The Swift iOS project, `Designing Chat Applications for iOS Using Swift`, aims to replicate the features of Slack's chat application using Twilio IP Messaging. The author started with a basic Swift iOS Quickstart project and enhanced it with `SlackTextViewController`. This control provides keyboard management, typing indicator, and built-in send button features. Auto Layout is used to design an auto-sizing table view cell for displaying messages. The project also enables sending new messages to a channel using the IP Messaging service's message editing features. Additionally, the typing indication feature from `SlackTextViewController` is hooked up to notify when someone starts or stops typing in the channel.