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It'd be nice if Apple made SwiftUI cross platform and I'd be singing in the streets if UIKit got ported, but that seems unlikely at best. I believe that there'

It'd be nice if Apple made SwiftUI cross platform and I'd be singing in the streets if UIKit got ported, but that seems unlikely at best. I believe that there's strong community interest in some kind of Swift UI framework for Android, though, and so there's a substantial chance that a third party solution will appear.

CharlesW 1y ago
skip.tools is one third-party solution for creating Swift + SwiftUI apps for Android today.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  It still translates SwiftUI to Kotlin+Compose, right? Very cool and useful, but not quite the same as a Swift-based UI framework for Android.
  - CharlesW 1y ago
    Oops, TIL Jetpack Compose doesn't use Android native controls. That is unfortunate.
    - tadfisher 1y ago
      Jetpack Compose is just as "native" as Android views at this point; it hooks into the same accessibility frameworks and renders to the same surfaces as the framework toolkit. This isn't like Flutter which renders to an opaque Skia buffer.
      - CharlesW 1y ago
        Great! I appreciate the claification, thank you.
rubyn00bie 1y ago
I’d absolutely love it if they made SwiftUI cross platform for both mobile and desktop. Flutter is nice but it’s still sort of a mess sometimes when targeting desktop instead of mobile.
- n8cpdx 1y ago
  SwiftUI is also a mess when targeting desktop (macOS).
  - mindok 1y ago
    Let’s be honest. It’s a mess targeting iOS. It’s like the old days with VB - first 80% done in no time, last 20% takes forever, requiring ever more elaborate hacks to get around stupid restrictions (eg try hiding the keyboard associated with a TextField when you tap on a Picker).
troupo 1y ago
> It'd be nice if Apple made SwiftUI cross platform It's a nearly impossible task. Just ask Qt, who have been at this for thirty years.
- ardit33 1y ago
  SwiftUI is more realistic actually. UIKit, much tougher (more mature, more tied to the IOS ecosystem).
  - jabwd 1y ago
    Highly doubt it, Safari on Windows ran on AppKit and that thing is from the early 1990s. You'd be surprised how high level UIKit actually is.
    - lukeh 1y ago
      Source?
      - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
        Don’t have links, but it’s true. iTunes for Windows also includes chunks of AppKit. The Windows ports of AppKit in both likely trace their lineages back to Yellow Box, which was the Windows port of AppKit that Apple briefly made available prior to the release of OS X 10.0.
        lukeh 1y ago
        My understanding was Foundation and bits of CoreGraphics but not AppKit. Yellow Box required DPS.
- owl_vision 1y ago
  Qt has grown so huge that I rather choose Tk or GTK for cross platform GUI. i would love to see how Swift will do cross platform gui.
garbthetill 1y ago
Correct me if im wrong, but isn't the pain points for mobile devs, the need to have intimate knowledge of both pl to build & maintain a good "backend/functionality" of the app over time and that the UI portion of the app is quite simple to learn, build and maintain. So is it necessary for the swift team to try get swift ui onto android, versus a developer building their app "backend/functionality" in swift, compiling it down for both ios and android, then bridging the android bindings with a UI made in kmp etc I recently learnt that amo and protonmail use this solution but instead of swift android, they were using uniffi-rs and seemed to have great results, I think proton ditched react native for this solution, which to me sounds like a more streamlined way of getting native performance without needing the overhead of managing multiple language. I guess we will have to see how mature swift android gets and if it can replace uniffi-rs etc which would save even more time
- designed 1y ago
  Do you have a link that talks about Proton Mail's use of UniFFI-rs? A quick search didn't turn up anything.
  - garbthetill 1y ago
    here is a reddit thread about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1nq3vk9/proton_mail_rewrote_their_mobile_tech_stack_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1nq3vk9/proton_mail_r... the proton mail team claimed they will write a technical writeup soon
ardit33 1y ago
UIKit is very mature and tied to the iOS ecosystem and a bit more complex. SwiftUI is easier to port (since it is still a incomplete / subset features of UIKit).
yAak 1y ago
From what I've read, SwiftUI is using parts of UIKit under the hood, so it also doesn't seem too likely.
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  Yes historically but not by design. It's more of a transition tactic. Starting with iOS 26, new UIKit and AppKit features are implemented by "native" SwiftUI (specifically, Liquid Glass's implementation). In recent years they have also been replacing UIKit/AppKit-backed SwiftUI views with "native" SwiftUI implementations. But besides this technical change I don't think Apple has any desire to bring SwiftUI to other platforms. BTW: https://skip.tools https://skip.tools has bridged it to Compose. Your SwiftUI code runs in native Swift on Android.

