WWDC 2021: Swift Concurrency, Xcode Cloud & a New Era for Apple Developers

Yesterday Apple kicked off WWDC 2021 with a keynote packed with updates across all platforms — and while we didn’t see any hardware, what we got instead was one of the most developer-focused WWDCs in years.

The highlight for many (myself included) was the long-awaited introduction of Swift Concurrency — a major shift in how we’ll handle asynchronous code in Swift. But that wasn’t all. Let’s dive into the biggest announcements and what they mean for us as Apple developers.

Swift Concurrency: async/await in Swift

We finally have async/await and structured concurrency built into the language. No more juggling completion handlers or third-party reactive libraries just to write readable async code.

Paired with Actors for safe state management and new concurrency primitives, this is a huge leap forward for Swift. I've already started refactoring some async networking code and the clarity is amazing. It’s not just syntactic sugar — this is a whole new mindset.

Xcode Cloud

Apple introduced Xcode Cloud, a continuous integration and delivery service built into Xcode. With automatic testing, building, and distribution through TestFlight, it’s a dream for teams and solo developers alike.

The integration with GitHub and Apple’s own ecosystem is tight, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves as we get access to the beta.

Platform Updates

• iOS 15: New focus modes, Live Text (on-device OCR!), redesigned notifications, and major updates to FaceTime and Messages.
• iPadOS 15: Finally brings widgets to the home screen and improved multitasking with a new menu system.
• macOS Monterey: Features Universal Control, allowing a Mac and iPad to share a keyboard and mouse fluidly — no setup required.
• watchOS 8: Health improvements and new mindfulness tools.
• tvOS: More under-the-hood updates than user-facing changes.

My Plan for the Week

I’ll be diving into Swift Concurrency and Combine integration, and trying out Universal Control as soon as I install the macOS Monterey beta.

Some sessions I’m planning to watch early this week:

• “Explore Structured Concurrency in Swift”
• “Meet async/await in Swift”
• “Build and Test in the Cloud with Xcode Cloud”

Final Thoughts

WWDC 2021 may not have brought us flashy hardware, but it delivered what really matters: new capabilities, smarter APIs, and powerful tools that make development better. Swift is maturing fast, and the ecosystem is becoming more seamless across devices.

Apple continues to invest deeply in its developer community, and this year’s announcements show that clearly. I can’t wait to see what we’ll build with these new tools.

Back to Xcode. Let’s explore!