when will swiftui be on par with uikit

Generated on 8/2/2024

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SwiftUI has been making significant strides in terms of features and interoperability with UIKit. Here are some key points from the WWDC 2024 sessions that highlight the progress and current capabilities of SwiftUI:

  1. Interoperability with UIKit and AppKit:

    • SwiftUI now shares more common foundations with UIKit and AppKit, including gesture recognition and animations. This allows for seamless integration and the ability to use UIKit gesture recognizers and animations within SwiftUI views (Platforms State of the Union).
    • SwiftUI provides a UIViewRepresentable protocol to create and update UIKit views within SwiftUI, and HostingViewController to embed SwiftUI views in UIKit view hierarchies (SwiftUI essentials).
  2. Advanced Features and Customizations:

    • SwiftUI now includes features like custom containers, mesh gradients, and scrolling customizations, making it a powerful tool for building complex user interfaces (Platforms State of the Union).
    • SwiftUI animations can now be used to animate UIKit views, providing a unified animation experience across both frameworks (What’s new in UIKit).
  3. Adoption and Use Cases:

    • SwiftUI is extensively used in Apple's own apps and system experiences, such as Control Center, Notification Center, and Finder. It is also used in key apps on watchOS and visionOS (Platforms State of the Union).
    • New apps and features are being built with SwiftUI, demonstrating its capability to handle both simple and complex user interfaces (Platforms State of the Union).
  4. Cross-Platform Capabilities:

    • SwiftUI enables code sharing across different Apple platforms, making it easier to build adaptive views and scenes that provide a consistent look and feel on iOS, macOS, and other platforms (SwiftUI essentials).

In summary, SwiftUI has made significant progress and is now a robust framework capable of building complex and highly customizable user interfaces. Its interoperability with UIKit and AppKit, along with its advanced features, makes it a strong contender for building modern Apple platform apps. While it may not yet cover every single use case that UIKit does, it is rapidly closing the gap and is highly recommended for new app development.