Swift UI is a user interface framework intended to make?
It easier to build Apple platform apps in the Swift programming language for mobile development. It was introduced at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2019, alongside many new APIs and frameworks, all intended to grow the base of mobile developers fluent in developing for Apple products. As the Cupertino-based company explained, “Swift UI is an innovative, exceptionally simple way to build user interfaces across all Apple platforms with the power of Swift.”
As Apple plans for the next decade, this new UI framework is Apple’s effort to make iOS development more approachable for beginner mobile developers. Though Swift UI is still in its infancy, its potential to shift how Apple apps are developed is so significant that we mobile developers should start to take note of it. Job descriptions requiring Swift UI expertise are likely to appear in the next few years.
It easier to build Apple platform apps in the Swift programming language for mobile development. It was introduced at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in 2019, alongside many new APIs and frameworks, all intended to grow the base of mobile developers fluent in developing for Apple products. As the Cupertino-based company explained, “Swift UI is an innovative, exceptionally simple way to build user interfaces across all Apple platforms with the power of Swift.”
As Apple plans for the next decade, this new UI framework is Apple’s effort to make iOS development more approachable for beginner mobile developers. Though Swift UI is still in its infancy, its potential to shift how Apple apps are developed is so significant that we mobile developers should start to take note of it. Job descriptions requiring Swift UI expertise are likely to appear in the next few years.
Why is Apple prioritizing Swift UI?
The Apple App Store of today looks very different from that of 2008 when it was first introduced to the world. With older Apple product models (iPod Touch, first-generation iPad, etc.) still in use today, there are dozens of screen sizes accessing content from today’s App Store. Auto Layout has long been the default Swift system for managing layouts on various screen sizes and orientations. But with so much fragmentation in the device landscape, mobile developers have been asking for a much simpler and more intuitive way of building apps that can scale across all Apple devices. This is why Swift UI has entered the scene, with features including:
Drag-and-drop code creation: Using Swift UI, developers can drag a button or other component from the object library and drop it onto the canvas. Swift UI automatically writes the necessary code. This drag-and-drop method is even applicable to attributes like font weight.
Vertical-Horizontal-Z Axis Stack: The VHZ stack lets developers create complex designs simply by dragging and dropping elements in orientations either vertical to, horizontal to, or along the Z-axis of other elements. It’s similar to building within rows or columns, with no manual coding required. This is akin to using the Bootstrap library to build complex interfaces for web design.
Reusable UI components: Once you’ve created layouts in Swift UI, they can be reused throughout your app. For example, if you’ve built an appearance comprised of a photo left-justified with a precise caption design to the right of the image, that component can be reused by extracting a new subview.
Build across Apple platforms: With Swift UI, Apple’s made it easier to build across Apple platforms like WatchOS, TV OS, and macOS by using the subview components made in one app across other apps.
