What’s new in App Intents

Speaker recommends to check out this session, if you are new to App Intents: Bring your apps core features to users with App Intents.

Key Takeaways

• 🔍 Index entities in Spotlight

• 🤝 Standardized representations of entities

• 🔗 Universal links support

• 🍹 Mixed parameter types

• 🖊️ Auto generated parameter names

• 📦 Improved framework support

Spotlight Integration

Show entities directly in Spotlight search results via the IndexedEntity protocol.

• CSSearchableIndex indexes the app information via CSSearchableItem

• Any CSSearchableItem has an attribute set to extend the information

• IndexedEntity provides easy way to index entities to CSSearchableIndex, while giving ability to customize the attribute set

Entities and files

Transferable AppEntity

Represent an AppEntity in standardized formats like PDF, images, rich text, etc. via Transferable to pass on custom data to other shortcuts or apps.

// Transferable

extension ActivityStatisticsSummary: Transferable {
    static var transferRepresentation: some TransferRepresentation {
        DataRepresentation(exportedContentType: .rtf) { summary in
            // Custom method to convert to rich text
            try summary.asRTFData
        }

        FileRepresentation(exportedContentType: .png) { summary in
            // Custom method to create PNG file
            SentTransferredFile(try summary.asImageFile)
        }
    }
}

The order of transferable representations is important → highest to lowest fidelity.

The representation type can be customized in the Shortcuts app via the variable type (tap on variable).

Restrictions:

• Xcode reads transferable representations at compile time

• ProxyRepresentation only works for references with the @Property:

  // Transferable extraction considerations
  
  struct SomeAppEntity: AppEntity {
      var id: String
  
      @Property(title: "Name")
      var name: String
  
      var description: String { "\(id):\(name)" }
  }
  
  extension SomeAppEntity: Transferable {
      static var transferRepresentation: some TransferRepresentation {
          ProxyRepresentation(exporting: \.name) // Works
          ProxyRepresentation(exporting: \.description) // Doesn't work
      }
  }

IntentFile & FileEntity

Universal links

Deep-link to app content, allow actions to open URL’s and make them sharable via URLRepresentation:

• URLRepresentableEntity

• URLRepresentableEnum

• URLRepresentableIntent

// Universal links

extension TrailEntity: URLRepresentableEntity {
    static var urlRepresentation: URLRepresentation {
        "https://trailsapp.example/trail/\(.id)/details"
    }
}

struct OpenTrailIntent: OpenIntent, URLRepresentableIntent {
    static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "Open Trail"

    static var parameterSummary: some ParameterSummary {
        Summary("Open \(\.$target)")
    }

    @Parameter (title: "Trail")
    var target: TrailEntity
}

• Use any entity @Property attribute inside the URL

• Conforming to OpenIntent doesn’t require a perform()

Alternatively, return OpenURLIntent from perform to open provided URL or the URLRepresentation of an AppEntity:

// OpensIntent

func perform() async throws -> some OpensIntent {
    .result(
        opensIntent: OpenURLIntent(
            "https://developer.apple.com"
        )
    )
}

// OpensIntent

func perform() async throws -> some OpensIntent {
    let newTrail = TrailEntity(name: name)
    return .result(
        opensIntent: OpenURLIntent(urlRepresentable: newTrail)
    )
}

Developer experience

UnionValue

Use the @UnionValue macro for parameters that can represented by a set of different types – basically an “or” parameter:

@UnionValue
enum DayPassType {
    case park(ParkEntity)
    case trail(TrailEntity)
}

struct BuyDayPass: AppIntent {
    // …
    @Parameter var passType: DayPassType
    // …
    func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult {
        switch passType {
        case let .park(park):
            // purchase for park
        case let .trail(trail):
            // purchase for trail
        }
    }
}

Generated titles

Xcode 16 doesn’t require the title for AppEntity properties or AppIntent parameters anymore. It can generate them based on the name of the struct’s property.

struct SuggestTrails: AppIntent {
    @Parameter(title: "Activity")
    var activity: ActivityStyle
    
    @Parameter(title: "Search Radius")
    var searchRadius: Measurement<UnitLength>?
    
    @Parameter(title: "Location")
    var location: String?
    
    @Parameter(title: "Featured Collection")
    var trailCollection: TrailCollection?
}

struct SuggestTrails: AppIntent {
    @Parameter var activity: ActivityStyle
    @Parameter var searchRadius: Measurement<UnitLength>?
    @Parameter var location: String?
    
    // Still possible to explicitly name them
    @Parameter(title: "Featured Collection")
    var trailCollection: TrailCollection?
}

Framework improvements

Xcode 16 now allows to have App Intent types in different modules. E.g. putting an AppEntity in a framework and the AppIntent in the app works now.

“Only frameworks are supported at this time. Libraries outside of a framework are not.”