1. It's not really the builder pattern, which, in Java, is what you describe as wanting: mutating a single instance. SwiftUI uses result builders to compute a single generic View from the "DSL", but you could do the same thing without the custom syntax, it would just be more verbose.

2. Documentation issue. The lifecycle is standardized, but Apple is terrible as documenting it all in one place. I found this year's "Dive into lazy stacks and scrolling with SwiftUI" WWDC video actually had a pretty good explanation, at least for the lifecycle within lazy containers.

3 and 7. Yes, Apple's tools suck pretty bad. Preview canvas is also still terrible, despite multiple attempts to improve.

4. Not something I've experienced, not sure what you mean.

5. Yeah, Apple's docs suck.

6. Not sure what you mean here either, our stuff looks pretty much the same.

Just a couple points because your opinions aren’t wrong, they’re just your lived experience.

2. There’s no magic here. There is poor documentation. The biggest trick — small views, think about what values are going to trigger a refresh. Avoid cascading view refreshes.

6. You might have missed a couple big iOS releases (iOS 7 was one to remember) where many of our apps fell over in UIKit. Swift was another ‘DOA’ for YEARS with the same issues you’re making here, each new version broke the old, but here we are in a day and age where it’s the standard.

Apple seems to be loved by users, but hated by developers (and for good reasons). They just seem to not give a shit about the developer experience.

You mention some examples, I have experience with lower-level stuff: terrible. Poorly documented, and actually not really working well.

IMO they should focus on improving the developer experience instead of wasting money on the joke that is Liquid Glass (even users don't like it, right?). But anyway, too late for me: I'm soooo happy that I can develop iOS apps in Kotlin now, and just endure Xcode for building and occasional debugging.