Skip to main content

SwiftUI is more than just a developer convenience

Posted in Apple

Apple announced SwiftUI at this year’s WWDC. It’s a new framework that will allow developers to build apps for iOS, Watch and Mac, all using the same codebase.

Cult of Mac sums it up nicely:

For an app to work on all three platforms, the developer needs to produce three separate versions of the user interface code. SwiftUI promises to change all this, because the same framework is native on all Apple platforms

Most talk has been about the obvious – it will encourage developers of iOS apps to also build a Mac and Watch app. And it’s that, of course, but I reckon there’s a tactical angle from Apple too.

A lot of developers who build an iOS app do so in something like Ionic or Xamarin instead of using native code for each platform. That means that they can reach both iOS and Android markets using one codebase and a few UI customisations for each.

Now that SwiftUI’s here, it makes it more difficult for developers who might have automatically reached for their cross-platform mobile framework of choice. They have to decide whether they want to produce an app for iOS and Android or an app for iOS, Mac and Apple Watch.

Of course, it depends on the app, but I bet a lot more devs are tempted to ditch Android and go for the Mac market instead.

Accessibility in your inbox

I send an accessibility-centric newsletter on the last day of every month, containing:

  • A roundup of the articles I’ve posted
  • A hot pick from my archives
  • Some interesting posts from around the web

I don’t collect any data on when, where or if people open the emails I send them. Your email will only be used to send you newsletters and will never be passed on. You can unsubscribe at any time.

More posts

Here are a couple more posts for you to enjoy. If that’s not enough, have a look at the full list.

  1. Alt text for CSS generated content

    There’s an interesting feature in Safari 17.4 that allows content added with CSS to have ‘alt’ text. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

  2. The accessibility conversations you want to be having

    In most companies, accessibility conversations centre around WCAG compliance, but that’s just the start. Thinking beyond that is where you want to be!