Changing UIApplication base class

When developing an iOS application you might get into a situation when you need to change the UIApplication base class. It is often a requirement when using various MDM SDKs, like the Mobile Iron AppConnect SDK. There are two ways to do that in a Swift application, both with some advantages and disadvantages. Declarative method with Info.plist The first method to change the UIApplication base class is using Info.plist. It is quite simple, you just need to add a new key NSPrincipalClass with a string value representing the name of the desired class, like AppConnectUIApplication when using the Mobile Iron AppConnect SDK. <key>NSPrincipalClass</key> <string>AppConnectUIApplication</string> No actual code changes are required. Code method with main.swift The second method is a bit more complicated but more flexible at the same time. First you need to remove @UIApplicationMain from your AppDelegate class definition. Then you add a main.swift to the root of your project that looks like this import AppConnect import UIKit UIApplicationMain( CommandLine.argc, CommandLine.unsafeArgv, ACUIApplicationClassName, NSStringFromClass(AppDelegate.self) ) The third parameter in the UIApplicationMain call is the name of the desired class, ACUIApplicationClassName in this example.