UIKit
Construct and manage a graphical, event-driven user interface for your iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS app.
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Overview
UIKit provides a variety of features for building apps, including components you can use to construct the core infrastructure of your iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS apps. The framework provides the window and view architecture for implementing your UI, the event-handling infrastructure for delivering Multi-Touch and other types of input to your app, and the main run loop for managing interactions between the user, the system, and your app.
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UIKit also includes support for animations, documents, drawing and printing, text management and display, search, app extensions, resource management, and getting information about the current device. You can also customize accessibility support, and localize your app’s interface for different languages, countries, or cultural regions.
UIKit works seamlessly with the SwiftUI framework, so you can implement parts of your UIKit app in SwiftUI or mix interface elements between the two frameworks. For example, you can place UIKit views and view controllers inside SwiftUI views, and vice versa.
To build a macOS app, you can use SwiftUI to create an app that works across all of Apple’s platforms, or use AppKit to create an app for Mac only. Alternatively, you can bring your UIKit iPad app to the Mac with Mac Catalyst.
Topics
Essentials
App structure
App and environmentDocuments, data, and pasteboardResource managementApp extensionsInterprocess communicationMac Catalyst
User interface
Views and controlsView controllersView layoutAppearance customizationAnimation and hapticsWindows and screens
User interactions
Touches, presses, and gesturesMenus and shortcutsDrag and dropPointer interactionsApple Pencil interactionsFocus-based navigationAccessibility for UIKit