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Top 15 New Swift 5 Features to Consider During iOS App Development

Are you planning to make an app for Apple users? You must be aware of trends in the designs and development. Swift language is used for the development of iOS applications. It is a crucial language that is why knowing the best Swift 5 features has also become important.

In this blog, you will know about the top 15 features of Swift 5. Our team of Swift developers gathered the crucial features important for the iOS apps. Technource is a top iOS app development company and has experienced developers. They handled many iOS projects and delivered the best result on time.

Before moving to know about the features, read what is Swift below.

What Is Swift?

Swift is a programming language used in iOS application building by developers. Its a robust and intuitive language and effective for building applications. The developers can work conveniently using this language because it helps them write many codes properly. The latest version of Swift has come. it is Swift 5 and was released in March 2019 and has versions of Swift 5.1 and Swift 5.2.

Also Read: How to Hire iOS Developers in 2023?

Top 15 New Swift 5 Features

Swift 5 has many new features. The version still requires some improvements, but the developers can expect the below features and use them in iOS development. The team of Technource mentioned the important features below. Have a look.

• ABI Stability
• Raw String Literals
• Result Type
• Filter and Count with “Count(Where)”
• Flatten Nested Optionals with “try?”
• The New “compactMapValues()” Function for Dictionary
• Standard Library Updates
• Additional Language and Compiler Updates
• Migrating to Swift 5.0
• Package Manager Updates
• Raw Strings
• Handling Future Enum Cases
• Using New Unicode Scalar Properties
• String Interpolation
• Dynamically Collable Type

Know about each feature in detail below.

1. ABI Stability

   ABI Stability is one of the crucial features of Swift 5.0. It means Application Binary Interface (ABI). Likewise, it is as important as Application Programming Interface (API). ABI allows binary compatibility between apps and libraries with various Swift versions. Since Swift is not part of iOS, every iOS application needs its Swift version. But due to ABI, the developers don’t have to ship Swift with applications now and compatibility will be there between apps and libraries.

2. Raw String Literals

   When developers try to escape from backlashes and quotes, the process turns out to be frustrating. Raw String Literals is one of the important Swift language features. It allows padding the strings with a # treats the code as they are and pads the slash with another. It makes the number of use cases easier.

3. Result Type

   If you are looking at what’s new in iOS Swift, the Result Type is a new type in it which is crucial for iOS app development. Moreover, it’s a popular feature and available in the Swift standard library. Result Type works with two states of passed result, first Success, the second is, Failure. It encapsulates the return values and errors in one object. Consequently, the developers can write more meaningful code.

4. Filter and Count with “Count(Where)”
   

   Functions like map(_:), filter(_:), and reduce(_:) have some problems. They often make the code too verbose and wasteful. When you use Swift 5, you can use count(where:) function. Through which you can filter and count in one function. Consequently, it saves the effort and time of the developers and makes code lightweight.

5. Flatten Nested Optionals with “try?”

   Nested operators look confusing and the developers have to focus more while dealing with them. Sometimes, the Nested operators look unnecessary as well. Even for a smaller task, they have to write lengthy codes. The new concepts in Swift 5 Flatten Nested with “try?” resolve, giving them the same behavior as? and optional chaining. The iOS developers can keep the code neat and clean using it.

6. The New “compactMapValues()” Function for Dictionary

   The standard Swift library has two important functions for Arrays and Dictionary. The first function is map(_:). It applies the function to Array items and returns the array as a result. The second one is compactMap(_:). It discards Nil array items. The mapValues(_:) works the same for dictionaries, but it doesn’t discard the Nil array items. CompactMapvalues(_:) is a Swift iOS best new enhancements for dictionaries. It combines the mapValues(_:) function of arrays with the mapValues(_:) of dictionaries for proper mapping and filtering.

7. Standard Library Updates

   The standard library in swift 5 has several new features that are different from Swift 4.2. It is useful for Swift programmers because they can manage libraries impeccably. Have a look at some important Swift 5.0 new features below.

   ➜ Enhanced raw texts support
   ➜ SIMD and result vectors are available
   ➜ More flexibility to construct text from data

8. Additional Language and Compiler Updates

   Language and compiler updates are crucial new features in Swift 5. It allows exclusive Access to memory for debugging and release building. It is useful to improve interoperability with languages like Ruby, Python, and JavaScript. Moreover, it added literal initialization via coercion and identity key path as a swift evolution process.

9. Migrating to Swift 5.0

   Swift 5 is compatible with Swift 4, Swift 4.1, and Swift 4.2. So, if you hire iOS developer for the migration of your app, there will be no issue. The developers have to use Apple Xcode 10.2’s code migrator for the same. It will help the developers in easy migration because many will be handled automatically by the code migrator itself.

10. Package Manager Updates

    The target-specific build settings, customized deployment build targets, and dependency mirroring are the features in the Swift 5 package manager. The developers can now import libraries in a REPL using the swift run command and there is no need to build executables.

11. Raw Strings

    The raws strings in Swift allow the developers to write more natural strings during development, especially in backlashes and quote marks. They are treated as literal symbols instead of escape characters. The developers can put one of more # symbols before the string.In the same way, raw strings allow the use of backlashes. But the backlash is treated as a literal character, instead of an escape character.

12. 12. Handling Future Enum Cases

    The developers have to use exhaustive switch cases in the Swift programming language. They have to use a default case to deal with it. The default case helps to handle all the cases effectively. While the Future Enum cases are used instead of a default case. When the developers ad Enum, it indicates a warning and asks, whether you want to handle the case separately or not.

13. Using New Unicode Scalar Properties

    Before Swift 5, the developers used to use the foundation’s CharacterSet to check certain Unicode properties. It is, to know something is a newline or space, the developers used to use Character Set. White Spaces And New lines.contains ©.The name remains CharacterSet and Unicode scalars.It is one of the new things in iOS development.

14. String Interpolation

    String interpolation is more efficient and flexible due to Swift 5. Likewise, some features were not in Swift 4.2 and they are included in Swift 5. That makes it one of the top best practices Swift iOS Swift 5 2021. Swift 5 has an enhanced version of the string interpolation system, which helps the developers control how objects appear in strings. Moreover, the default behavior for Struct also makes debugging easy in Swift.

15. Dynamically Collable Type

    Dynamically callable type helps the developers in improving interoperability with dynamic languages like Python, Ruby, and JavaScript. One of the best Swift 5 features is, the developers can pass any arguments to it. The developers can do dynamic calls in two ways.With labels and without labels. Moreover, the developers can define Struct and mark it as Dynamicallable.

Final Words

These are some of the best Swift 5 features for iOS app development. You can hire experienced Swift developers from Technource and have a feature-rich app for your next project. Moreover, they use iOS development tools to fasten the process. We sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect your idea and provide post-launch support to ensure the smooth functioning of the app.