Top 15 New Swift 5 Features to Use in iOS App Development

Swift is Apple’s powerful and intuitive programming language. It is among the widely-used programming languages in the iOS app development field. Swift offers fast, easy, and seamless development features empowering developers to create high-quality iOS apps efficiently.

Apple consistently endeavors to upgrade the ability of its Swift language and improve the iOS application development experience. And Swift 5 is the latest programming version of Swift that comes with many exciting features and new updates. The latest Swift 5.7 version brings major additions to the language and improvements in the Swift ecosystem.

Being a leading iOS app development company, we know how these newly released features play a vital role in iOS application development and its market. Whether you are a developer or app owner, updates in Swift have a direct impact on your next iOS app project.

Therefore, it is very important to stay updated with the newest Swift version. To help you with this, here we have shared the top 15 new features and updates released in the latest version of Swift 5.

This article would help if you are an iOS developer and want to know what Swift 5 has to offer. And if you are a business owner aspiring to build an iOS app. Then, you will know some technical aspects to ensure you better leverage Apple’s technology.

So, without any delay, let’s get started

What is Swift?

Swift is a general-purpose programming language used to build apps for the iOS ecosystem. It allows developers to write clean and simple code and build apps for Apple devices iPhone, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, iPad, Apple Watch, and so on. Swift was released by Apple Inc. in 2014 as a replacement and improved C-based programming language (C, C++, and Objective-C).

It is one of the top iOS app development languages in 2023. Swift has better and enhanced coding and programming features as compared to its predecessors. Swift is an object-oriented, multi-paradigm, block-structured, functional, and imperative language. As a result, it offers fast, expressive, and safe programming abilities.

Overview of the new Swift 5

Swift 5 is the extended version released in 2019 by Apple. The company released Swift 5 by introducing significant changes to enhance the accuracy and performance of iOS app development. And

Swift 5.7 is the newest version of Swift programming language. It was officially released in Sep 2022. Swift 5.7 is a further enhancement to the Swift 5 language with major additions and feature updates. It intends to improve the developer experience and bring refinements to the tools in the Swift ecosystem.

Swift 5.7 aims to simplify and optimize iOS application development workflow by making improvements in various key aspects. For instance, improved readability, cleaner syntax, increased programming expressiveness, and more. Swift 5.7 brings considerable and significant changes. Consequently, it has great potential to disrupt iOS app development services and the developer community.

As per Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2022, 5.1% of the entire developer community uses Swift. This is, however, a small figure since most developers are familiar with C-based programming languages.

Swift is a relatively new language in the iOS development market. Therefore, it is gradually expanding its legs. From beginner developers to top iOS app development companies, Swift is evolving as the most preferred tool to use for building iOS apps.

The iOS app development market is reaching new heights. According to the latest reports, the total iOS app revenue is reportedly to increase by 10.6% in 2022 reaching $36.3B. Hence, seeing the growth of the iOS market, hence, this upgrade in Swift will impact the future of iOS app development & broader aspects.

Top 15 New Swift 5 Features

1. ABI Stability

ABI is Application Binary Interface. Here, stability refers to the compatibility of Swift code with future versions of Swift libraries. The new update in ABI Stability allows Swift code to be compiled and linked with different versions of the Swift libraries. And thus, ensures binary compatibility. It means iOS applications written in Swift would have reduced binary sizes.

As a result, developers can take advantage of the latest Swift features without bundling the app with the entire Swift runtime. The updated ABI Stability also gives enhanced flexibility and decreases the risk of breaking changes. Hence, it creates better interoperability between different versions of Swift.

2. Filter And Count With “count(where:)”

In the previous version of Swift, it was quite time-consuming. Developers have had to face problems while executing operations with the collection function such as map(_:), reduce(_:), and filter (_:). Just for the purpose of counting, developers first need to filter. But the new Swift 5 has solved this problem by bringing an update to it. No, with the function count(where:), Swift programmers can easily filter and count in a single function call.

3. Raw Strings

Swift 5 comes with a new feature called Raw Strings. It simplifies working with strings that have special characters. These Raw strings allow developers to incorporate backslashes, quotes, and other special characters in strings without the need for escaping them. So, it becomes hassle-free to work with regular expressions, file paths, and other scenarios.

This feature enhances code readability and decreases the need for escaping. As a result, it turns into cleaner and more maintainable code.

4. Result Type

The Result type is a newly introduced feature in Swift 5. It paves a standardized method to manage success and failure cases in asynchronous operations in iOS app development. It simplifies error handling and enhances code readability. The result type feature enables developers to explicitly represent.

They can handle success or failure outcomes without relying solely on throwing errors or optional values. The Result type focuses on offering safer and more predictable code in asynchronous operations. Therefore, it increases the overall robustness of iOS applications.

5. Property Wrappers

Property Wrappers allow developers to add custom behavior and logic to properties. They don’t need to modify their underlying code. Property wrappers enable the encapsulation of additional functionality around property access and mutation. For instance, validation, type conversion, lazy initialization, and more.

