Migrate an iOS app to WinUI 3

If you have an iOS app and want to bring it to Windows, AI tools can do most of the mapping work. This page provides the key concept translations from UIKit/SwiftUI to WinUI 3. Use these tables as context when prompting your AI agent — providing exact API mappings up front produces far more accurate output than asking for a generic conversion.

Install the WinUI agent plugin first to give your agent accurate WinUI 3 knowledge:

gh copilot plugin install winui@awesome-copilot

Concept mapping

iOS (UIKit / SwiftUI)	WinUI 3 equivalent	Notes
UIViewController	Page	WinUI pages are navigated via Frame
UINavigationController	Frame + NavigationView	Use Frame.Navigate() for page transitions
UITabBarController	NavigationView (top or left tabs)
UITableView	ListView	Use ObservableCollection<T> for data binding
UICollectionView	GridView
UIAlertController	ContentDialog	Must be parented to the current XamlRoot
UILabel	TextBlock
UITextField	TextBox
UIButton	Button
UIImageView	Image
UIStackView	StackPanel	Set Orientation to Horizontal or Vertical
Auto Layout	Grid / StackPanel / RelativePanel	XAML layout is row/column based
@State / @Binding (SwiftUI)	INotifyPropertyChanged / ObservableProperty (CommunityToolkit.Mvvm)
NSUserDefaults	ApplicationData.Current.LocalSettings
URLSession	HttpClient	Use System.Net.Http.HttpClient
NotificationCenter	Events or WeakReferenceMessenger (CommunityToolkit.Mvvm)
DispatchQueue.main.async	DispatcherQueue.TryEnqueue
AppDelegate.applicationDidFinishLaunching	App.OnLaunched
SceneDelegate / windowScene	MainWindow / AppWindow
FileManager	StorageFolder / StorageFile
UserNotifications	AppNotificationManager (Microsoft.Windows.AppNotifications)

Starter prompt

Use this prompt to give your AI agent the context it needs before starting a migration:

I'm migrating an iOS app to WinUI 3 using the Windows App SDK.

The app is written in [Swift / Objective-C] using [UIKit / SwiftUI].

Apply these mappings:
- UIViewController → Page, navigated via Frame
- UINavigationController → Frame + NavigationView
- UITableView → ListView with ObservableCollection<T>
- UIAlertController → ContentDialog (parented to XamlRoot)
- NSUserDefaults → ApplicationData.Current.LocalSettings
- URLSession → System.Net.Http.HttpClient
- DispatchQueue.main.async → DispatcherQueue.TryEnqueue
- @State / @Binding → INotifyPropertyChanged via CommunityToolkit.Mvvm

Use Microsoft.UI.Xaml.* namespaces throughout — never Windows.UI.Xaml.*.
Generate C# — not Swift.

What doesn't map directly

Some iOS concepts don't have a direct WinUI equivalent:

• In-app purchases: Use the Microsoft Store commerce APIs via Windows.Services.Store
• Push notifications (APNs): Use Windows Push Notification Services (WNS)
• HealthKit / ARKit / CoreML: Windows has related technology areas — Windows ML, Windows Mixed Reality, and Windows Sensors — but these are not direct equivalents and require platform-specific implementation
• App Clips: No direct equivalent — consider web-to-app linking

Related content

• Migrate from UWP
• WinUI agent plugin
• Microsoft Learn MCP Server