August 2, 2026
SwiftUI? More like Swift-why
SwiftUI After 7 Years: A Story of Mediocrity
Apple promised an easy app-building future — developers say it’s still a mess
TLDR: The article says Apple’s big app-building system still feels unfinished after seven years, with bugs and broken promises frustrating experienced developers. In the comments, people split between disappointment, gallows humor, and a bigger fight over whether Apple has lost its edge — or whether developers should jump ship entirely.
Apple’s shiny app-building tool, SwiftUI, was supposed to make creating apps faster, easier, and less painful across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Seven years later, this piece argues the dream has curdled into full-on developer burnout: strange bugs, sluggish performance, surprise breakages, and even Apple’s own tutorial apparently falling apart. That’s the setup — but the real fireworks are in the comments, where the mood swings between heartbreak, doom-posting, and roast comedy.
One of the biggest reactions is pure disappointment. A longtime fan confessed they “fell in love” with SwiftUI when it launched, only to admit they still can’t build a full app with it because of missing documentation and all the moments where Apple’s “easy” system suddenly forces you back into older tools. Another commenter dropped the existential bomb of the thread, warning that big companies can look healthy right up until the moment the rot becomes impossible to ignore — basically, is Apple quietly coasting on old glory?
And then came the fighting words. One commenter asked the question hanging over the whole mess: if Apple’s system still feels half-baked, should developers just use Flutter or mix Kotlin Multiplatform with native design tools instead? Another took aim at the entire modern trend, arguing these newer “reactive” systems may simply be the wrong shape for building everything. The funniest jab, though, was brutally short: “skills issue.” In one tiny meme-ready shot, the comments turned a serious software debate into a playground dunk fest.
Key Points
- •The article reviews SwiftUI seven years after its 2019 launch and says it has not become a fully mature production-grade UI framework.
- •It identifies layout consistency, performance, evolving data-flow patterns, and backward compatibility as the main problem areas.
- •The article cites Apple’s own SwiftUI tutorial project and a performance comparison with UIKit as practical examples supporting its critique.
- •It states that SwiftUI was introduced with promises including declarative syntax, single-source-of-truth state management, built-in animation, instant previews, and cross-platform code reuse.
- •The article argues that Apple developed SwiftUI partly in response to pressure from React, React Native, and Flutter, which made cross-platform development more attractive to businesses.