Preface

About this book

The Hacking with macOS tutorial series is designed to make it easy for beginners to get started coding for macOS using the Swift programming language.

For the most part that means we’ll be using SwiftUI, but building for macOS is more than about just traditional SwiftUI apps with windows and lists – we’ll also be building a command-line app using Swift Package Manager, a menu bar app that blends AppKit and SwiftUI, and even a few games built with SpriteKit.

The goal of this book is to help teach you everything you need to know to build great macOS apps, rather than just trying to teach you a specialized subset of SwiftUI. After all, macOS is a powerful, customizable operating system in its own right, and if you want to build software that truly feels at home on the Mac – apps and games that feel Mac-first rather than Mac-ported – it’s important you focus on all the amazing things that make the Mac unique.

My teaching method is designed to be extremely hands-on, which means nearly everything you learn from me will have a direct, practical application to something we're working on. That way, your brain can see exactly why a certain technique is helpful and you can start using it straight away.

This book has been written on the back of my personal motto: "Programming is an art. Don't spend all your time sharpening your pencil when you should be drawing." We'll be doing some "sharpening" but a heck of a lot more "drawing" – if that doesn't suit your way of learning, you should exit now.

Tip: If you’re wondering whether you should follow this newer edition of the book or the original AppKit edition, let me make that decision for you: you should learn SwiftUI. Although there are some places in this book where we have no choice but to dip down into AppKit, for the most part you can more or less forget that AppKit exists and be a great deal happier for it.

The three golden rules

The series is crafted around a few basic tenets, and it's important you understand them before continuing:

1. Follow the series: The tutorials are designed to be used in order, starting at the beginning and working through to the end. The reason for this is that concepts are introduced sequentially on a need-to-know basis – you only learn about something when you really have to in order to make the project work.
2. Don't skip the games and techniques: For the most part, the tutorials follow a sequence: app, game, technique, app, game, technique, etc. That is, you develop an app, then you develop a game, then we focus on a particular SwiftUI technique to help make your apps better. The apps and games are, of course, standalone projects that you can go on to develop as you wish, whereas the technique tutorials will often be used to improve or prepare you for other projects.
3. Get ready to learn: This is designed to be an accelerated, hands-on course that teaches you programming quickly and with real-world examples, not to be some sort of Comp Sci 101 course where we discuss data structures and algorithms.

You'd be surprised by how many people think the path to success is through reading books, attending classes or, well, doing pretty much anything except sitting down in front of a computer and typing. Not me. I believe the best way to learn something is to try to do it yourself and see how it goes.

Sure, going to classes might re-enforce what you've learned, or it might teach you some time-saving techniques, but ultimately I've met too many people with computing degrees who stumble when asked to write simple programs. Don't believe me? Try doing a Google search for "fizz buzz test", and you'll be surprised too.

So, dive in, make things, and please have fun – if you're not enjoying yourself, Swift coding probably isn't for you.

If you spot any errors in this book, either typos or technical mistakes, please do let me know so I can correct them as soon as possible. The best way to get in touch is on Twitter @twostraws, but you can also email paul@hackingwithswift.com.

Xcode, Swift and macOS

I'm not going to talk much, because I want to get straight into coding. However, there are some points you do need to know:

• You should always aim to use the latest version of Xcode, which right now is Xcode 26. Xcode 16 should still be fine, though, and perhaps even Xcode 15 at a push.
• Swift continues to evolve quickly. Every new release of Xcode seems to change something or other, and often that means code that used to work now no longer does. At the time of writing, Swift is mature enough that the changes are relatively minor, so hopefully you can make them yourself.
• These projects are designed to work with macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later. Yes, you can adjust the deployment target upwards to macOS 26.0 or later, but keep in mind that Mac users upgrade a lot slower than iOS users so you’ll be reducing your customer base.

Important note: if any bugs are found in the project files, or if Swift updates come out that force syntax changes, I'm going to be updating this book as needed. You should follow me on Twitter @twostraws if you want to be notified of updates.

I'm also happy to answer questions on Twitter if you encounter problems, so please feel free to get in touch!

Swift, the Swift logo, Xcode, Instruments, Cocoa Touch, Touch ID, AirDrop, iBeacon, iMessage, iPhone, iPad, Safari, App Store, Mac, and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

Hacking with macOS is copyright Paul Hudson. All rights reserved. No part of this book or corresponding materials (such as text, images, or source code) may be reproduced or distributed by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Download the code

All the source code for the projects in this book is available on GitHub here: https://github.com/twostraws/macos.

Reusing project artwork

All artwork and audio for projects included with this book is licensed under the public domain, meaning you can re-use it however you want. The only exception is the iPhone picture used in project 13, which is, somewhat predictably, owned by Apple.

A lot of the game artwork came from the Kenney Game Assets pack. The artwork is available under the public domain, but you might want to consider buying the rest of the pack because it includes a huge amount of content for only a few bucks.

Frequent Flyer Club

You can buy Swift tutorials from anywhere, but I'm pleased, proud, and very grateful that you chose mine. I want to say thank you, and the best way I have of doing that is by giving you bonus content above and beyond what you paid for – you deserve it!

Every book contains a word that unlocks bonus content for Frequent Flyer Club members. The word for this book is FORGE. Enter that word, along with words from any other Hacking with Swift books, here: https://www.hackingwithswift.com/frequent-flyer

Updates

When you buy your books from Hacking with Swift, you get Swift updates for free. You can read the full version of my update policy at https://www.hackingwithswift.com/update-policy, but the abridged version is this: whenever I release to the public an updated book or video to reflect these changes, all existing buyers will get that update free.

This edition has the version 2025-06-24.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my brother Andrew, who has always given me someone to look up to.

Notes for iOS developers

SwiftUI apps for iOS and macOS have vast swathes of things in common, but there are also many things that set them apart – learning to recognize those distinctly “Mac” features is part of the process of building high-quality macOS apps.

Here’s the least you need to know:

1. This book assumes you have no prior knowledge with macOS development, with SwiftUI or otherwise – everything you need to know to build apps is taught here, including the basics of Swift.
2. If you have already learned SwiftUI for iOS, you’ll be able to start building SwiftUI apps for macOS very quickly – almost all the core views and modifiers are effectively identical.
3. If you’ve already completed the 100 Days of SwiftUI or read my book Hacking with iOS, you can skip the technique projects here because although they aren’t identical they are so similar they won’t teach you anything new – SwiftUI does a really great job of bridging the two platforms.
4. The Swift language is of course identical on both platforms, but naturally things run faster on macOS because you’re working with far more powerful hardware – 64GB of RAM or more is common, and with Apple Silicon CPUs you might be running with 20-core devices or more.