--- title: "Platforms State of the Union (ASL)" description: "Apple's 2026 platform overview covers Apple Intelligence APIs, Liquid Glass refinements, SwiftUI and Swift updates, and Xcode 27 agentic coding." shoutout: "Unofficial, made with love by Superwall - the best way to monetize your apps." category: "Essentials" --- # Platforms State of the Union (ASL) [Watch on Apple Developer](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2026/112/) Apple's 2026 platform overview covers Apple Intelligence APIs, Liquid Glass refinements, SwiftUI and Swift updates, and Xcode 27 agentic coding. ## TL;DR - Foundation Models expands beyond on-device text to image input, Private Cloud Compute/server models, Dynamic Profiles, evaluation/debugging tools, and planned open source availability. - App Intents gains deeper Siri integration through schemas, Spotlight semantic indexing, and View Annotations so users can find, reference, and act on app content with natural language. - Platform updates include Liquid Glass refinements, resizable iOS apps in iPhone Mirroring and on iPad, SwiftUI interaction/performance improvements, Swift 6.4 workflow changes, and Apple silicon-only Mac distribution. - Xcode 27 focuses on faster daily use and agentic coding: Device Hub, improved Previews, Xcode Cloud setup, iCloud-synced settings, plugins, MCP tools, ACP agents, localization, testing, and crash-fix workflows. ## Apple Intelligence in apps Apple Intelligence is presented as a system-wide layer that developers can connect to in two complementary ways: building intelligence directly into apps, and exposing app content and actions to system intelligence. Apple Foundation Models power Apple Intelligence and are available through the Foundation Models framework. The Foundation Models framework expands from on-device model access to multimodal prompts with text and images, Vision framework tools such as OCR and barcode reading, and server model support. Developers can call models such as Claude, Gemini, and other providers through Swift packages that conform to the Language Model protocol. Apple also announced access to Apple Foundation Models running in Private Cloud Compute with no cloud API cost for developers under the stated first-time App Store download threshold. Dynamic Profiles are new declarative APIs for adaptive AI sessions. A session can switch profiles, models, tools, and instructions over time while sharing a continuous transcript, enabling agent-like workflows without forcing a single fixed model configuration. - Use Foundation Models for native Swift access to on-device, Private Cloud Compute, and third-party/server language models. - Use image input and Vision-integrated tools when prompts need multimodal context or precise extraction such as OCR/barcodes. - Use Dynamic Profiles to change model choice, instructions, and tools based on app state within one continuous session. - Use the Evaluations framework, upgraded Foundation Models instrument, and FM command line tool to test, visualize, debug, and prompt models. ### Dynamic Profiles are used to vary model behavior by app state The session describes starting with a LanguageModelSession, selecting a Dynamic Profile, and switching between profiles such as brainstorming, tutorial generation, and glossary explanation. The exact API surface was demonstrated conceptually rather than as a complete copyable listing. ## Custom models, Core AI, and MLX Core AI is a new on-device model framework with a memory-safe Swift API, tuning capabilities, ahead-of-time compilation, dedicated Instruments support, and a visual debugger that can trace tensor values back to original Python source. Python-based tools help convert and optimize PyTorch models for the Core AI runtime. Apple positions Core AI as the right choice when an app brings its own model and needs efficient on-device inference across Apple devices. MLX remains the open source array framework for experimentation, research, fine-tuning, and local inference servers, with support for Metal 4, GPU Neural Accelerators, and multi-Mac training over RDMA via Thunderbolt. - Choose Core AI for shipping custom on-device models inside apps with no server dependency or token cost. - Choose Foundation Models when the app needs language-model features through Apple's native Swift API and can use on-device, Private Cloud Compute, or server language models. - Choose MLX for research, training, fine-tuning, and local inference workflows rather than app-level platform integration. ## App Intents, Siri, and semantic app integration App Intents is the bridge between apps and Apple Intelligence. Entity schemas describe app content and concepts; intent schemas describe actions the app can perform. Because schemas are system-defined, Siri can understand natural user requests without developers hard-coding exact phrases. Entities can be contributed to the Spotlight semantic index so Apple Intelligence can reason over app content with attribution back to the app. View Annotations let developers associate visible views with entities, allowing users to reference on-screen content naturally, such as "this photo" or "the second message," and pass that entity into app intents. The session's Origami app example used message, contact, and conversation entities, a send-message intent schema, Spotlight indexing, and view annotations so Siri could answer questions from app messages and send follow-up content through the app. - Conform app content to relevant App Intents entity schemas so Siri can discover and reason about it. - Index supported entities into Spotlight to provide private semantic search and personal context. - Conform actions to intent schemas to expose capabilities through Siri, Shortcuts, widgets, the Action button, and system workflows. - Annotate visible UI with entities so natural references to on-screen content can become actionable. ### Entity and intent macros used for App Intents integration The session calls out @AppEntity for content entities, IndexedEntity for Spotlight