what's new with bidirectional text?

Asked on 06/11/2025

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At WWDC 2025, Apple introduced several advancements in handling bidirectional text, particularly in the session titled "Enhance your app’s multilingual experience." Here are some of the key updates:

  1. Dynamic Writing Direction: The writing direction is now dynamically determined based on the content of the text. This means that as more text in a right-to-left (RTL) language like Urdu is typed, the writing direction will automatically adjust to RTL, enhancing the multilingual experience in apps using Apple-provided text views and text fields.

  2. Natural Selection: iOS 26 introduces a new property called selectedRanges to represent an array of non-contiguous NS ranges, replacing the older single selected range property. This change allows for more natural text selection in bidirectional text, where the selection can follow the cursor naturally without visible gaps.

  3. TextKit 2 Enhancements: TextKit 2 seamlessly manages bidirectional text, providing more control over layout and styling, ensuring that text looks correct regardless of the language.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the session Enhance your app’s multilingual experience (09:29) where these updates are discussed.

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Enhance your app’s multilingual experience

Enhance your app’s multilingual experience

Create a seamless experience for anyone who uses multiple languages. Learn how Language Discovery allows you to optimize your app using a person’s preferred languages. Explore advances in support for right-to-left languages, including Natural Selection for selecting multiple ranges in bidirectional text. We’ll also cover best practices for supporting multilingual scenarios in your app.

Code-along: Cook up a rich text experience in SwiftUI with AttributedString

Code-along: Cook up a rich text experience in SwiftUI with AttributedString

Learn how to build a rich text experience with SwiftUI’s TextEditor API and AttributedString. Discover how you can enable rich text editing, build custom controls that manipulate the contents of your editor, and customize the formatting options available. Explore advanced capabilities of AttributedString that help you craft the best text editing experiences.

What’s new in UIKit

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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.