WWDC 2021 letter to dub dub Santa

Apple announced their WWDC developer event for June 11-7. Here is some stuff I would like to see happen. Comment if you have some things you would also like to see.

Most important features I want to see

1. Interactive Widgets

   Please apple add some input support for widgets so that we can tap on basic things such as a simple checkbox, toggle, or button. I have apps that I would love to make widgets for, however I am waiting for this update.

2. autogenerate JSON Codable data model from URL

   Why do we still have to write down the data model ourselves when Xcode could have a new swift object file where we can simply provide URL, or sample JSON, and Xcode would generate the coddle data model for us. This would save a lot of wasted time writing code that can easily be computer generated.

3. Wireless device run Xcode issues

4. Please improve documentation. Some older frameworks such as CoreGraphics havnt’t gotten their documentation revamped. Please go back and improve documentation for older frameworks.

5. Please add live on device changes.

   When you make changes to your SwiftUI code it would be nice if live on your physical IOS device would show these changes in real time.

Fix the wireless on device run feature so that Xcode dosnt’t lag when it is enabled, and device connection always establishes successfully.

Least important features, or improbable to happen

1. Xcode on iPad

   Xcode on iPad is most IOS devs dreams. Taking a flat slab of glass to code would be so much more convenient than taking a laptop that wets more, and isn’t as stylish. Imagine adding breakpoints to your code with your apple pencil. The thought of this just makes my inner nerd cruel over the thought of this being a reality.

2. SwiftUI for the web

   Yes I know that there is an open source project that is trying this, however who better to create SwiftUI for the web than apple. Imagine how fast websites would be if they contained only Swift LLVM code that generates the websites using web assembler. These websites would be lightening fast, and provide great compatibility with apple devices.

3. Add SwiftUI splash screen support to SwiftUI only apps

   When you create a SwiftUI project the splash screen is still using storyboards. Why is this still a thing. Cant we get SwiftUI for the splash screen too? I know their are workarounds such as creating a SwiftUI view and then adding it to the storyboard as a child view, but this isn’t efficient enough.

4. Autoconvert Objective-C to Swift

   If JetBrains does this with Android Studio why can’t we have this on Xcode. I know the excuses already don’t worry. The common excuse is Objective-C is different than Swift. However so is Kotlin and Java. Apple please do this. This will save companies tons of money. I understand if you can’t do this with third party APIs, however do it for at least your own native frameworks.

5. Allow for a form of changing live state values while the device is running, for example while an app is running you can change a value to see its different behaviors live with the app open.