Why is there a "Type of expression is ambiguous without a type annotation." error when using a ternary operator on inferred function types in Swift?

Using Swift
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1

Hello - I'm a first time poster here so please let me know if I'm in the right category. I posted this question on StackOverflow today and it was suggested I post here for further discussion. See original question here.

I'm reading the official Swift Programming Language Documentation and writing the code snippet examples in Playgrounds. Currently, I'm on Function Types as Return Types which seemed pretty straightforward. I'm using Xcode 16.2

The following code snippet copied from the Function Types as Return Types section is as follows:

func stepForward(_ input: Int) -> Int {
    return input + 1
}
func stepBackward(_ input: Int) -> Int {
    return input - 1
}
func chooseStepFunction(backward: Bool) -> (Int) -> Int {
    return backward ? stepBackward : stepForward
}

However, the following error is seen for the ternary operator for stepBackward (and stepForward): "Type of expression is ambiguous without a type annotation."

Screenshot of the error in Playgrounds

This is a clean Playgrounds workspace with the default Hello World removed to verify the behavior.

I'm able to fix this by writing explicit type annotation as follows:

let forwardFunc: (Int) -> Int = stepForward
let backwardFunc: (Int) -> Int = stepBackward

@MainActor func chooseStepFunction(backward: Bool) -> (Int) -> Int {
    return backward ? backwardFunc : forwardFunc
}

This is to my understanding a good practice, but the documentation in the Functions section does not make clear this would be required.

Did something change in Swift recently that would make the documentation out of date? Is writing an explicit type annotation in these cases required now? I would like to understand why in this context the type annotation is now required, in particular with this ternary operator using inferred function types.

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