This is significant because all previous iOS resources attempting this level of detail have been created by the design community. A designer named Joey Banks created widely adopted UI Kits for iOS 13-16[1]. Earlier iOS resources were created by an agency called Teehan+Lax[2] and some others I’m forgetting now.
All community-created design resources have historically been really good best guesses. Now they’re available directly from Apple.
Apple is letting design teams reveal what’s happening on the inside a little bit and this is one example.
I ran a design agency 6 years ago and we used the official Apple Resources. The Teehan+Lax stuff and designers making it themselves was all pre-flat design, during the skeuomorphic age. Joey's stuff is because they didn't have the iOS13-16 resources for Figma.
Yes. And Photoshop. And Adobe XD. I just checked and they still made those available this year too. I’m guessing Apple probably made previous libraries available for Figma too but I can’t say that for sure.
Depending on how much Kremlinology you want to indulge in, this is either…
(a) Apple recognizing what tools its users use, and providing useful assets
(b) Apple is giving in by not promoting the platform-native Sketch app and accepting they are being washed away by the tide of cross-platform Electron apps†
(c) Apple is engaging in a Big Corporation conspiracy with Adobe, the probable new owners of Figma, to lock you into proprietary subscription software forever and ever
† yes, I know Figma is not Electron, it is a wild cross-platform browser runtime unto itself, but you know what I mean
FINALLY. I only have Sketch installed so I can use Apple design resources to build icons and such. The raster ones don’t work well in Pixelmator, and Photoshop is too expensive for something I use every 3 months. I’m very happy they’re publishing Figma resources.
Right, I forgot it’s on windows now. Maybe it’s slower on there, because it seems very snappy on macOS still but I have nothing to compare it to (I think I’ve been affinity-only for close to 10 years!)
Keep an eye out on Adobe's site, they often run 50% off deals, especially for Black Friday etc. I'm paying 50% off right now and for some reason they just emailed and gave me another two months free just on "GP".
Not that I know of - that comment of mine was a bit vague. I'm actually not sure if it's in this exact release, but I've heard that (a) Apple is going to allow you to publish an app outside of the app store, and (b) they don't make you pay the $100 dev fee unless you actually want to publish your app. Both of those are really positive changes for the developer experience.
Not really but I noticed during their keynote they kept mentioning that features and apis would be opened to 3rd party apps. In the past these sort of features were always exclusive to apple’s own apps and considered part of their moat.
I wouldn’t ever use any of the code figma provides for ios currently but i also still use xib extensively. But i also it’s very hard for other developers who have not had extensive experience with that sort of ui building to understand and decipher something that has shit tons of trait based constraints and properties embedded in it.
Also, the conflicts that happen should any 2 people work on the same file are horrible.
So, swiftui is inevitable and seems preferable to me to the kind of code figma produces which gives no indication of the final result.
For those who are curious (like me), Human Interface Guidelines and design templates for visionOS will be published later this month alongside the first visionOS developer seed.
All community-created design resources have historically been really good best guesses. Now they’re available directly from Apple.
Apple is letting design teams reveal what’s happening on the inside a little bit and this is one example.
[1] https://www.figma.com/@joey [2] https://teehanlax.com/tools/