There is no evidence to suggest that Apple are deprecating AppKit and UIKit
I know, for a fact, that some AAA applications are still using ObjC.
Also, I am quite sure (but don't know) that Apple still has a plenty big ObjC codebase at home.
Either that, or Electron/Xamarin/React Native.
I am not really a fan of the hybrid apps. I was just watching Slack go crazy on my iPad, a few minutes ago.
Funny story. It started off as Object Pascal, and used MacApp 0.9 as its framework.
I think the codebase was converted to C++, around Photoshop 3.
Snapseed[0, 1] (won awards) had its engine written in C++.
C++ is a good language for image pipelines. Doesn't really pass the "ooh, shiny!" test, though...
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapseed/id439438619
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niksoftwar...
https://computerhistory.org/blog/adobe-photoshop-source-code...
Having said that, even though Apple indicates it will turn, it still may change its mind halfway through.
What Apple says at their circus show is not the same weight as the captain of a ship telling you the ship's course.
> The Objective-C language, AppKit & UIKit frameworks, and Interface Builder have empowered generations of developers. These technologies were built for each other, and will continue to serve us well for a long time to come, but over time new abstractions become necessary. For a while now, you've seen us hard at work defining the next generation of integrated language, frameworks, and tools: Swift, SwiftUI, and Xcode Previews.
>
> Tight integration in a development platform like this requires that all three pieces be designed and evolved together, both driving and driven by one another. Swift result builders were inspired by SwiftUI's compositional structure. SwiftUI's declarative views were enabled by Swift value types. And Xcode Previews was specifically designed for, and enabled by, both. Now, the result is the best development platform that we have ever built. And this year, Swift, SwiftUI, and Xcode all have fantastic updates that take this vision further, and make it even easier for you to build great apps for all of our platforms. And it all starts with Swift. Now Ben from the Swift team is gonna tell you all about what's next.