Adapting Your Mobile App to New OS Features

Your app works without failures, but users increasingly notice that it doesn't use new OS capabilities. Latest iOS versions offer Dynamic Island, interactive widgets, Live Activities — competitors have already implemented these features, and your app stays behind. This affects metrics: retention drops by 15–20% per month after major platform updates. We’ll help fix this without losing backward compatibility. We’ve adapted over 30 apps for new iOS and iPadOS versions, including features like Dynamic Island, Live Activities, widgets, and Stage Manager. Our experience allows us to implement features quickly and reliably.

Which new OS features should you implement first?

The choice depends on your app’s specifics. But universal ones include Lock Screen widgets for quick data access, Live Activities for real-time event tracking, Interactive Widgets for actions without opening the app, and for iPad—Stage Manager support for comfortable multitasking. According to our data, implementing Live Activities increases engagement 2.5 times compared to regular notifications.

Lock Screen Widgets and Live Activities

Lock Screen Widgets — widgets on the lock screen. They use WidgetKit with families .accessoryCircular, .accessoryRectangular, .accessoryInline. Simply porting a Home Screen widget is not enough—explicit support for these families is required.

struct LockScreenWidgetView: View {
    @Environment(\.widgetFamily) var family
    var body: some View {
        switch family {
        case .accessoryCircular:
            Gauge(value: progress, in: 0...1) {
                Image(systemName: "star")
            }
            .gaugeStyle(.accessoryCircular)
        case .accessoryRectangular:
            VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                Text(title).font(.headline)
                Text(subtitle).font(.caption)
            }
        default: EmptyView()
        }
    }
}

The color scheme of the widget is configured via .widgetAccentable() — without this modifier, the widget looks standard, not adopting the user's accent color.

Live Activities (ActivityKit) — dynamic banners on the Lock Screen and in Dynamic Island. They update via push notifications (ActivityKit push) or directly from the app. Typical scenarios: delivery, taxi, sports match.

// Start an Activity
let attributes = DeliveryAttributes(orderId: "12345")
let state = DeliveryAttributes.ContentState(status: .preparing, eta: Date().addingTimeInterval(1800))
let activity = try Activity.request(
    attributes: attributes,
    content: .init(state: state, staleDate: nil),
    pushType: .token
)

Key point — pushType: .token. The server receives a push token and updates the activity via APNs without waking the app. Without a server component, Live Activities do not work.

Interactive Widgets and TipKit for new versions

Starting from the current iOS version, widgets have become interactive: Button and Toggle execute an AppIntent directly from the widget, rather than just opening the app.

struct QuickActionWidget: Widget {
    var body: some WidgetConfiguration {
        StaticConfiguration(kind: "QuickAction", provider: Provider()) { entry in
            QuickActionWidgetView(entry: entry)
                .containerBackground(.fill.tertiary, for: .widget)
        }
    }
}

struct QuickActionWidgetView: View {
    var entry: Entry
    var body: some View {
        Button(intent: ToggleTaskIntent(taskId: entry.taskId)) {
            Image(systemName: entry.isCompleted ? "checkmark.circle.fill" : "circle")
        }
    }
}

containerBackground — a required background modifier; otherwise Xcode shows a warning and the widget may display incorrectly.

TipKit — a framework for educational tips. It shows hints only to users who haven't yet used a feature. Display rules (#Rule) filter by donation count or time. TipKit stores state in iCloud and syncs across devices—no need to write your own tracking logic.

How to adapt an app for iPadOS Stage Manager?

Stage Manager on iPad allows opening windows of arbitrary size. The app must work correctly at any aspect ratio, not just fixed iPad sizes.

// Check for multiple window support
UIApplication.shared.supportsMultipleScenes // true on iPad with Stage Manager

UIWindowScene.sizeRestrictions sets minimum and maximum window size:

windowScene.sizeRestrictions?.minimumSize = CGSize(width: 400, height: 300)
windowScene.sizeRestrictions?.maximumSize = CGSize(width: 1200, height: 900)

AutoLayout with correct constraint priorities and UIContentSizeCategoryAdjusting for fonts are mandatory. Hard-coded sizes (e.g., frame = CGRect(x:0, y:0, width:375, height:812)) guarantee problems with Stage Manager.

