google Play and App Store

2021-11-15T05:54:00.002-08:00

A short summary of options:

Synthetic Control Method

Find a good prediction model on current data - and compare the real data after the change with the predicted data

Phased Release/Staged Rollouts

Phased release of new version and compare versus old version via tracking analytics
You can then compare the same content with different app versions on same OS

Implement feature for one OS only - and compare

Release for one OS only and compare versus other OS via tracking analytics

Feature Toggles

Feature toggle via remote config and switch feature on/off defining one or more explicit success criteria via Firebase A/B Testing

Feature toggle and config options

Feature toggle PLUS config via firebase remote config to not only switch on/off but do more experiments with different settings (color, number of items, sizes) via Firebase A/B Testing

Server-driven UI and dynamic endpoints

Using server driven UI, you can provide different endpoints and serve different endpoint URLs to the clients via remote config
You can pitch completely different UIs without manually adopting or releasing apps!

Some links:

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

2021-11-04T07:33:00.006-07:00

Nice blog post about staff (or engineering manager) archetypes:

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

The Tech Lead guides the approach and execution of a particular team. They partner closely with a single manager, but sometimes they partner with two or three managers within a focused area. Some companies also have a Tech Lead Manager role, which is similar to the Tech Lead archetype but exists on the engineering manager ladder and includes people management responsibilities.
The Architect is responsible for the direction, quality, and approach within a critical area. They combine in-depth knowledge of technical constraints, user needs, and organization level leadership.
The Solver digs deep into arbitrarily complex problems and finds an appropriate path forward. Some focus on a given area for long periods. Others bounce from hotspot to hotspot as guided by organizational leadership.
The Right Hand extends an executive's attention, borrowing their scope and authority to operate particularly complex organizations. They provide additional leadership bandwidth to leaders of large-scale organizations.

This blog also has a nice cal overview to visualize the different working approaches for each archetype:

StaffEng

If you want to read about this, checkout the book Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track!

Unidirectional Data Flow with iOS: RxFeedback and CombineFeedback

2021-08-03T06:28:00.003-07:00

Unidirectional Reactive Architecture. This is a RxSwift implemetation.

https://github.com/shoheiyokoyama/RxFeedback

Unidirectional Reactive Architecture. This is a Combine implemetation of ReactiveFeedback and RxFeedback

https://github.com/sergdort/CombineFeedback

Point Free: Composable Architecture

2021-08-03T05:03:00.002-07:00

Architecture is a tough problem and there’s no shortage of articles, videos and open source projects attempting to solve the problem once and for all. In this collection we systematically develop an architecture from first principles, with an eye on building something that is composable, modular, testable, and more.

Composable Architecture - Point Free

Firebase Remote Config now supports automatic personalization!

2021-06-02T01:28:00.003-07:00

Firebase Remote Config is a great tool to enable dynamic config, feature toggles or even A/B testing with your native apps.

Only thing you need to keep in mind that default update rate is 12h, but there is an official workaround for that for emergency use cases, trying avoid to exceed the quota (Propagate Remote Config updates in real time).

Now Google took it a step further, allowing automatic personalization via Firebase Remote Config!

Last but not least, we’re putting the finishing touches on a new feature of Remote Config, called personalization. Personalization will give you the ability to automatically optimize individual user experiences to maximize the objectives you care about - such as revenue or engagement - through the power of machine learning. After a simple setup, personalization will continuously find and apply the right app configuration for each user to produce the best outcome, taking the load off of you. If you want an early look at this feature and to try it out for yourself, join our Alpha program.

Firebase Google Blog

Lean prioritization matrix

2021-05-27T01:20:00.000-07:00

We are sorting the stream of stakeholder request and product ideas in a KPI-weighted table.

The Matrix

This 2x2 matrix

low effort vs. high effort
high value vs. low value

is a nice and easy consumable visualization model.

The Weights

Suggested weights are

Reach

How many customers does the feature impact?

Customers

New/existing target groups

Revenue

Will it drive revenue either direct or via extended CLV?

Acquisition

Will the feature help drive new customers?

Efficiency

Does the feature help drive efficiency in customers’ lives – be that internal customers (colleagues), or external (paying) customers?

Brand

Does the feature enhance your brand awareness?

The classification/quadrants

Top left to bottom right

Do it now!