CharlesW 1y ago

skip.tools is one third-party solution for creating Swift + SwiftUI apps for Android today.

cosmic_cheese 1y ago
It still translates SwiftUI to Kotlin+Compose, right? Very cool and useful, but not quite the same as a Swift-based UI framework for Android.
- CharlesW 1y ago
  Oops, TIL Jetpack Compose doesn't use Android native controls. That is unfortunate.
  - tadfisher 1y ago
    Jetpack Compose is just as "native" as Android views at this point; it hooks into the same accessibility frameworks and renders to the same surfaces as the framework toolkit. This isn't like Flutter which renders to an opaque Skia buffer.
    - CharlesW 1y ago
      Great! I appreciate the claification, thank you.

rubyn00bie 1y ago

I’d absolutely love it if they made SwiftUI cross platform for both mobile and desktop. Flutter is nice but it’s still sort of a mess sometimes when targeting desktop instead of mobile.

n8cpdx 1y ago
SwiftUI is also a mess when targeting desktop (macOS).
- mindok 1y ago
  Let’s be honest. It’s a mess targeting iOS. It’s like the old days with VB - first 80% done in no time, last 20% takes forever, requiring ever more elaborate hacks to get around stupid restrictions (eg try hiding the keyboard associated with a TextField when you tap on a Picker).

troupo 1y ago

> It'd be nice if Apple made SwiftUI cross platform It's a nearly impossible task. Just ask Qt, who have been at this for thirty years.

ardit33 1y ago
SwiftUI is more realistic actually. UIKit, much tougher (more mature, more tied to the IOS ecosystem).
- jabwd 1y ago
  Highly doubt it, Safari on Windows ran on AppKit and that thing is from the early 1990s. You'd be surprised how high level UIKit actually is.
  - lukeh 1y ago
    Source?
    - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
      Don’t have links, but it’s true. iTunes for Windows also includes chunks of AppKit. The Windows ports of AppKit in both likely trace their lineages back to Yellow Box, which was the Windows port of AppKit that Apple briefly made available prior to the release of OS X 10.0.
      - lukeh 1y ago
        My understanding was Foundation and bits of CoreGraphics but not AppKit. Yellow Box required DPS.
owl_vision 1y ago
Qt has grown so huge that I rather choose Tk or GTK for cross platform GUI. i would love to see how Swift will do cross platform gui.

garbthetill 1y ago

Correct me if im wrong, but isn't the pain points for mobile devs, the need to have intimate knowledge of both pl to build & maintain a good "backend/functionality" of the app over time and that the UI portion of the app is quite simple to learn, build and maintain. So is it necessary for the swift team to try get swift ui onto android, versus a developer building their app "backend/functionality" in swift, compiling it down for both ios and android, then bridging the android bindings with a UI made in kmp etc I recently learnt that amo and protonmail use this solution but instead of swift android, they were using uniffi-rs and seemed to have great results, I think proton ditched react native for this solution, which to me sounds like a more streamlined way of getting native performance without needing the overhead of managing multiple language. I guess we will have to see how mature swift android gets and if it can replace uniffi-rs etc which would save even more time

designed 1y ago
Do you have a link that talks about Proton Mail's use of UniFFI-rs? A quick search didn't turn up anything.
- garbthetill 1y ago
  here is a reddit thread about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1nq3vk9/proton_mail_rewrote_their_mobile_tech_stack_with/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1nq3vk9/proton_mail_r... the proton mail team claimed they will write a technical writeup soon

ardit33 1y ago

UIKit is very mature and tied to the iOS ecosystem and a bit more complex. SwiftUI is easier to port (since it is still a incomplete / subset features of UIKit).

yAak 1y ago

From what I've read, SwiftUI is using parts of UIKit under the hood, so it also doesn't seem too likely.

wahnfrieden 1y ago
Yes historically but not by design. It's more of a transition tactic. Starting with iOS 26, new UIKit and AppKit features are implemented by "native" SwiftUI (specifically, Liquid Glass's implementation). In recent years they have also been replacing UIKit/AppKit-backed SwiftUI views with "native" SwiftUI implementations. But besides this technical change I don't think Apple has any desire to bring SwiftUI to other platforms. BTW: https://skip.tools https://skip.tools has bridged it to Compose. Your SwiftUI code runs in native Swift on Android.