What's new in UIKit

Generated on 8/3/2024

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What's New in UIKit

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced several enhancements and new features in UIKit for iOS 18. Here are the key updates:

  1. Document Launch Experience:

    • Redesigned launch experience for document-based apps.
    • Full control over launch views and design.
    • First-class support for template document creation.

  2. Tabs and Sidebar:

    • Major updates to tabs and sidebar.
    • New API to better describe app hierarchy to UITabBarController.
    • Changes made to UITab instances are reflected immediately.

  3. Fluid Transitions:

    • Support for new fluid transitions across the system.
    • Enhanced interoperability of SwiftUI and UIKit, making it easier to use them interchangeably in apps.

  4. SwiftUI Animations in UIKit:

    • Use SwiftUI animation types to animate UIKit views.
    • Build fluid gesture-driven animations using SwiftUI spring animations.

  5. Coordinated Gesture Recognizers:

    • Add existing UIKit gesture recognizers directly to SwiftUI hierarchies using the new UIJsRecognizerRepresentable protocol.

  6. Automatic Trait Tracking:

    • Easier to use traits and handle changes in iOS 18.
    • Propagates data to view controllers and views in the app's hierarchy.

  7. List Improvements:

    • New header and footer configurations.
    • UIBackgroundConfiguration constructors for list cell, list header, and list footer.
    • Automatic appearance updates from the list environment trait.

  8. UIUpdateLink:

    • Easier implementation of complex animations requiring periodic UI updates.
    • Features like automatic view tracking and low latency mode for drawing applications.

  9. SF Symbol Animations:

    • New animations for SF Symbols.

  10. Sensory Feedback:

    • Enhancements to sensory feedback mechanisms.

  11. Text Improvements:

    • Various improvements to text handling and rendering.

  12. Menu Actions:

    • New capabilities for menu actions.

  13. Apple Pencil Pro and PencilKit:

    • Enhanced support for Apple Pencil Pro and updates to PencilKit.

For a detailed overview, you can watch the session What’s new in UIKit.

Relevant Sessions

Feel free to explore these sessions for more in-depth information on the updates and enhancements in UIKit.

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What’s new in SwiftUI

What’s new in SwiftUI

Learn how you can use SwiftUI to build great apps for any Apple platform. Explore a fresh new look and feel for tabs and documents on iPadOS. Improve your window management with new windowing APIs, and gain more control over immersive spaces and volumes in your visionOS apps. We’ll also take you through other exciting refinements that help you make expressive charts, customize and layout text, and so much more.

What’s new in UIKit

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