Objective-C vs Swift

Discussions focus on the shift from Objective-C to Swift in Apple iOS/macOS development, debating Objective-C's declining relevance, continued use in legacy apps, and preferences between the languages.

📉 Falling 0.3x Programming Languages
5,302
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#3752
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
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2012
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2014
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2015
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2022
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2026
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Keywords

RAM QT PPI apple.com AppKit IDE IMO tiobe.com ABI GCC objective swift apple language syntax obj smalltalk ios ios apps superset

Sample Comments

fleitz May 23, 2016 View on HN

ObjC ain't going anywhere.

pier25 Sep 15, 2020 View on HN

Aren't you worried about Apple killing ObjC down the line?

daveidol Sep 5, 2025 View on HN

ObjC is mostly dead, and most Swift devs are not comfortable with C++.

zokier Jan 11, 2026 View on HN

I'm not mac dev but wasn't apple all in on objc back then and these days it's more swift? that is pretty big shift, I'd assume for the better for most parts.

edge17 Dec 16, 2021 View on HN

A lot of major iOS apps still use ObjC

ASalazarMX Sep 26, 2019 View on HN

Objective C is good once its philosophy "clicks" with you, but any new development I would start in on Swift. Swift is a much nicer language, feels like compiled Python.Same with Android, I would choose Kotlin before Java if it was my choice.People still working with Objective C might be like I recently was: maintaining a sizable codebase which, unless Apple breaks something, porting to Swift is not justifiable to management.

blub Sep 4, 2016 View on HN

Objective-C would be a bad idea now, it seems to be replaced by Swift at an impressive rate.

cableshaft Sep 21, 2016 View on HN

Giving devs a way out of ObjC is a pretty big draw :).

st3fan Jan 25, 2017 View on HN

Objective-C is a dead end. Swift.

saagarjha Dec 26, 2018 View on HN

Apple supports Objective-C, which is arguably just as bad as C++.