indexing, and @AppIntent for actions such as sending a message. ```swift @AppEntity struct MessageEntity: IndexedEntity { ... } @AppIntent struct SendMessageIntent { ... } ``` ## Design, adaptability, SwiftUI, and Swift Liquid Glass receives rendering and consistency refinements: improved diffusion behind complex content, darker edges, brighter specular highlights, a user setting from ultra clear to fully tinted, accessibility adaptations, macOS support for the "show borders" environment value, edge-to-edge sidebars, standard toolbar scroll-edge behavior, and updated icon rendering. Apps already using Liquid Glass receive many improvements automatically. iOS apps become resizable in iPhone Mirroring and on iPad after rebuilding with the latest SDK. Apple recommends using SwiftUI, Auto Layout, size classes, trait collections, and testing with the resizable iOS simulator and Previews rather than designing only for fixed devices or orientations. SwiftUI gains reorderable containers, swipe actions in arbitrary containers, more flexible text selection, toolbar adaptation controls, prominent tabs, new document infrastructure, and the Spatial Preview framework for Mac apps streamed to Apple Vision Pro. SwiftUI also gets performance improvements in controls, nested stack layouts, State initialization, AsyncImage HTTP caching, and type-checking for content builders. Swift 6.4 focuses on workflow improvements: suppressing warnings in specific regions, promoting warnings to errors where strictness is needed, simplifying platform availability with anyAppleOS, allowing await in defer, and improving diagnostics for expressions that previously failed with generic type-checking timeouts. - Recompile with Xcode 27 to adopt the new design path; the old design opt-out is being removed. - macOS Tahoe was the final Intel Mac release; Mac App Store apps can now ship Apple silicon-only binaries. - Use resizable simulator, Previews, and iPhone Mirroring to validate layouts across dynamic sizes and aspect ratios. - Use SwiftUI's new toolbar controls to keep important actions visible and move lower-priority actions into overflow as space shrinks. ### SwiftUI reorderable and swipeable custom containers The session highlights .reorderable(), .reorderContainer(), .swipeActions(), and .swipeActionsContainer() as ways to add drag reordering and swipe actions outside standard lists. ```text ForEach(projects) { project in ProjectCell(project) .swipeActions { ... } .reorderable() } .swipeActionsContainer() .reorderContainer() ``` ### Swift 6.4 platform availability shorthand Swift 6.4 introduces anyAppleOS to avoid repeating the same availability version across Apple platforms. ```text @available(anyAppleOS 27, *) ``` ## Xcode 27 and agentic development Xcode 27 improves the core IDE experience with faster project loading, fixes for crashes and hangs, more reliable debugging, faster expression evaluation, a console that handles heavier logging, a smaller Apple silicon-only install, iCloud-synced settings, quicker project creation for prototyping, customizable toolbars, and app-wide themes. Xcode Cloud setup is simplified directly inside Xcode, without requiring separate App Store Connect setup in the demonstrated flow. Builds are described as up to twice as fast and add support for Apple Vision Pro and Metal apps on Apple silicon. Previews can now generate variations for any property, such as showing all enum states of a view at once. Device Hub replaces Simulator and unifies simulator and physical-device workflows. It supports device settings, dark mode, Dynamic Type changes, screenshots, rotation, pinch/scroll interactions, dynamic simulator resizing, and interaction with physical devices from the Mac. Agentic coding is deeply integrated across planning, implementation, validation, localization, and issue fixing. Xcode agents can understand a project, search documentation, render previews with variants, interact with the simulator, run tests, use playgrounds, localize strings with code/UI context, inspect Organizer crash data, reproduce issues, make fixes, and validate them. Xcode supports Model Context Protocol tools, built-in integrations for Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google agents, and Agent Client Protocol for compatible third-party agents. - Use /plan-style workflows with agents to review implementation plans before code is changed. - Use agent tools for build/test, simulator interaction, preview validation, localization, accessibility, resizability, and crash triage. - Extend Xcode with plugins containing skills, MCP tools, and ACP-compatible agents. - Connect external tools such as Figma and GitHub through the same plugin and MCP-oriented architecture when supported. ### Plugin installation can be driven from Xcode or command line The session states that plugins can be installed by command line or by pasting a git URL into Xcode; no exact command syntax was provided. ## Additional tools and developer resources Reality Composer Pro 3 has been rebuilt around production-ready 3D authoring with RealityKit, including character animations, more realistic lighting, and live previews via Mac Virtual Display. Game developers also get a major Game Porting Toolkit update that adds AI skills for coding agents, plus new Metal command line tools that give agents direct control during development and debugging. Apple points developers to more than 100 WWDC sessions for deeper coverage of Apple Intelligence, Xcode 27, design, and the platform-specific updates, along with Group Labs, online panels, Q&A sessions, Developer Forums, Meet with Apple events, and Developer Centers. - Use Reality Composer Pro 3 for production-oriented RealityKit 3D workflows. - Use the updated Game Porting Toolkit and Metal command line tools for game porting and agent-assisted debugging on Apple platforms. - Use Developer Forums, Group Labs, and Meet with Apple for follow-up technical questions beyond the keynote-level overview. 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