There are approximately 2 million apps deployed at the moment on the Apple store and the number is increasing with each passing day. iOS is a mobile operating system that has carved a niche for itself by offering some magnificent advantages to the developers.
It is difficult for developers to deploy a mobile app on the iOS platform than an android platform as iOS is very particular and specific when it comes to mobile app deployment. Your app must be highly-functional, scalable, and robust with excellent UI and UX design to be deployed on the Apple store. These iOS apps can be used in any of the Apple devices including iPhones, iPads and iPods.
Earlier, developers used to create iOS mobile apps using C and C++ programming languages as it was made for small portable devices with generally small screens. However, the trend is no longer in practice as time has changed. Nowadays, more advanced iOS versions are available with best iOS app development tools that can help developers to come up with striking, scalable and comprehensive mobile apps with minimum efforts. Currently, iOS apps are written in Objective-C and Swift.
The success of an iOS app depends completely on the tools that you are using for iOS app development. To create high-end, superior, qualitative and highly competitive apps, developers need to have a certain set of tools that make their work easy.
In this article, we will discuss some of these iOS development tools that are highly used by iOS app developers.
Documentation
Documentation is a very integral and crucial part of iOS app development. In the initial stage itself, developers need to ensure that the documentation is done effectively and logically to avoid any hurdles in the latter part of the app development. Some of the tools for documentation are:
Jazzy
Jazzy is one of the most efficient command-line utility that uses SourceKit and the Clang AST representation of codes to create outstanding and accurate results. It supports both Objective-C and Swift. All you need to do is to create a website with code and its simple documentation and the output can be installed directly to the popular Dash documentation viewer. Developers love this tool as it offers excellent efficiency and accuracy when it comes to documentation.
Dash
Being an outstanding API documentation browser and Code Snippet Manager, Dash facilitates developers offline access to more than 200 API documentation sets. Also, if the developer is looking to create his docsets, it is possible with Dash. Not just that, developers can also decide which documentation sets to download with Dash. You can also use third-party plugins and sources with this tool. It is a must have for the iOS tool kit.
SwiftDoc.org
SwiftDoc.org is an online documentation that consists of instant variables and subscripts. It is auto-generated from swift header file and allows developers to browse types, operators, globals and protocols. With SwiftDoc.org at your disposal, you don't need to command-click around header files in Xcode.
Debugging tools
Just finding out the errors and bugs is not enough when it comes to iOS app development, you also need to ensure the source of these errors and bugs. Here, debugging tools can help you out to a great extent. Here is a list of some of the best debugging tools you can use for iOS app development.
Hyperion
One of the best debugging tools to list in your tool kit for iOS development is Hyperion, a design debugging solution that has helped millions of developers to find errors and bugs. When you integrate this tool with any iOS app, it silently sits under your application and notifies you as soon as some errors occur.
It offers three default plugins including the View Inspector, the Measurements plugin and the Slow Animation Plugin. The View Inspector checks out the properties of any view wherein the Measurements plugin measures the distance between two views. Last, but not least, Slow Animation Plugin reduces the animation speed in-app.
iOS console
It is integrated to the macOS and you can directly view console logs from your Mac. For developers, it becomes easy to check out any log message as it supports textual filtering and the tool shows almost all the information logged by the connected iOS devices. Also, to make things easy and effortless, you can use a marker in the console log, to find it easily.
Raygun
Raygun is one of the best tools in your iOS tool list when it comes to monitoring user experience. User experience plays a pivotal role in the success of any app and it should be monitored accurately and efficiently. Raygun helps developers to identify the errors, crash and performance of the app and how users are facing difficulties while using the app.
It offers smart grouping with the help of online service for in-depth error diagnostics. The errors found by Raygun will be displayed on your dashboard with reports. It is the best friend of developers as it helps them to track errors and issues that users find while using the app.
Backend Services
If you want to add some additional features in your iOS app such as data sharing with the server, push notifications enabling, and others, these backend tools might help you for that.
Firebase
Firebase is your one-stop destination for your server, datastore and API requirements. It is a BaaS, backend as a service tool that does not require any backend service code and it allows developers to store and sync data in real-time. When the data changes, Firebase will update the apps on web and mobile device.
Helios
It is an open-source framework that is specifically designed to be used as backend service for iOS apps. It offers some advanced functionalities such as push notifications facility, data synchronization, in-app purchases, Passbook Integration, logging and analytics too.
Inspiration and Design tools
For iOS designers, it is a challenging task to meet the expectations of iOS store as it has its terms and philosophy. Most of the designers find it very complex and tiring when it comes to program designing. These best iOS development tools make it a simple affair for designers to design the program.
Dribbble
It is the best destination to visit if you are an iOS designer and professional. Just type "iOS" and you will find a wide number of creative iOS designs and you will be flabbergasted by the multiple beautiful designs including iOS icons, UI elements, full-screen designs and other magnificent designs for iOS app development.
Haiku
Haiku is an important design tool for iOS app development as it allows developers to generate native code that can be updated automatically on iOS apps as you start to design. Whether you are using React, Vue or Vanilla web codebase, all Haiku components provide support.
Flawless
It comes inside Xcode and is a plugin for iOS simulator and allows developers to compare the expected and implemented designs in real-time. It helps developers to check out any visual differences and fix them instantly.
Revision Control
When multiple developers are developing an iOS app, Revision control is very essential for an app's success.
Source
One of the reasons why developers love Source is its in-built specific coding keyboard that allows them to type common programming characters directly without any manual intervention. The source is a git client and code editor and supports syntax highlighting for multiple languages, to be specific, more than 100 languages.
Working Copy
If you want to hire iOS developers who have sheer expertise, ask them about Working Copy. If they know about it, it means they are the masters of the craft. Working Copy is a superlative Git client and allows cloning, committing, pushing and editing on the fly. You can use this tool with any git repository. It is an added advantage of this tool. It will facilitate you with a local copy of your iOS device and you can browse the content and change it as per your preferences.
Jatin Patel
iOS Developer
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