is appdelegate being deprecated
Asked on 2025-06-30
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Yes, the UIApplicationDelegate
is being deprecated in favor of the UI Scene lifecycle. According to the session What’s new in UIKit, legacy UIApplicationDelegate
callbacks and UIApplication
launch option keys are no longer applicable. The only initializer that remains is the init window scene
initializer for UIWindow
, and every other initializer is deprecated. Following iOS 26, any UIKit app built with the latest SDK will be required to use the UI Scene lifecycle, otherwise it will not launch.

What’s new in UIKit
Modernize your app with the latest APIs in UIKit, including enhanced menu bar support, automatic observation tracking, a new UI update method, and improvements to animations. We’ll also cover how you can include SwiftUI scenes in your UIKit app and explore SF Symbols, HDR color pickers, and more.

Make your UIKit app more flexible
Find out how your UIKit app can become more flexible on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro by using scenes and container view controllers. Learn to unlock your app’s full potential by transitioning from an app-centric to a scene-based lifecycle, including enhanced window resizing and improved multitasking. Explore enhancements to UISplitViewController, such as interactive column resizing and first-class support for inspector columns. And make your views and controls more adaptive by adopting new layout APIs.

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