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Swift on WASM also got very good last year. SQLite in WASM too. Flutter is still bad on iOS and macOS. No Liquid Glass (except some weird hack attempts that lo

Swift on WASM also got very good last year. SQLite in WASM too. Flutter is still bad on iOS and macOS. No Liquid Glass (except some weird hack attempts that look and behave badly). Liquid Glass isn't an optional decoration, it's the name of the new system-wide UI. Leaving it out of your app is like committing to iOS 6-era skeuomorphic design after iOS 7. Edit: Several cross-platforms frameworks can do Liquid Glass: - SwiftUI by using Skip for Android - SwiftCrossUI - React Native I'm glad to see that I can finally target iOS as the first-class citizen, using Apple technologies, and then run that code on other platforms. Instead of having to use frameworks that treat iOS as secondary when it is by far the biggest money-maker for most apps.

websiteapi 10mo ago
in my experience wasm on web, though it works, has too slow a first page load time for slow connections.
- wahnfrieden 10mo ago
  Embedded Swift WASM is very small now. But it is still behind on some useful capabilities like having a replacement for Codable (which last I read may be getting a more performant replacement). Regular Swift WASM got a lot smaller too last year though.
  - websiteapi 10mo ago
    interesting - do you have a good example of a non-trivial web app that uses swift wasm?
    - wahnfrieden 10mo ago
      Goodnotes
cageface 10mo ago
I’ve had very good experiences with Flutter on iOS and macOS. It’s actually a lot easier to get good performance in Flutter than SwiftUI. No cross platform stack can do Liquid Glass yet. You have to wonder if that was one of design goals.
- gumby271 10mo ago
  I'm pretty well convinced it was a goal too. If it wasn't then shame on them since it doesn't accomplish anything else well.
- d12bb 10mo ago
  It’s nice developer experience indeed. But for me as a user, I hate it. Looks nothing like an iOS app, often even worse than fckng webviews…
  - wahnfrieden 10mo ago
    All those approximations at Liquid Glass are infuriating to use and make every app that does feel cheap and gross
satvikpendem 10mo ago
> Edit: Several cross-platforms frameworks can do Liquid Glass: This is pretty funny because you just listed SwiftUI three times but in different configurations. They're not truly cross platform, they just wrap Apple's native design code. In contrast, I can (and do) use a package like liquid_glass_renderer to get Liquid Glass everywhere, on all my devices, with one codebase.
- wahnfrieden 10mo ago
  If this is the current state of it, I can spot a dozen details that are wrong or missing: https://x.com/imadetheseworks/status/1973765948218941771/video/1 https://x.com/imadetheseworks/status/1973765948218941771/vid... Maybe it will get there... Meanwhile I would rather use technologies that provide the full experience on the platform where it matters, and would never want those liquid components on platforms like Android or Windows anyway.
  - satvikpendem 10mo ago
    Well, the library is literally 3 months old, and it's made by one person as an OSS package, so yes, I'm sure you can spot those wrong details. Still, it'll get there, especially once Flutter gets official support for Liquid Glass, as they are planning on working on it later this year or into next year, currently they are refactoring their current design library code. > and would never want those liquid components on platforms like Android or Windows anyway. That's where we disagree then, I like the design itself but don't like it stuck on only one platform. I make apps with wholly custom UI designs, not following any particular OS' "native" design, and that's why Flutter is so powerful, because I am not constrained to what pixels I can render to a screen, nor should I be.
dangus 10mo ago
> Liquid Glass isn't an optional decoration, it's the name of the new system-wide UI Of course it’s optional. Some of the most popular apps on the planet ignore the local UI conventions of their parent OSes entirely. TikTok is a Flutter app. It looks identical on iOS and Android. It uses basically no native UI elements. It’s a pretty well-known strategy to create apps that look identical on all platforms so that you lessen your customer confusion and your support burden. The fact that Spotify, Facebook, Uber, and Reddit look exactly the same no matter what platform you’re on is more important than complying with OS design guidelines and UI elements.
- neonmagenta 10mo ago
  Exactly. Branding and UX are breaking out of the box for guidelines in the successful platforms. You want to be able to pick up any device and have the user know exactly what theyre doing
  - wiseowise 10mo ago
    Thank God I’m only using web versions whenever possible.
    - dangus 10mo ago
      Which also have consistent branding and UX with the apps.
      - wiseowise 10mo ago
        That's fine, as long as I have native OS dialogs/settings.
- d12bb 10mo ago
  > Spotify, Facebook, Uber, and Reddit And I hate every one of those apps (well, back when I used Facebook, years ago, I did), because they’re just bad iOS citizens. I, as most iOS users do, don’t care what apps look on Android. For Android users, it’s the same with iOS. Making shitty cross platform apps is all about branding and saving some money for developers, nothing about the users.

