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Apple Releases First Preview of Swift 3.0 for Developers [Update: Not Available]

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Apple yesterday released the first preview build of Swift 3.0, a major update to Apple's open source Swift programming language. Swift 3.0's official release is expected to come in late 2016 after proposed changes are finalized.

The Swift 3.0 preview can be downloaded from the official Swift website. There are versions of Swift 3.0 available for Xcode 7.2, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 15.10.

Swift 3.0 is not source compatible with Swift 2.2 as it introduces source-breaking changes, but going forward, the goal is to make Swift 3.0 source compatible with future Swift language updates. To meet that goal, Swift 3.0 "focuses on getting the basics right for the long term."

Apple will likely show off Swift 3.0 at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, debuting it alongside iOS 10, OS X 10.12, and new versions of tvOS and watchOS.

Update 5/2: Apple tells iMore it did not release a preview of Swift 3.0, it was instead an automated build. The links have been removed.
Apple clarified for iMore that what we thought was a preview release of Swift 3.0 was, in fact, just an automated build. The computer-generated name caused some confusion, but it's meant as a place where outside developers can submit work in preparation for a preview release of Swift 3. There have been no new previews or releases, and the links have been removed. We've likewise updated this story.
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Article Link: Apple Releases First Preview of Swift 3.0 for Developers [Update: Not Available]
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/06/01/apple-releases-first-preview-of-swift-3/
T

TrenttonY

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Nov 14, 2012
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CarlosQG said:
Does anyone think iOS 10 will be completely rewritten with Swift 3.0?
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I have been wondering this since it was announced in 2014.

I don't know anything about programming, but what would the benefits be if iOS and macOS were rewritten in Swift? Less storage space taken, faster, etc?
 
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Alenore

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Apr 7, 2013
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TrenttonY said:
I have been wondering this since it was announced in 2014.

I don't know anything about programming, but what would the benefits be if iOS and macOS were rewritten in Swift? Less storage space taken, faster, etc?
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For us users, nothing. That would mainly be a good thing because it'd mena they'd refactor their currently existing code.
 
Z

Zimmie

macrumors member
Feb 16, 2015
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CarlosQG said:
Does anyone think iOS 10 will be completely rewritten with Swift 3.0?
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It is vanishingly unlikely that an OS will be written in Swift within the next 10 years. I suspect that some of the user-facing applications (think Stocks and Calculator) in iOS will be rewritten over time using it for ease of maintenance. The core of the OS will probably stay Objective-C (and plain C and maybe some assembler) for the foreseeable future.
 
usamaah

usamaah

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Sep 23, 2008
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Zirel said:
Before OS X, there was NeXTSTEP, a project that started in 1985 with the foundation of NeXT.

The Open-Source Mach microkernel first release was in 1985.
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But it's a bit disingenuous to say iOS is a result of 30 years of hard work. Forstall and his team did use OS X to engineer iOS, but the revolutionary part about iOS was the touch interface, not the fact that a desktop OS was ported to a mobile OS (we had Windows Mobile already). And that touch interface was new, not something that had been in development had NeXT.

I agree though, moving iOS to Swift is unlikely for some time. Apps definitely.
 
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2457282

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Zirel said:
Before OS X, there was NeXTSTEP, a project that started in 1985 with the foundation of NeXT.

The Open-Source Mach microkernel first release was in 1985.
Click to expand...
That in turn was based on BSD which which started in the 1970's. I believe iOS and OS X may be based on the FreeBSD derivative.
 
K

KALLT

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Sep 23, 2008
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CarlosQG said:
Does anyone think iOS 10 will be completely rewritten with Swift 3.0?
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Swift is not even embedded in OS X or iOS, Swift effectively exists entirely in frameworks which are bundled in individual apps. Apple said that it will take more time before Swift is stable enough to be embedded in the system directly.
 
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springsup

springsup

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CarlosQG said:
Does anyone think iOS 10 will be completely rewritten with Swift 3.0?
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No.

Rewriting such complex code is not an easy thing. It would happen in pieces and take years. Besides, there isn't any immediate need to do it and Swift is constantly changing, so your entire codebase will just stop working every day unless you patch up random stuff that changed in the language.

It's still a developing language. It's fine for apps and relatively small projects, but not yet stable enough for an Operating System.
 
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mrsteveman1

mrsteveman1

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Nov 20, 2008
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Seems a little strange that they're still making Swift builds for Ubuntu 15.10 (for which all support, patches, security updates etc, ends in July), but not the actual latest release, 16.04. Anyone know why?
 
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Zimmie

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Feb 16, 2015
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usamaah said:
But it's a bit disingenuous to say iOS is a result of 30 years of hard work. Forstall and his team did use OS X to engineer iOS, but the revolutionary part about iOS was the touch interface, not the fact that a desktop OS was ported to a mobile OS (we had Windows Mobile already). And that touch interface was new, not something that had been in development had NeXT.
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I don't know. Most of my development experience is in embedded land, where your debugging options are JTAG and a logic analyzer. I didn't do a whole lot with Windows Mobile, so I may have missed some of the tools. My memory is that Windows Mobile development wasn't Arduino levels of awful, but it wasn't particularly good in that regard. Using a proper desktop kernel with proper desktop debugging options certainly seemed pretty new at the time. The live debugging tools largely go back to gdb/lldb, DTrace and other projects that had been going in Mac OS for some time.

The development tool lineage is less clear, because iOS doesn't quite do nib-style interfaces. Still, development tools that let you rapidly prototype a mobile application to the same degree you could with a desktop application were also pretty significant when iOS was introduced. That aspect can definitely be traced back to NeXT, even if the specific libraries can't be.
 
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Speedy2

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Nov 19, 2008
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CarlosQG said:
Does anyone think iOS 10 will be completely rewritten with Swift 3.0?
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No major software is ever just rewritten. Such a feat would take many years and hundreds of millions of $$ to complete, and then you'd only be where you were years ago, before even starting with new features. It's just not worth it from a business point of view.

They might choose to redo some smaller apps in Swift to get some quick inhouse developer knowledge maybe.
And all the new stuff will hopefully done in Swift.
 
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springsup

springsup

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usamaah said:
Dunno. If Google is quietly considering using it for Android I guess anything is possible, amiright?
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Don't overestimate what Swift support on Android means. Swift is already supported on linux, and Android already supports several languages (as does iOS). Swift programs get compiled in to the same executable code as any other programming language does. You can already compile applications for Android using Swift today, even without Google's 'consideration'.

That's because Apple doesn't own Swift any more; it's open-source. I've contributed to the project, and Apple doesn't own my contributions. Just like C, any platform can use the language. The feeling that it 'belongs' to Apple and that it's somehow an outrageous, juicy story that Google may officially support it is just plain wrong. It makes a lot of sense for Google to support it - they've been creating their own flailing programming languages to try and solve these same problems, and they hire lots of exceptionally bright engineers who would be assets to the project.

Back in the day, we were all using the same C language and competition and innovation was rife. We don't need every company to have their own programming language; we need a modern language that's as universal, as fast, and as well-supported as C.
 
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groovyd

groovyd

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I'm a programmer by trade and have not directly worked with Swift or learned it but from the snippets I have seen it really doesn't seem at all intuitive in syntax or anything really. It sort of seems all over the place all at once and lacking focus. I guess I just don't see what makes it a great language or easier to learn or even something that 'should' be faster then anything else.
 
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