10 Swift Features That Instantly Make You a Better Developer

Most iOS developers use only 20% of Swift’s power. Here’s the other 80% — and it’ll change how you write code forever.

You’ve shipped apps. You are familiar with Xcode. But somewhere between viewDidLoad and your fifth stack of VStacks, you ask yourself — am I writing Swift, or just writing code in Swift?

There’s a difference. And this difference lives in these 10 features.

1. async/await — Concurrency That Actually Makes Sense

Forget completion handler pyramids. Swift’s structured concurrency model reads like english, and banishes whole classes of bugs.

func fetchUserProfile(id: String) async throws -> UserProfile {
    let data = try await networkClient.get("/users/\(id)")
    return try JSONDecoder().decode(UserProfile.self, from: data)
}

Tip: Combine with async let for parallel fetching, your load time will love you.

2. Swift Macros — Less Boilerplate, More Intent

Macros are a major new language feature introduced in Swift 5.9 aggregate many of the small, repetitive pieces of code necessary to do a task into an easily repeatable form at compile time. These aren’t magic, macros — @Observable, @Model(SwiftData)

@Observable
class CartViewModel {
    var items: [CartItem] = []
    var total: Double = 0.0
}

Write less. Express more.

3. Result Builders — The Magic Company of SwiftUI

So, notice that all @ViewBuilder is a result builder. When you learn them, you can create a DSL of your own: a layout engine, form validator, routing solution or whatever else.

4. @observable vs observableObject — Know the Difference

With iOS 17+, @Observable was introduced, which is more lightweight, faster and does not require any @Published noise. It is time to upgrade your mental model if you are still reaching for ObservableObject by default out of habit.

The best Swift code is the one you didn’t have to write. — A practice that has been reiterated on the different WWDC sessions since 2022.

5. Liquid Glass UI (iOS18) — Use the System, Not Against It

Steve Jobs’ Death iOS 26 Liquid Glass Design Language SwiftUI’s. The glassEffect() modifier allows you to do this natively:

RoundedRectangle(cornerRadius: 20)
    .fill(.ultraThinMaterial)
    .glassEffect()
    .frame(height: 120)

Don’t fight the system. Lean into material design — users are already familiar with it and like it.

6. Making sense of Opaque and Existential Types: some and any

This is something that even senior developers end up tripping on. Use some when you statically know the concrete type (opaque) Use any when you need run-time flexibility (existential). Use either wrong and you’ll be wrestling with the compiler for hours.

7. Swift Data — the spiritual successor to CoreData

SwiftData is a great match for SwiftUI, and takes care of persistence with no configuration almost at all. @Model, @Query, ModelContainer

@Model
class Note {
    var title: String
    var body: String
    var createdAt: Date

    init(title: String, body: String) {
        self.title = title
        self.body = body
        self.createdAt = .now
    }
}

8. Apple Intelligence APIs · Create Smarter, Not Harder

This is better with Apple Intelligence (iOS 18+): On-device ML is now a first-class citizen. Prompts for writing intents, summarization (when do you need the full response), and smart reply hooks now come out of the iOS developer toolkit — not as a tool just for ML engineers.

Enable your app to be AI aware using AppIntents + AssistantSchemas + More.

9. Basic functional chaining with @discardableResult

Small feature, HUGE readability impact:

@discardableResult
func configure(_ block: (inout Self) -> Void) -> Self {
    var copy = self
    block(&copy)
    return copy
}

Builder patterns in pure Swift. No Objective-C baggage required.

10. Swift Testing Framework — up to date, easy and quick

XCTest is showing its age. When you use Swift Testing (import Testing), you get parameterized tests and #expect, suite organization that feels native to the language:

@Test("Cart calculates total correctly")
func cartTotal() {
    let cart = Cart(items: [.init(price: 9.99), .init(price: 4.99)])
    #expect(cart.total == 14.98)
}

Clean. Readable. Fast writing and fast execution.

Key Takeaways

• While async/await, async let — and other tools for structured concurrency are indispensable in modern iOS apps;
• Swift Macros and SwiftData considerably lower boilerplate
• Now or Never — Liquid Glass UI And Apple Intelligence is The New Frontier
• Swift Testing is your new XCTest — migrate!
• Making sense of some versus any distinguishes the intermediate Swift developer from the advanced.

Final Thought

Swift is not merely a language — it is a paradigm. All of the below features now help you write safer, clearer and more expressive code. These are not just faster coders, the developers who master these. They’re better thinkers.

Choose one from this list of features. Now go and implement it in your project this week. Then growth actually happens — one conscious decision at a time.