websiteapi 10mo ago

in my experience wasm on web, though it works, has too slow a first page load time for slow connections.

wahnfrieden 10mo ago
Embedded Swift WASM is very small now. But it is still behind on some useful capabilities like having a replacement for Codable (which last I read may be getting a more performant replacement). Regular Swift WASM got a lot smaller too last year though.
- websiteapi 10mo ago
  interesting - do you have a good example of a non-trivial web app that uses swift wasm?
  - wahnfrieden 10mo ago
    Goodnotes

cageface 10mo ago

I’ve had very good experiences with Flutter on iOS and macOS. It’s actually a lot easier to get good performance in Flutter than SwiftUI. No cross platform stack can do Liquid Glass yet. You have to wonder if that was one of design goals.

gumby271 10mo ago
I'm pretty well convinced it was a goal too. If it wasn't then shame on them since it doesn't accomplish anything else well.
d12bb 10mo ago
It’s nice developer experience indeed. But for me as a user, I hate it. Looks nothing like an iOS app, often even worse than fckng webviews…
- wahnfrieden 10mo ago
  All those approximations at Liquid Glass are infuriating to use and make every app that does feel cheap and gross

satvikpendem 10mo ago

> Edit: Several cross-platforms frameworks can do Liquid Glass: This is pretty funny because you just listed SwiftUI three times but in different configurations. They're not truly cross platform, they just wrap Apple's native design code. In contrast, I can (and do) use a package like liquid_glass_renderer to get Liquid Glass everywhere, on all my devices, with one codebase.

wahnfrieden 10mo ago
If this is the current state of it, I can spot a dozen details that are wrong or missing: https://x.com/imadetheseworks/status/1973765948218941771/video/1 https://x.com/imadetheseworks/status/1973765948218941771/vid... Maybe it will get there... Meanwhile I would rather use technologies that provide the full experience on the platform where it matters, and would never want those liquid components on platforms like Android or Windows anyway.
- satvikpendem 10mo ago
  Well, the library is literally 3 months old, and it's made by one person as an OSS package, so yes, I'm sure you can spot those wrong details. Still, it'll get there, especially once Flutter gets official support for Liquid Glass, as they are planning on working on it later this year or into next year, currently they are refactoring their current design library code. > and would never want those liquid components on platforms like Android or Windows anyway. That's where we disagree then, I like the design itself but don't like it stuck on only one platform. I make apps with wholly custom UI designs, not following any particular OS' "native" design, and that's why Flutter is so powerful, because I am not constrained to what pixels I can render to a screen, nor should I be.

dangus 10mo ago

> Liquid Glass isn't an optional decoration, it's the name of the new system-wide UI Of course it’s optional. Some of the most popular apps on the planet ignore the local UI conventions of their parent OSes entirely. TikTok is a Flutter app. It looks identical on iOS and Android. It uses basically no native UI elements. It’s a pretty well-known strategy to create apps that look identical on all platforms so that you lessen your customer confusion and your support burden. The fact that Spotify, Facebook, Uber, and Reddit look exactly the same no matter what platform you’re on is more important than complying with OS design guidelines and UI elements.

neonmagenta 10mo ago
Exactly. Branding and UX are breaking out of the box for guidelines in the successful platforms. You want to be able to pick up any device and have the user know exactly what theyre doing
- wiseowise 10mo ago
  Thank God I’m only using web versions whenever possible.
  - dangus 10mo ago
    Which also have consistent branding and UX with the apps.
    - wiseowise 10mo ago
      That's fine, as long as I have native OS dialogs/settings.
d12bb 10mo ago
> Spotify, Facebook, Uber, and Reddit And I hate every one of those apps (well, back when I used Facebook, years ago, I did), because they’re just bad iOS citizens. I, as most iOS users do, don’t care what apps look on Android. For Android users, it’s the same with iOS. Making shitty cross platform apps is all about branding and saving some money for developers, nothing about the users.