Comparison of impact on metrics

Our work process

• Code and design audit: determine which new features are relevant to your app and how they fit into the current architecture.
• Prioritization: choose 2–3 features that will deliver maximum benefit. We don’t inflate the scope.
• Development: write code with @available and conditional implementations for backward compatibility.
• Testing: test on real devices with the latest iOS versions and in simulators, including scenarios with different OS versions.
• Publication: update the App Store description, prepare screenshots with new features.
• Documentation: describe changes, provide maintenance instructions.

We have completed adaptation for over 30 apps—from financial to fitness trackers. Each project is delivered on time with a compatibility guarantee. Over 5 years of work, we have accumulated experience that allows us to avoid typical mistakes when implementing new features.

Estimated timelines

The cost is calculated individually after the audit. For a consultation and project evaluation, contact us. Order an audit of your app — we will suggest the optimal set of features.

WidgetKit | ActivityKit

Why is Native iOS Development the Best Choice for Complex Apps

The app crashes on cold start — EXC_BAD_ACCESS at the moment of initializing a singleton that accesses another singleton that hasn't been initialized yet. Or: a ViewController leaks memory because a closure captures self without [weak self], and that ViewController hangs in memory two transitions after the user left it. These are not hypothetical scenarios — they are the two most common classes of problems on iOS projects that come to us after another team.

We have been doing iOS development for over 5 years, delivered 40+ projects of varying complexity — from startups to enterprise solutions with millions of users. Each project undergoes 3 stages of Code Review, a custom set of UI tests (150+ test cases on average), and a mandatory run through Xcode Instruments before release.

Native iOS development with Swift means direct access to the platform. No middleware, no performance compromises, full control over what happens on every frame.

What Makes Native iOS Development on Swift the Choice for Enterprise Apps?

Native code guarantees compatibility with new Apple APIs on the day they are released, not after months of adaptation in cross-platform frameworks. For apps with latency-sensitive logic (financial terminals, medical monitors, AR navigation), this is critical. Swift with ARC and strict typing allows maintaining a crash-free rate of 99.9% with proper architecture.

SwiftUI or UIKit: What to Choose for Native iOS Development

By now, SwiftUI covers the vast majority of production tasks. But UIKit is not deprecated and will not disappear — Apple does not deprecate it but continues to add APIs. The real picture on large projects: a hybrid approach. SwiftUI for most screens, UIKit where SwiftUI hits limitations.

Which Scenarios Does SwiftUI Win Unconditionally

SwiftUI's declarative syntax reduces UI code by 3-5 times compared to UIKit. A settings screen with List, Toggle, Picker — that's 40 lines of SwiftUI versus 200 lines of UIKit with UITableViewDataSource delegates. Time savings on UI development reach 60%. Apple recommends starting new projects on SwiftUI (Human Interface Guidelines).

@State, @Binding, @ObservableObject (and with iOS 17, the @Observable macro) create a reactive link between data and UI without manual reloadData(). Changing a @State variable automatically redraws the affected part of the hierarchy. This works correctly if you understand how SwiftUI computes the diff — via Equatable and id in ForEach.

AsyncImage, NavigationStack with type-safe routing via NavigationPath, searchable, refreshable — these are ready-made patterns that UIKit requires implementing manually.

When UIKit Remains Necessary

UICollectionView with compositional layout and diffable data source — complex grids with different cell types, horizontal sections inside vertical scroll, dynamic cell sizes. SwiftUI LazyVGrid / LazyHGrid do not provide such control.

Custom transitions between screens. UIViewControllerAnimatedTransitioning and UIViewControllerInteractiveTransitioning — interactive pop gesture with partial progress, custom hero transition with precise frame control. SwiftUI matchedGeometryEffect covers some cases, but not all.

