Use of Swift in iOS 13 has doubled compared to iOS 12

What you need to know

  • Use of Swift has doubled in iOS 13 compared to 12.
  • There are 141 binaries using Swift in iOS 13, up from 66 in iOS 12.
  • Swift was originally announced at WWDC 2014, 5 years ago.

Use of Apple's programming language Swift has vastly increased in the latest version of iOS. In iOS 13, Apple's use of Swift has more than doubled compared to iOS 12.

The programming language was originally announced at WWDC in 2014. It can be used by developers to create apps in macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS and more. Of course, it's also used by Apple inside of Apple software, and the first Swift-based iOS app was Calculator in iOS 9, back in 2015.

In this year's software, there are 141 binaries that contain Swift. This doesn't necessarily mean that an entire app is based on Swift, and it could be as little of one line of code that contains the language.

The research was carried out by blogger Timac and picked up via 9to5 Mac, which notes that much of Apple's own software is still written in Objective-C. It seems that rather than overhaul its entire software coding (no doubt a logistical nightmare), Apple is slowly choosing to phase in Swift as and when it thinks best. Afterall, if it ain't broke...

You can see the graph charting Apple's own adoption of Swift into iOS below!

Stephen Warwick
News Editor

Stephen Warwick has written about Apple for five years at iMore and previously elsewhere. He covers all of iMore's latest breaking news regarding all of Apple's products and services, both hardware and software. Stephen has interviewed industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. He also specializes in curating and reviewing audio hardware and has experience beyond journalism in sound engineering, production, and design.

Before becoming a writer Stephen studied Ancient History at University and also worked at Apple for more than two years. Stephen is also a host on the iMore show, a weekly podcast recorded live that discusses the latest in breaking Apple news, as well as featuring fun trivia about all things Apple. Follow him on Twitter @stephenwarwick9