How do I use Xcode Previews in an app that has to support iOS 16?

Xcode Previews are a great new feature, and I've been adding #Preview blocks to some of my more complex UIKit files so I can tweak their UI without running the app. It's been a blast so far.

The only problem is that I apparently have to set my project deployment target to iOS 17.0 to use them at all. If I set it to iOS 16.0, I get these errors:

  • 'Preview' is only available in iOS 17.0 or newer
  • 'init (_:traits:body:' is only available in iOS 17.0 or newer
  • 'UVPreviewRegistry' is only available in iOS 17.0 or newer
  • 'Preview' is only available in iOS 17.0 or newer
  • 'init (_:traits:body:' is only available in iOS 17.0 or newer

I tried surrounding #Preview with an @availability block for iOS 17, but got the same errors.

My goal is to be able to leave useful #Preview blocks in my source code, but still set my deployment target to iOS 16.

Is this possible?

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interferon
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Hi,

Sorry to hear you are having problems with previews. It is a known issue that currently using the #Preview macro does not allow building in projects with a deployment target < 17.0 or running on a device running a version of iOS < 17.0. The workaround is to revert to using a PreviewProvider. You can still preview UIKit things using that older API, but it requires you to use UIViewRepresentable to bridge it to a SwiftUI view.

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Developer Tools Engineer
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  • Thanks for the quick response! Is it helpful to file a radar for it?

    —
    interferon

  • In almost all cases the answer is to always file a feedback, but in this case it is a well understood issue so no need.

    —
    Developer Tools Engineer
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Hi,

Sorry to hear you are having problems with previews. It is a known issue that currently using the #Preview macro does not allow building in projects with a deployment target < 17.0 or running on a device running a version of iOS < 17.0. The workaround is to revert to using a PreviewProvider. You can still preview UIKit things using that older API, but it requires you to use UIViewRepresentable to bridge it to a SwiftUI view.

Posted by
Developer Tools Engineer
Up vote reply of Developer Tools Engineer Down vote reply of Developer Tools Engineer
Post marked as solved

  • Thanks for the quick response! Is it helpful to file a radar for it?

    —
    interferon

  • In almost all cases the answer is to always file a feedback, but in this case it is a well understood issue so no need.

    —
    Developer Tools Engineer
Add a Comment