what's new in UI
Generated on 2/18/2025
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At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced several new features and improvements in UI, particularly focusing on UIKit and SwiftUI.
UIKit Enhancements
- Document Launch Experience: Redesigned for document-based apps to showcase their distinctive identity with full control over launch views and support for template document creation.
- Tabs and Sidebar: Major updates include a new combined sidebar experience and customization features, allowing users to personalize the sidebar and tab bar through drag and drop. The new UI Tab and UI Tab group APIs help build a tab bar and sidebar that adapt for a native experience on both Mac Catalyst and visionOS.
- Fluid Transitions: Introduction of a new zoom transition that is continuously interactive, enhancing the sense of continuity in apps.
- UI Update Link: A new feature in iOS 18 that simplifies implementing complex animations requiring periodic UI updates, offering better performance and battery efficiency.
- Apple Pencil Pro Integration: New support for Apple Pencil Pro, including a squeeze gesture for tool switching and an undo slider for quick access to undo history.
SwiftUI Enhancements
- New Tab View: Enhancements to make apps feel brand new with a more flexible sidebar.
- Mesh Gradients and Snappy Controls: New visual features to enhance the appearance of apps.
- Scrolling Enhancements: New APIs for fine-grained control over scroll views, allowing for better integration with the state of a scroll view and detection of view visibility changes due to scrolling.
- Improved Interoperability: Enhanced interoperability between SwiftUI and UIKit, allowing for the use of SwiftUI animation types to animate UIKit views.
For more detailed information, you can refer to the sessions:
Platforms State of the Union
Discover the newest advancements on Apple platforms.
What’s new in AppKit
Discover the latest advances in Mac app development. Get an overview of the new features in macOS Sequoia, and how to adopt them in your app. Explore new ways to integrate your existing code with SwiftUI. Learn about the improvements made to numerous AppKit controls, like toolbars, menus, text input, and more.
Elevate your tab and sidebar experience in iPadOS
iPadOS 18 introduces a new navigation system that gives people the flexibility to choose between using a tab bar or sidebar. The newly redesigned tab bar provides more space for content and other functionality. Learn how to use SwiftUI and UIKit to enable customization features – like adding, removing and reordering tabs – to enable a more personal touch in your app.
Evolve your document launch experience
Make your document-based app stand out, and bring its unique identity into focus with the new document launch experience. Learn how to leverage the new API to customize the first screen people see when they launch your app. Utilize the new system-provided design, and amend it with custom actions, delightful decorative views, and impressive animations.
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
Explore everything new in UIKit, including tab and document launch experiences, transitions, and text and input changes. We’ll also discuss better-than-ever interoperability between UIKit and SwiftUI animations and gestures, as well as general improvements throughout UIKit.
What’s new in watchOS 11
Explore new opportunities on Apple Watch, including bringing Double Tap support to your watchOS app, making your Smart Stack widgets even more relevant and interactive, and displaying your iOS Live Activities in the Smart Stack.