In a surprise move, Apple has introduced a new programming language called Swift. It is compatible with Apple's native Cocoa and CocoaTouch programming APIs.
Swift, which can be used to develop apps for both iOS and OS X devices, has already been released by the company in the beta version of Xcode 6,
which you can download today, but will not officially be supported by those devices until both iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite are released this fall.
Notably, Apple has said that it can work "along side" Objective-C in projects -- though no doubt the company hopes developers will in time fully adopt it, tying their work to its platforms. The upside, as with
its new Metal graphics technology, is faster performance for apps, Apple says.
You
can already download a book on programming in Swift from Apple's iBooks store. The company has also
opened up a developer portal for Swift which further details the new language and offers links to related resources.
