Tinder Swipe Animation in SwiftUI Tutorial
Article Summary
Gary Tokman shows how to build Tinder's signature swipe animation in SwiftUI—and it takes less than 10 minutes. No complex gesture handling, no hours of UIKit code, just declarative SwiftUI magic.
This hands-on tutorial walks through creating the card-based swipe interface popularized by dating apps like Tinder and Bumble. Tokman breaks down SwiftUI's DragGesture API, GeometryReader positioning, and interactive animations to build a production-ready swipe experience from scratch.
Key Takeaways
- DragGesture with @GestureState tracks swipe translation automatically
- GeometryReader provides positioning data for card centering and layout
- Interactive spring animations respond smoothly to drag movements
- Rotation effect adds polish: cards tilt 2 degrees based on swipe direction
- Offset modifier updates X position in real-time as users drag
Critical Insight
SwiftUI's declarative APIs compress what would take hours in UIKit into a simple, maintainable swipe animation using DragGesture, offset modifiers, and gesture state.