UITextView with TextKit 2. Rich text editor, custom attributes, custom rendering — TextKit 2 (available since iOS 16) switched to async layout, solving performance issues on long documents. SwiftUI TextEditor is a wrapper around UITextView without direct access to TextKit.

UIScrollView with custom behavior. scrollViewDidScroll, parallax effects, sticky headers with custom logic, pull-to-refresh with custom indicator. SwiftUI ScrollView with scrollPosition and onScrollGeometryChange (iOS 17) covers some cases, but not all.

How Do We Integrate SwiftUI and UIKit Step by Step

1. Identify screens where SwiftUI gives maximum gain (lists, forms, settings) — usually 70-80% of screens.
2. For performance-critical areas (complex collections, custom animations) leave UIKit.
3. Use UIHostingController to embed SwiftUI views into UIKit navigation stack.
4. For backward compatibility, wrap UIKit components via UIViewRepresentable.
5. Coordinator pattern (UIKit) manages navigation at the flow level, screens are implemented in SwiftUI.

One pattern we use on projects: UIKit coordinator manages navigation, while the screens themselves are in SwiftUI. The coordinator creates a UIHostingController, passes ViewModel via initializer or @EnvironmentObject, and manages transitions. This gives clean separation: SwiftUI handles UI, Coordinator handles navigation.

How async/await and Combine Work Together

Before Swift 5.5, asynchronous code on iOS was built on Combine or callback chains. With the advent of async/await and Actor, concurrency has become part of the language. On new projects we use async/await as the primary tool for network calls and business logic, and Combine for reactive UI state binding.

// Correct — @MainActor guarantees UI updates on main thread
@MainActor
class UserViewModel: ObservableObject {
    @Published var user: User?
    @Published var isLoading = false

    func loadUser(id: String) async {
        isLoading = true
        defer { isLoading = false }
        do {
            user = try await userService.fetch(id: id)
        } catch {
            // handle error
        }
    }
}

Combine remains indispensable for debouncing input, merging multiple Publishers (CombineLatest, Zip), and functional processing of value streams (map, flatMap, filter). In practice, 80% of projects use both approaches, choosing the tool for the task.

iOS App Architecture

MVVM — the basic pattern. ViewModel contains logic and @Published state, SwiftUI View subscribes via @ObservedObject or @StateObject. One rule: View knows nothing about URLSession, CoreData, UserDefaults.

Clean Architecture adds Repository and UseCase layers. UserRepository abstracts the data source (network vs cache). FetchUserUseCase contains business logic. UserViewModel calls UseCase and manages UI state.

TCA (The Composable Architecture) — a stricter pattern from Point-Free. State, Action, Reducer, Effect — everything explicit, testable, composable via Scope. Works well in large teams (5+ iOS developers) where predictability is important.

What's Included in iOS App Development

Tools Without Which No Release Is Complete

Xcode Instruments. Time Profiler shows where CPU spends time. Allocations — memory leaks and excessive allocations. Leaks — objects that are not freed. Before every release — a mandatory run.

Firebase Crashlytics. Crash-free rate, grouping by stack trace, breadcrumbs of events leading to crash. Set up in 30 minutes, provides visibility across the entire device fleet. On our projects, average crash-free rate is 99.8%.

Fastlane match. Manage certificates and provisioning profiles via an encrypted git repository. Eliminates the 'it builds locally but not on CI' issue once and for all. Saves up to 4 hours per build when signing manually.

XCTest + XCUITest. Unit tests for ViewModel and UseCase, UI tests for critical flows (onboarding, payment, authorization). On average, code coverage is 75%.

Process and Timelines

Cost is calculated individually after analyzing the technical specification and design. Typically, the first 2 weeks are spent on design, after which we finalize the timeline and budget.

Order turnkey development — we will evaluate your project in 2 business days and propose the optimal architecture. Contact us to discuss your task: we guarantee code quality, compliance with App Store Review Guidelines, and experience with projects of any scale. Get a consultation — we will help you choose the right stack and avoid common mistakes at the start.