Developers can easily define custom rules and transformations By applying a property wrapper to a property. With property wrappers, it is easy to write cleaner, more declarative code. Thus, this improves the functionality of properties in a flexible and modular way.

6. SIMD Vectors

SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) vectors are a new feature released in Swift 5. It enables high-performance computation on large sets of data in parallel. With SIMD vectors, developers can execute operations on multiple elements simultaneously.

As a result, it significantly improves the performance of tasks that involve numeric computations. For example, graphics processing, data processing, and scientific simulations.

Swift 5 provides native support for SIMD vector types. It lets developers define and manipulate vectors of fixed-size elements. These vector types come with a set of built-in operations that can be performed in parallel. Hence, it becomes easier to write efficient and optimized code.

7. New Generics Implementation

It is one of the significant updates in Swift 5. This new feature comes in the Swift 5.7 version. The new generics implementation method fixes various long-standing bugs. It aims to improve accuracy and performance.

Developers can now seamlessly fix bugs related to complex same-type requirements. The new feature update also allows developers to utilize the CaseIterable protocol that defines the requirements Self.Element == Self. Hence, the new generics implementation update enhances accuracy and performance while programming with Swift iOS app development.

8. String Interpolation

String interpolation now enhances the ability to construct complex strings by embedding expressions directly within string literals. By using string interpolation iOS app developers can easily include variables, constants, and expressions within a string. There is no need for manual concatenation or string formatting operations.

In Swift 5, string interpolation has been further improved by introducing user-defined string interpolation. Developers are able to define their own interpolation types and customize the behavior of string interpolation as per their specific needs. This feature offers greater flexibility. It is because developers can create more expressive and concise string representations by incorporating custom logic and formatting.

9. Enhancements to Codable

Swift 5 introduced major refinements to its Codable. It is a protocol used for encoding and decoding Swift types to and from various formats, such as JSON or Property Lists. These enhancements streamline the process of working with Codable. And thus, making it more powerful and flexible.

In Swift 5, Codable can now automatically synthesizes conformance for types that meet certain criteria. This means that developers no longer need to manually implement the Codable protocol. They also don’t need to write custom encoding and decoding logic for simple types.

The compiler generates the necessary code automatically. Consequently, it reduces boilerplate code and saves development time.

10. @dynamicCallable Attribute

By applying the @dynamicCallable attribute to a type, developers can define the behavior of calling instances of that type as if they were function invocations. With this updated feature, developers can customize and control how objects respond to function-like calls. They can do it by implementing the necessary methods and conforming to the @dynamicCallable protocol.

11. New Collection Functions

These new functions give more convenient ways to perform common operations. It improves the overall efficiency of working with collections. Some of the new collection functions introduced in Swift 5 include firstIndex(where:), lastIndex(where:), randomElement(), and randomElement(using:).

These functions help developers to find the index of the first or last element that satisfies a given condition. They can retrieve a random element from a collection. Or even choose a random element based on a custom random number generator. Hence, it optimizes the overall iOS app development process.

12. Improved Key Path Expressions

Swift 5 has introduced considerable improvements to key path expression. They have enhanced the syntax and functionality of working with key paths in Swift. Key paths provide a concise way to refer to properties of types without actually accessing their values.

In Swift 5, key paths can now be used in more contexts including subscripting and function arguments. This means that developers could utilize key paths to access and manipulate properties within subscripts or pass them as arguments to functions. As a result, it provides greater flexibility and expressiveness.

13. Binary Dependencies

In Swift 5, the Package Manager is now updated. It is a tool for managing dependencies and building Swift packages. One notable update is the introduction of Swift Package Manager (SPM) tools version 5.0. The SPM has received several updates and enhancements to improve its functionality and developer experience.

This version introduced new features such as binary dependencies. They support packages to depend on pre-compiled binary frameworks. This results in improving build times and simplifying the distribution of binary dependencies.

14. “compactMapValues()” Function For Dictionary

The “compactMapValues()” is a new update in Swift. This feature simplifies working with dictionaries containing optional values. The compactMapValues() function provides a convenient way to transform dictionary values.

It helps in removing any key-value pairs where the transformation results in nil. This takes closure as a parameter, which is applied to each value in the dictionary. The closure maps the value to a new type. And if the resulting value is non-nil, it is included in the transformed dictionary.

15. Standard Library Updates

Swift has offered some significant updates to its standard library. It has introduced isMultiple(of:) method, which allows for a concise way to check if a number is a multiple of another number. This method is useful for developers while dealing with arithmetic operations and number manipulation.

Conclusion

The new Swift 5 version comes with various advancements with an aim to improve the overall iOS app development experience. Developers now get more power to create iOS apps and thus reduce time and effort. However, the new feature updates require an essential understanding of its previous versions.

Therefore, to drive the full advantage of the latest Swift programming version, you should better take assistance from the best iOS app development company. They have qualified developers who are well-versed in implementing the latest Swift programming practices and building cutting-edge apps. And RipenApps is one such destination that can assist in building a high-quality iOS app using the latest iOS development technologies.

Book a Free Consultation and Talk to Our Experts Right Away