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Patterns
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Best practices

Show something as soon as possible.

Let people do other things in your app or game while they wait for content to load.

If loading takes an unavoidably long time, give people something interesting to view while they wait.

Improve installation and launch time by downloading large assets in the background.

Showing progress

Clearly communicate that content is loading and how long it might take to complete.

For games, consider creating a custom loading view.

Platform considerations

watchOS

As much as possible, avoid showing a loading indicator in your watchOS experience.


For the complete guidance, including worked examples and illustrations, see the canonical page: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/loading

Apple HIG text and imagery are © Apple Inc. This page is a structured index of Apple’s canonical documentation (snapshot 2025-02-02), provided for quick reference and AI-agent consumption — it isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. Read the original at developer.apple.com (opens in new tab).

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