Software and Languages used to Develop iOS Apps

Software:

Apple has its software for building iOS apps called Xcode. It serves as an editor for your code, as well as a debugging tool and way to preview your apps before you launch them. Xcode is free to download, but it only runs on Mac computers.

Xcode is very user friendly and it will provide documentation and playground where you can play with algorithms and then start a project.

Xcode download link: Sign in with your Apple ID (needs Apple ID to login)

Latest Xcode Version: 11.3

Languages: Apple iOS is a mobile operating system is used widely across millions of iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices, this high-end mobile OS platform creates unlimited possibilities for developers to build high-quality, innovative Apps.

Most popular programming languages used to develop iOS apps:

1. Swift: It is the primary programming language of the iOS operating system. Swift was developed and launched by Apple in 2014. In Dec 2015, Apple open-sourced Swift under the Apache License 2.0. Besides iOS, Swift is also a programming language of macOS, watchOS, tvOS, Linux, and z/OS. Before Swift, Objective-C was the primary language for iOS development. Having surpassed Objective-C in terms of popularity and usage, it is now the primary programming language of Apple for developing cutting-edge apps for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and beyond. Swift is the future of iOS app development and therefore you shouldn’t miss learning it. Latest Swift Version: 5.1

2. Objective-C: It was developed by Tom Love and Brad Cox in 1984. Before Apple launching Swift in 2014, Objective C was the primary language of Apple iOS mobile apps. Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that brings Smalltalk flavor to C programming language. Message passing among objects is a key feature of Objective-C that became useful for Apple iOS operating systems. Objective-C is a superset of the C programming language and provides object-oriented capabilities and a dynamic runtime. Objective-C inherits the syntax, primitive types, and flow control statements of C and adds syntax for defining classes and methods. It also adds language-level support for object graph management and objects literals while providing dynamic typing and binding, deferring many responsibilities until runtime.

So coming to the conclusion, iOS is the second most-used operating system in the world behind Android.

Objective-C and Swift are two main programming languages used to build iOS apps. While Objective-C is an older programming language, Swift is a modern, fast, clear, and evolving programming language!!!

Key Benefits of Swift Programming Language:

1. Super Open-Source Community:
On 3rd Dec 2015, Apple announced Swift to be an open-source iOS programming language. The benefit of a programming language being an open-source is that there are a lot more chances to make it a developer-friendly programming language.

2. Easy Code Readability:
Swift is one programming language whose code is easiest to read and write. You have to write a few lines of code compared to Objective-C and can have the simple & clean syntax throughout the code. In Objective-C, we add semicolons at the end of parenthesis for conditional statements, and sometimes we forget to add semicolons in some lines then we get compile errors but this case is not in Swift. Also, we don’t need to add commas at the end of the parenthesis within the parenthesis, so no loops of [[[]]].

3. Easy Code Maintenance:
C always had this drawback to maintain two code files to improve the build time and the efficiency of the code developed using C – (.h) header file and (.m) implementation file. This even carried forward in the Objective C language. But, with Swift, all the content of the header (.h) and implementation (.m) files are combined in just one file that is (.swift). So, iPhone app developers don’t need to maintain two code files in Swift and can work on more functional areas such as app logic.

4. Speedy App Development:
Swift programming language is around 2.6x faster than Objective C.

5. Less Error-Prone:
If the developer has by mistakenly taken nil optional value, Swift triggers the runtime crash. This crash remains on the line of code with the nil pointer’s optional value and forces the iPhone app developer to resolve the bug right away. Hence, Swift does not give any chance to the iPhone app developer to develop the bug and exception-free apps.

6. Supported by Multiple devices & Dynamic Libraries:
Swift is a programming language developed by Apple Inc. that supports iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac devices. Swift is not just limited to, support Apple devices, but, Linux and Windows devices as well.

The latest news by Google about its new upcoming operating system is, Fuschia to support Apple’s Swift programming language. So, Swift is not going to just limit it to Apple devices, it will support multiple devices across the technology world.

7. Dynamic Libraries:
Dynamic libraries are executable codes that help to link one version of the Swift app to different versions of the app. In Swift, dynamic libraries work to update the apps. The new version code is uploaded to the memory. This reduces the initial size of the Swift app making it the most performing app.

Conclusion:

So that now-a-days Swift is the most popular programming language used to Develop iOS app, if you have a need to design, develop and deploy an iOS App or require additional information, drop us an email at info@oditeksolutions.com.