Chris Lattner Talks Swift, WWDC and More on This Week's ATP Podcast

chrislattnerChris Lattner, known for his work on Xcode and Swift during his time at Apple, this week joined the Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP) hosted by Marco Arment, Casey Liss, and John Siracusa.

In a two hour and thirty minute long conversation, Lattner and the ATP team talked about Swift, the work that went into preparing for WWDC while he was at Apple, Apple's 2020 digital WWDC event, and more.

Lattner said that he's very interested to see how Apple handles the online version of WWDC, which is set to take place sometime in June.

Apple's a very strategic and very smart company and has a lot of very smart people. I'm sure they're looking at how to turn this into a new opportunity and what new things they can do with the format and how they can delight people in new ways.

As to whether the virtual WWDC event might result in physical WWDC events canceled in future years, Lattner speculated that it was a wait and see kind of situation.

I think that if they do WWDC virtually this year and it sucks then it's probably going to go physical again. I don't know. I would wager that it doesn't return to its original format. If it does, if there is an in-person event, I think it will be significantly different than what the historical events have been.

Chris Lattner was at Apple for 11 years before he left in 2017, and he also spent time at Tesla working on autopilot software and at Google working on TensorFlow. He's now the SVP of Platform Engineering at SiFive.

Lattner's full discussion about WWDC, TensorFlow, SiFive, Swift, and more can be listened to on the web.

Tag: Swift

Popular Stories

Apple Shopping Event 2025

Apple Announces 2025 Black Friday Event, Here's What You Can Get

Thursday November 20, 2025 6:28 am PST by
Apple's annual four-day Black Friday through Cyber Monday shopping event is returning on Friday, November 28 through Monday, December 1 in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Thailand, and others. During the shopping event, customers can get an Apple gift card with...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Adds These New Features to Your iPhone

Thursday November 20, 2025 10:50 am PST by
iOS 26.2 is currently in beta testing. The upcoming update includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, including a new Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics for Apple Music, and more. In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 26.2 will be released to all users in December, but it did not provide a specific release date. Keep reading...
hikawa phone grip stand apple%402x

Apple Launches Second Limited-Edition iPhone Accessory in a Month

Friday November 21, 2025 3:53 am PST by
Apple has begun selling the Hikawa Phone Grip and Stand, a new limited-edition iPhone accessory designed with accessibility in mind. Designed by LA-based Bailey Hikawa to celebrate the 40th anniversary of accessibility at Apple, the grip uses magnets to securely snap onto any iPhone with MagSafe. Apple says it can be removed with ease, and doubles as a stand with two different viewing...
iPhone 17 Pro Cosmic Orange

10 Reasons to Wait for Next Year's iPhone 18 Pro

Wednesday November 19, 2025 4:00 am PST by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth...
ipad black friday 2025

The Best Early Black Friday iPad Deals

Thursday November 20, 2025 10:20 am PST by
Black Friday is just over a week away, and iPad deals have finally started to flood in at retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. Below we're tracking discounts on every current generation iPad, including lowest-ever prices on M3 iPad Air and M5 iPad Pro, plus steep markdowns on iPad and iPad mini. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a ...
ipad mini 7 feature red and blue

iPad Mini 8: Four Major New Features to Expect

Wednesday November 19, 2025 7:50 am PST by
Apple's eighth-generation iPad mini is highly likely to arrive next year, offering a significant refresh of the device with at least four major new features. OLED Display The next-generation version of the iPad mini could feature an OLED display, as part of Apple's plan to expand the display technology across many more of its devices. Apple's first OLED device was the Apple Watch in 2015, ...
watchos 26 workout app

Apple Watch Users Claim Workout App Is Now Worse in Every Way

Thursday November 20, 2025 7:01 am PST by
Apple Watch owners have been voicing their frustration online over changes to the Workout app that Apple introduced in watchOS 26, with many finding the redesigned interface makes starting exercises difficult and exasperating. When Apple launched watchOS 26 in September, the Workout app went from large, easily tapped workout tiles to a scrolling, corner-button interface. Instead of tapping a ...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Two More U.S. States Commit to Offering iPhone Driver's Licenses in Apple Wallet App

Thursday November 20, 2025 8:21 am PST by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Earlier this week, Illinois became the 13th state in the U.S. to offer the feature. Subsequently, we shared a list of additional states that are committed...
android iphone airdrop quickshare

iPhone Users Can Now AirDrop Files to Android Devices

Thursday November 20, 2025 9:47 am PST by
Google today announced a new cross-platform feature that allows for file sharing between iPhone and Android users. With AirDrop on the iPhone and QuickShare on Pixel 10 devices, there is a new file transfer function available. The file sharing option works on Apple devices that include iPhone, iPad, and Mac, along with the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, and Pixel 10 Fold....

Top Rated Comments

ChromeCrescendo Avatar
74 months ago
I think during this insane situation we are all in, which is affecting our purchasing power, Apple should bring back the 6% cash back on Apple Card purchases from Apple that they ran during the holidays
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AxiomaticRubric Avatar
74 months ago

Chris did some insane work at Apple, especially with SWIFT (think that was his baby). I'm not sure how good he is or if the reason he left Apple was no elevation for his career yet I suspect that maybe the case. Good spirited person and a brilliant mind. Hoping he can return to Apple in some capacity.
Chris Lattner’s baby is the LLVM compiler. He was on the panel for the development of Swift and helped steer some of the internal design decisions.

He left Apple because the company couldn’t challenge him anymore.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Blackstick Avatar
74 months ago
Decidedly one of the most brilliant minds in his field.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ppetrovic Avatar
74 months ago
~ since RISC-V does not use royalties for Arm Holdings, INC I'm curious if Apple still does with their A series chips?
Chris mentions in the podcast that Apple still uses ARM instruction set and then goes on to talk about why they might one day ditch it and make their own for the future A chips. The podcast is over 2.5 hours long but it has tons of interesting insight into many low level stuff.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DeepIn2U Avatar
74 months ago
Chris did some insane work at Apple, especially with SWIFT (think that was his baby). I'm not sure how good he is or if the reason he left Apple was no elevation for his career yet I suspect that maybe the case. Good spirited person and a brilliant mind. Hoping he can return to Apple in some capacity.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
wellander1 Avatar
74 months ago
Yep apple has lost a lot of good people lately.
No wonder the quality had seemed to gone down hill (mostly in buggy software)
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)