iOS 18 App Development Essentials

Developing iOS Apps with SwiftUI, Swift, and Xcode 16

Neil Smyth

• Publisher: Payload Media, Inc.
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781951442996
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Mobile Devices
• Index: Computer Science

This book aims to teach the skills necessary to build iOS 18 applications using SwiftUI, Xcode 16, and the Swift programming language.

Beginning with the basics, this book outlines the steps to set up an iOS development environment, together with an introduction to using Swift Playgrounds to learn and experiment with Swift.

The book also includes in-depth chapters introducing the Swift programming language, including data types, control flow, functions, object-oriented programming, property wrappers, structured concurrency, and error handling.

A guided tour of Xcode in SwiftUI development mode follows an introduction to the key concepts of SwiftUI and project architecture. The book also covers creating custom SwiftUI views and explains how these views are combined to create user interface layouts, including stacks, frames, and forms.

Other topics covered include data handling using state properties and observable, state, and environment objects, as are key user interface design concepts such as modifiers, lists, tabbed views, context menus, user interface navigation, and outline groups.

The book also includes chapters covering graphics and chart drawing, user interface animation, view transitions and gesture handling, WidgetKit, Live Activities, document-based apps, Core Data, SwiftData, and CloudKit.

Chapters also explain how to integrate SwiftUI views into existing UIKit-based projects and integrate UIKit code into SwiftUI.

Finally, the book explains how to package up a completed app and upload it to the App Store for publication.

Along the way, the topics covered in the book are put into practice through detailed tutorials, the source code for which is also available for download, and over 50 online knowledge test quizzes.

The aim of this book, therefore, is to teach you the skills to build your own apps for iOS 18 using SwiftUI. Assuming you are ready to download the iOS 18 SDK and Xcode 16 and have an Apple Mac system, you are ready to get started.

Table of contents

• 1. Start Here
• 2. Joining the Apple Developer Program
• 3. Installing Xcode 16 and the iOS 18 SDK
• 4. An Introduction to Xcode 16 Playgrounds
• 5. Swift Data Types, Constants, and Variables
• 6. Swift Operators and Expressions
• 7. Swift Control Flow
• 8. The Swift Switch Statement
• 9. Swift Functions, Methods, and Closures
• 10. The Basics of Swift Object-Oriented Programming
• 11. An Introduction to Swift Subclassing and Extensions
• 12. An Introduction to Swift Structures and Enumerations
• 13. An Introduction to Swift Property Wrappers
• 14. Working with Array and Dictionary Collections in Swift
• 15. Understanding Error Handling in Swift 5
• 16. An Overview of SwiftUI
• 17. Using Xcode in SwiftUI Mode
• 18. SwiftUI Architecture
• 19. The Anatomy of a Basic SwiftUI Project
• 20. Creating Custom Views with SwiftUI
• 21. SwiftUI Stacks and Frames
• 22. SwiftUI State Properties, Observation, and Environment Objects
• 23. A SwiftUI Example Tutorial
• 24. SwiftUI Stack Alignment and Alignment Guides
• 25. Predictive Code Completion in Xcode
• 26. An Overview of Swift Structured Concurrency
• 27. An Introduction to Swift Actors
• 28. SwiftUI Concurrency and Lifecycle Event Modifiers
• 29. SwiftUI Observable and Environment Objects – A Tutorial
• 30. SwiftUI Data Persistence using AppStorage and SceneStorage
• 31. SwiftUI Lists and Navigation
• 32. A SwiftUI List and NavigationStack Tutorial
• 33. An Overview of Split View Navigation
• 34. A NavigationSplitView Tutorial
• 35. An Overview of List, OutlineGroup and DisclosureGroup
• 36. A SwiftUI List, OutlineGroup, and DisclosureGroup Tutorial
• 37. Building SwiftUI Grids with LazyVGrid and LazyHGrid
• 38. Building SwiftUI Grids with Grid and GridRow
• 39. Building Custom Containers
• 40. A SwiftUI Custom Container Tutorial
• 41. Building Tabbed and Paged Views in SwiftUI
• 42. Building Context Menus in SwiftUI
• 43. Basic SwiftUI Graphics Drawing
• 44. SwiftUI Animation and Transitions
• 45. Working with Gesture Recognizers in SwiftUI
• 46. Creating a Customized SwiftUI ProgressView
• 47. Presenting Data with SwiftUI Charts
• 48. A SwiftUI Charts Tutorial
• 49. An Overview of SwiftUI DocumentGroup Scenes
• 50. A SwiftUI DocumentGroup Tutorial
• 51. An Introduction to Core Data and SwiftUI
• 52. A SwiftUI Core Data Tutorial
• 53. An Overview of SwiftUI Core Data and CloudKit Storage
• 54. A SwiftUI Core Data and CloudKit Tutorial
• 55. An Introduction to SwiftData
• 56. A SwiftData Tutorial
• 57. Building Widgets with SwiftUI and WidgetKit
• 58. A SwiftUI WidgetKit Tutorial
• 59. Supporting WidgetKit Size Families
• 60. A SwiftUI WidgetKit Deep Link Tutorial
• 61. Adding Configuration Options to a WidgetKit Widget
• 62. An Overview of Live Activities in SwiftUI
• 63. A SwiftUI Live Activity Tutorial
• 64. Adding a Refresh Button to a Live Activity
• 65. A Live Activity Push Notifications Tutorial
• 66. Testing Live Activity Push Notifications
• 67. Troubleshooting Live Activity Push Notifications
• 68. Integrating UIViews with SwiftUI
• 69. Integrating UIViewControllers with SwiftUI
• 70. Integrating SwiftUI with UIKit
• 71. Preparing and Submitting an iOS 18 Application to the App Store
• Index