Fatbobman's Swift Weekly #103
Swift 6.2 Is Here
Swift 6.2 Is Here
One year after the release of Swift 6.0, Swift 6 welcomes its second major version update. Beyond the much-anticipated Default Actor Isolation, Swift 6.2 brings numerous practical new features.
More than the language improvements themselves, I appreciate the Swift team's efforts on the toolchain front: the VS Code extension receiving official verification, swift-syntax supporting precompiled packages, and more. These updates bring more reliable support for third-party editors while delivering tangible improvements in build efficiency and maintainability.
Yet as Swift developers, we must confront a long-standing reality: Swift remains tightly tethered to Apple's product release cadence. Whether it's the timing of new releases being bound to Xcode, or the differences between Xcode's toolchain and the official open-source version, we're constantly reminded that open-source Swift still has distance to travel before achieving true "openness".
Apple is Swift's creator and remains its primary contributor to date—this is undeniable. But perhaps only when Swift formally breaks free from its dependence on Apple's annual rhythm and establishes independent release mechanisms and governance structures will it truly ignite community enthusiasm and realize its full potential across broader platforms and domains.
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Recent Recommendations
SwiftUI TextField Memory Leak on iOS 17+ - Analysis
Since iOS 17, developers have identified a reproducible memory leak involving views containing TextField: even after the view is dismissed, the underlying UITextField and any associated environment objects may remain in memory until another input source is activated. This issue persists through iOS 26 and affects both SwiftUI and UIKit. In this article, Kyle Ye traces the root cause to a retained reference inside the AFUITargetDetectionController of the AutoFillUI framework, and offers several practical workarounds—including the use of .autocorrectionDisabled(true).
Zettelkasten for Programmers: Processing Swift Actor Usage Advice in Depth
This article by Christian Tietze responds to Matt Massicotte’s recent piece “When should you use an actor?”. While agreeing with Matt’s three core principles for actor usage, Christian stresses that Swift actors are a heavyweight concurrency primitive with strong semantic implications. They should only be used when specific technical and design conditions are met—otherwise, lighter, more explicit forms of concurrency and isolation are often preferable.
As a major pillar of Swift’s new concurrency model, when and how to use actors still requires real-world experience and community knowledge. Thoughtful explorations like this one are crucial to shaping a modern Swift concurrency best practice.
Feature Flags in Swift
Many project features are only enabled in specific build modes—such as Debug, TestFlight, or Release. In this article, Majid Jabrayilov shares how to combine build configurations with a FeatureFlags model and inject toggles into EnvironmentValues via the @Entry property wrapper. This approach offers a cleaner development workflow, more flexible testing, and safer production rollouts.
Highly recommended for Swift teams adopting trunk-based development.
The Northern Stars of Liquid Glass
In this piece, Danny Bolella offers a deep interpretation of Apple’s three Human Interface Guideline (HIG) pillars for Liquid Glass—Hierarchy, Harmony, and Consistency. He explains each principle’s visual design intent and demonstrates their implementation through SwiftUI, such as using .buttonStyle(.glass) to reinforce visual hierarchy, ConcentricRectangle for rhythm, and ViewThatFits for cross-platform consistency.
Why VR, AR and Spatial Computing Will Inevitably Take Off: the Roadmap to the Next Computing Platform
In this forward-looking essay, investor Wu Xu traces the evolution of computing platforms—from mainframes and PCs to smartphones and wearables—and outlines how VR, spatial computing, and smart glasses will evolve in parallel and ultimately converge. He calls this trend the “Three-Front Convergence” of the next computing era. Insightful claims include: “Vision Pro is the Mac before the iPhone,” and “The next breakout moment for smart glasses depends not on hardware, but on whether AI can deliver a tangible perception of advantage in daily life.”
iOS Application Rendering: A Deep Dive
In this detailed technical overview, Ethan Arbuckle maps the full rendering pipeline of iOS applications—from UIView construction and CALayer composition, to CAContext integration with system rendering services, and finally down to pixel output. It thoroughly documents the roles and interactions of key components such as UIKit, QuartzCore, FrontBoardServices, BackBoardServices, and Render Server, and explains how input events, animation synchronization, and scene hosting are coordinated across processes using contextID.
Tools
edge-agent: A Swift Runtime Platform for Edge Computing
While Swift officially supports Linux, deploying and debugging Swift apps on edge devices (like Raspberry Pi or Jetson Orin Nano) has long lacked a structured toolchain. edge-agent addresses this gap by providing a complete runtime platform for Swift developers targeting edge environments. It combines the Swift Static Linux SDK with Docker to support cross-platform builds, containerized deployments, and remote debugging. With prebuilt EdgeOS images and CLI tools, developers can quickly run Swift apps on edge devices without complex cross-compilation setups—complete with LLDB-based remote debugging support.
