Question

How do I get a reference to the app delegate in Swift?

Ultimately, I want to use the reference to access the managed object context.

Answer 1

The other solution is correct in that it will get you a reference to the application's delegate, but this will not allow you to access any methods or variables added by your subclass of UIApplication, like your managed object context. To resolve this, simply downcast to "AppDelegate" or what ever your UIApplication subclass happens to be called. In Swift 3, 4 & 5, this is done as follows:

let appDelegate = UIApplication.shared.delegate as! AppDelegate
let aVariable = appDelegate.someVariable