Apple Announces Swift – A New Programming Language For iOS8

swift

A lot of developers in San Francisco are still picking their jaws off the floor after Apple let out some big news, iOS8 apps are going to be written in a new programming language called Swift. According to TechCrunch it looks like Swift has only been in development for almost four years and it actually started as a one-person project:

According to Chris Lattner, director of Apple’s Developer Tools Department, the Swift programming language has only been in development since July 2010. On his personal website, he writes that the language began as a solo project, with “only a few people knowing of its existence.” Lattner goes on to write that a select few engineers joined him on the project in late 2011, and that it only became a major focus for the Apple Developer Tools team in July 2013. (Source – TechCrunch)

So what’s the coolest thing someone’s done with Swift so far? Well one very eager developer build Flappy Bird from scratch in 9 hours with the new language.

Lucky for developers like me who are used to Objective-C and iOS7 programming Swift is supposed to be pretty darn easy to pick-up. Considering I’ve spent quite a bit of time developing for iOS over the last few weeks I am really looking forward to diving in and see what they did.

If you want to see Swift in action here’s a great video that’s a lot shorter than the whole WWDC conference I recommend checking-out this video below:


Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton