Understanding SwiftUI - What is SwiftUI? 🧐

In this concise and no-nonsense article, let's postulate what SwiftUI is and why it is all the hype within the iOS developer community.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• The basics
• Pros
• Cons

Requirements

• The minimum deployment target version is iOS 13 and above.

• SwiftUI development is supported by Xcode version 11 and above.

The basics

• SwiftUI is a UI Design Framework just like its predecessor, the UIKit.

• It uses the Declarative programming approach as opposed to Imperative programming.

• In simple words, we inform the framework of what should be done based on a state change and it handles the rest.

• Whereas in the Imperative approach, we keep track of the state and instruct the framework on how to change the UI.

• SwiftUI uses struct to create views instead of class.

Pros

• SwiftUI helps developers write simple, clean and less code.

• It manages the state better than the Imperative approach of UIKit.

• Supports cross-platform development for iOS/iPadOS, macOS, tvOS and watchOS.

• It uses Live Previews instead of building the project to view UI changes.

• There are no auto layout issues as it always generates satisfiable layouts.

• People working in teams no longer have to suffer merge conflicts in storyboards. 😜

• It can be used alongside UIKit using UIHostingController.

• It supports reactive programming using ObjectBinding, BindableObject and the Combine Framework.

Cons

• Users with iOS version 12 and below will not be able to use apps developed with SwiftUI.

• Team development might take more time as others might not be familiar with SwiftUI.