A chart or a graph?

With iOS 16 being available and gradually picked up by iOS users, it’s time to introduce some of the new features that this version offers.

For the app, the most interesting one is the new Swift Chart framework, allowing to create entertaining charts. Or should I say graphs. As the app defines a chart more as a music chart, let’s stick with graphs to clearly explain how Swift Charts improve the graphs in Chart Your Music.

Up until now, the graph of positions of an entry, you can see in the Entry Detail screen, has been developed using just core Swift and SwiftUI capabilities. The graphs are somewhat limited. They do not allow interaction at all; at most scrolling is enabled for entries with a lot of positions.

If you have updated to iOS 16, you now will experience a different graph. In the base it resembles the original one but the graph is much more ‘time aware’ and shows for example in a much better way when entries disappear and return after a while in the chart.

The graph also is now interactive. You can tap on the line showing the positions which will toggle the ‘swipe’ mode. You can then swipe across the graph to reveal a lollipop detailing every position of the entry in the chart as you swipe along the graph.

Note that this new graph functionality is currently only available on iPhone. As soon as the latest iPadOS and MacOS are released, it will be appearing on those platforms as well (for MacOS, only when you do have a Mac with M1 or M2 chipset).

In short, Apple’s Swift Charts frameworks provides an elegant way to improve on the current (and maybe future) graph functionality in Chart Your Music.

Lock Screen Widget

Another iOS 16 feature in the update is the support of a Lock Screen widget. For the moment, only one Lock Screen widget is supported as that is the only one really making sense. That widget will show your number 1 of a random (at interval) or specifically selected collection on your lock screen.

Good news, the update is available now on the App Store. Grab the latest version of Chart Your Music (1.1.3) to enjoy these new iOS 16 features.