Swift 6.2 来了
在 Swift 6.0 发布一年后，Swift 6 迎来了第二个重要版本更新。除了备受关注的 Default Actor Isolation 外，Swift 6.2 还带来了诸多实用的新功能。
相比语言能力的提升，我更欣赏 Swift 团队在工具链方面所做的努力：VS Code 插件获得官方认证、swift-syntax 支持预编译包等。这些更新为第三方编辑器带来更可靠的支持，也实实在在地提升了构建效率与可维护性。
然而，作为 Swift 开发者，我们不得不面对一个长期存在的现实困境：Swift 仍然紧密依附于苹果的产品发布节奏。无论是新版本发布时机与 Xcode 的强绑定，还是 Xcode 工具链与官方开源版本间的差异，都在提醒我们：开源的 Swift，距离真正的“开放”还有一段距离。
苹果是 Swift 的缔造者，也是迄今最主要的贡献者，这点无可否认。但或许，只有当 Swift 在形式上逐步摆脱对苹果年度节奏的依赖，建立起独立的发布机制与治理结构，才能真正激发社区的参与热情，也才能让这门语言在更广阔的平台与领域中实现它应有的潜力。
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近期推荐
iOS 17+ SwiftUI TextField 内存泄漏分析
有开发者发现，自 iOS 17 起在包含 TextField 的视图中出现了一个可稳定复现的内存泄漏问题（截至 iOS 26 仍未修复）：即便视图已经销毁，UITextField 及其关联的环境对象仍会滞留在内存中，直到另一个输入源被激活才会延迟释放。这个问题不仅影响 SwiftUI，同样存在于 UIKit。Kyle Ye 在本文中深入分析了其根本原因 —— 来自 AutoFillUI 框架中的 AFUITargetDetectionController 引起的引用保留，并提供了包括 .autocorrectionDisabled(true) 在内的多种实用应对方案。
深入消化 Swift Actor 使用建议 (Zettelkasten for Programmers: Processing Swift Actor Usage Advice in Depth)
本文是 Christian Tietze 对 Matt Massicotte 上周文章《When should you use an actor?》的回应。在赞同 Matt 提出的 Actor 使用三原则的基础上，Christian 进一步指出：Swift 中的 actor 是一种昂贵且语义明确的并发工具，只有在确实满足特定技术与设计前提时才值得引入。否则，应优先考虑更轻量、明确的手段来实现并发与隔离。
Actor 作为 Swift 新并发模型中的重要组成部分，何时使用、如何使用，仍需更多项目经验的积累与总结。而像这样的理性探讨与实践反思，正是构建现代 Swift 并发知识体系中最珍贵的材料。
Swift 中的功能开关 (Feature flags in Swift)
在项目开发中，许多功能通常只在特定构建模式（如 Debug、TestFlight 或 Release）中启用。在本文中，Majid Jabrayilov 分享了他的实践经验：通过结合构建配置与 FeatureFlags 模型，并借助 @Entry 属性包装器将功能开关注入 SwiftUI 的 EnvironmentValues，开发者可以实现更快速的开发流程、更灵活的测试手段以及更安全的功能上线方式。
对采用 trunk-based 开发流程的 Swift 项目尤其值得参考。
Liquid Glass 设计系统三原则 (The Northern Stars of Liquid Glass)
本文是 Danny Bolella 对 Apple 人机界面指南（HIG）中围绕 Liquid Glass 所提出的三大设计原则 —— Hierarchy（层级）、Harmony（协调）、Consistency（一致性） 的深入解读。Danny 不仅阐释了每条原则在视觉系统中的意义，还结合 SwiftUI 示例展示了如何在实际开发中落地这些理念，例如通过 .buttonStyle(.glass) 营造界面层级、使用 ConcentricRectangle 建立视觉节奏，以及借助 ViewThatFits 实现跨平台一致性。
空间计算为何必然崛起：下一代计算平台路线图 (Why VR, AR and Spatial Computing Will Inevitably Take Off: the Roadmap to the Next Computing Platform)
作为一位专注 VR/AR 领域的投资人，Wu Xu 在本文中系统回顾了计算平台从主机、PC、智能手机到可穿戴设备的演进路径，并结合硬件能力、产业节奏与产品形态，深入分析了 VR、空间计算与智能眼镜三条路径将如何并行演化并最终收敛。他将这一趋势称为下一代计算平台的“三线合围”。文中提出多个极具洞察力的判断，例如：“Vision Pro 是 iPhone 发布前的 Mac”；“真正改变日常的智能眼镜，关键不在硬件，而在 AI 是否能带来显著的主观优势感知”。
iOS 应用渲染架构深度解析 (iOS Application Rendering: A Deep Dive)
在这篇深入的技术文档中，Ethan Arbuckle 系统梳理了 iOS 应用渲染的完整架构流程——从 UIView 构建、CALayer 合成，到 CAContext 与系统渲染服务的协同，再到最终像素输出。文章详尽覆盖了 UIKit、QuartzCore、FrontBoardServices、BackBoardServices 与 Render Server 等核心组件的职责划分与协作机制，并深入剖析了多进程环境下如何通过 contextID 实现输入事件路由、动画同步与场景托管等关键能力。
工具
edge-agent: Swift 边缘计算运行时平台
虽然 Swift 支持 Linux，但在边缘设备（如 Raspberry Pi、Jetson Orin Nano）上部署和调试 Swift 应用程序一直缺乏成体系的解决方案。edge-agent 正是为了解决这一痛点而生——它是一个专为 Swift 开发者打造的边缘计算运行时平台，结合 Swift 静态 Linux SDK 与 Docker，提供从跨平台构建、容器化部署到远程调试的完整流程。通过预构建的 EdgeOS 镜像和 CLI 工具，开发者无需深入配置交叉编译环境，即可将 Swift 应用快速运行于边缘设备，并借助 LLDB 实现远程调试。
求贤
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地点：北京望京
职责包括负责公司级卡片运行时框架、DSL 与编译/发布流水线，参与容器化或动态化卡片的架构设计与优化。
技术要求：熟悉 iOS 客户端架构，理解跨平台（Android / 鸿蒙）动态组件／容器化机制；性能调优能力；中级经验（3‑5 年或同等能力）。
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技能要求：能用性能工具进行 Profiling／诊断；有 UI 渲染、动画／布局优化经历；有实战经历优先。
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