Break it down and put in prio sequence

Gap filler

Forget about it... for now.

Andy Wicks - Mind the product

Xcodes.app - The easiest way to install and switch between Xcode versions

2021-04-21T04:22:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to install and switch between multiple versions of Xcode.

If you're looking for a command-line version of Xcodes.app, try xcodes.

GitHub.com RobotsAndPencils

iOS and iPadOS Usage

2021-04-08T01:18:00.002-07:00

Please find here the official Apple stats of the iOS and iPadOS update rate - of the device sold the last four years (sic!).

Apple Developer

How to make your iOS (and Android) app secure

2021-04-08T00:30:00.001-07:00

Checks

No Non-SSL connections (http only)

Black-box check with proxy, e.g. Charles Proxy
Enable Apple Transport Security (ATS) to enforce SSL

Make sure all used backend services use TLS v1.2+ and do not allow TLS v1.0 or v1.1 any more

Deprecation of TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1
Make sure to use secure Cipher-Suites (see BSI recommendations)

Make sure servers do not support SSLv3 protocol any more!
Make sure your ePrivacy/GDPR and Apple Tracking Transparency (ATT) implementation reacts correctly on opt-outs of tracking
Consider public key pinning/certificate pinning for additional security vs. man in the middle attacks
Make sure all used libs have the latest patches/versions - and are still maintained
Make sure to request required permissions only!
Make sure no hard-coded client secrets are present

See also Secret Management on iOS, Tim Dolenko swift-secrets

Use KeyChain for storing data securely and check File Data Protection
Avoid screen recording and capturing in production app
Make sure to disable compromising logs in production
Check for Jailbreak
Make sure WebViews do not set isHTTPOnly = false or isSecure = false cookies

Third party WebView content is hard to check - especially dynamic content

Additional Checks

You think iOS apps are sandboxed and need to pass the Apple review and therefore you are on the safe side? Think again...

Enable ATS in mobile apps
SSL Cert Pinning
Storing info in KeyChain rather than NSUserDefaults
Avoiding confidential info as part of code repository
Jailbreak Detection
Debug Logs Only
Third Party Library Usage
File Data Protection
Screen Recording & Capturing

Details from Shashank Thakur@Medium.com

Tools

Getting Started with Swift on Android

2021-03-18T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Swift stdlib can be compiled for Android armv7, x86_64, and aarch64 targets, which makes it possible to execute Swift code on a mobile device running Android or an emulator. This guide explains:

How to run a simple "Hello, world" program on your Android device.

How to run the Swift test suite on an Android device.

GitHub

AppMon/MobSF - Automated framework for monitoring and tampering system API calls macOS, iOS and Android

2021-03-11T03:58:00.005-08:00

AppMon is an automated framework for monitoring and tampering system API calls of native macOS, iOS and android apps. It is based on Frida.

It consists of the following components:

AppMon Sniffer - Intercept API calls to figure out interesting operations performed by an App
AppMon Intruder - Manipulate API calls data to create change app's original behavior
AppMon Android Tracer - Automatically traces Java classes, methods, its arguments and their data-types in Android APKs
AppMon IPA Installer - Creates and installs "inspectable" IPAs on non-jailbroken iOS devices
AppMon APK Builder - Creates APKs "inspectable" on non-rooted Android devices

GitHub

Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) is an automated, all-in-one mobile application (Android/iOS/Windows) pen-testing, malware analysis and security assessment framework capable of performing static and dynamic analysis.

GitHub

FF Chartwell: Defining pie chart, bar charts and many others via vector font!

2021-01-08T04:10:00.002-08:00

With FF Chartwell you can define Charts via OpenType font, and transform a string, e.g. "60+30+10" into a Pie Chart 60%-30%-10% including color support (not only b/w!) without rendering anything: directly via font without using any images!

Check this out:
FontBlog FF Chartwell

So great!

Google Play: Best Apps 2020

2020-12-17T01:09:00.003-08:00

Celebrating the Developers Behind the Best Apps and Games of 2020

Best App of 2020

Loóna: Bedtime Calm & Relax by Loona Inc.

Best Personal Growth Apps
Best Hidden Gem Apps
Best Everyday Essential Apps
Best Apps for Good
Best Apps for Fun
Best Game of 2020
Best Indie Games
Best Casual Games
Best Innovative Games
Best Competitive Games

Android Developers