- Author
- Yakov Manshin
- Published
- 20 July 2026
- Kind
- Opinion video essay with a written transcript
- Original
- ykvm.com/2026/07/swiftui-a-story-of-mediocrity/
- Subject
- Future of computing
What it is
Yakov Manshin runs a channel called The Code Bird. This page holds the video description and transcript. The essay sets out why the author prefers UIKit and AppKit to SwiftUI.
What it says
- Manshin says SwiftUI still feels like a perpetual beta after seven years.
- Manshin says views update unpredictably, so data flow is hard to reason about.
- The video calls the layout engine unpredictable and cites Apple's own tutorial project as broken.
- Manshin lists APIs that arrived late, such as AsyncImage in iOS 15, forcing availability checks.
- In an image gallery test, the video finds SwiftUI scrolling less smooth than UIKit.
- Manshin argues SwiftUI reflects a wider drift at Apple toward good-enough quality.
- Manshin concludes SwiftUI is mediocre rather than bad, and prefers the older frameworks.
What evidence it gives
The author offers screenshots of bugs in Apple's SwiftUI tutorial project and in other apps. There is one image gallery comparison of SwiftUI and UIKit on an older iPhone. The author calls it one of several tests. No numbers or measurements are given.
Interests and limits
This is one developer's opinion. The author says some cited bugs are not SwiftUI problems. The performance test was informal and used an older phone. The video itself was not watched; only the written transcript and description were read.