Is SwiftUI backwards-compatible with iOS 12.x and older?

Question

If I have an app made with SwiftUI, will it work for iOS below iOS 13?

Answer 1

It is compatible with iOS 13+. Here is link to its documentation.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/

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Even Xcode 10 does not support it. You need to use Xcode 11 which is in beta as of (Jun 3 2019). https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/swiftui/creating-and-combining-views

Answer 2

As all people before me mentioned, it's very clear that it will require iOS 13 or later. But as a new iOS developer, I was worried about to what extent I should adopt SwiftUI in comparison with UIKit. I already built some small projects with UIKit, and went somewhere advanced with it.

But as SwiftUI commenced, how to combine between them. The article in the following link puts all in context: https://www.hackingwithswift.com/quick-start/swiftui/answering-the-big-question-should-you-learn-swiftui-uikit-or-both

My only concern now is that I noticed with Xcode 11 that an Xcode project cannot combine both Storyboards and SwiftUI.

Answer 3

Based on Apple documentation it's available only starting with iOS 13, unfortunately.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/

Answer 4

As everyone has said, it will not be backwards compatible with older iOS versions. But given that Apple consistently have a high install base of their latest iOS, and also given that iOS 13 requires iPhone 6S or later, iPad Air 2 or later, the new iPad mini 4 and iPhone SE. The vast majority of users will be able to install iOS 13 and enjoy lovely SwiftUI apps.

Answer 5

I don't think so, because all libraries are already annotated for iOS 13 or higher.

Also, in the documentation, Apple clearly mentions the supported versions:

• iOS13.0+ beta
• macOS10.15+ beta
• tvOS 13.0+ beta
• watchOS 6.0+ beta

Answer 6

Sadly no, SwiftUI is only allowed in iOS 13 and above. It was introduced in the iOS 13 framework. Before iOS 13, everything was built using Obj-C framework (Including Swift).

On the right side of the dev documentation, it shows the supported versions of iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, etc.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/

Hope this helps!