I see a lot of new iOS developers ask the question in the title of this article. The short answer is both. To write SwiftUI apps you must also learn Swift because Swift is the programming language SwiftUI uses. The rest of this article provides a more detailed explanation.
UIKit
In 2008 Apple gave developers a SDK (Software Development Kit) to let them make native iOS apps. The heart of the SDK was UIKit, a framework for creating the views and controls in iOS apps, such as buttons, text fields, and table views.
UIKit uses the Objective-C programming language. Using Objective-C worked well for existing Mac developers, who were already using Objective-C to make Mac apps. But the release of the iOS SDK attracted lots of new developers to the Apple developer community. These new developers found Objective-C’s syntax to look strange and found it difficult to understand. They wanted a language with a syntax that looked more familiar.
Swift
In 2014 Apple unveiled their solution for developers who hated Objective-C: the Swift programming language. Swift’s syntax looked more familiar to people who came to iOS development from web development and Windows development. Now iOS developers had two language choices for making iOS apps with UIKit: Swift and Objective-C.
SwiftUI
In 2019 Apple released the initial version of SwiftUI, a new framework for developing apps for all of Apple platforms: iOS, Mac, tvOS, and watchOS. SwiftUI has only one language: Swift. You must know Swift to use SwiftUI.
The Language and Framework Options for iOS Apps
Someone who wants to make iOS apps with Apple’s frameworks has three options.
- Use UIKit with Objective-C.
- Use UIKit with Swift.
- Use SwiftUI with Swift.
Which option should use choose? You won’t be making a mistake no matter which option you choose. But for someone new to iOS development, I recommend Option 3, write the app with SwiftUI using Swift. SwiftUI is the future of iOS development. You’re eventually going to have to learn it so you might as well learn it now.