Best iOS Development Tools

iOS applications make it convenient for your customers (iOS app users) to connect with your business. As iOS app development has become more popular, creating awesome iOS apps has been in high demand. Firms without an in-house team have been seeking the assistance of iOS app development companies to get their job done. 

Creating high-end iOS applications has become easier with Apple’s innovative design and development tools. These tools let developers create various applications, from simple utilities to enterprise-level applications. With the help of iOS app development tools, developers can build robust applications and leverage the latest features available on iOS devices. In this blog, let’s learn the different iOS app development tools and identify your requirements while creating an incredible app your business demands. 

Apple is a dominant force in the mobile market, largely recognised for its high performance, premium designs, and top-notch security. In 2023, the number of active iPhone units increased significantly to more than 1.38 billion worldwide.

With a huge rise in active users, the significance of iOS development projects has increased and continues to grow, in line with the devices produced. The increased popularity induces interest among new app developers in learning iOS.

About 60% of software developers across the globe work with Apple’s OS. iOS app developers have seen an increase in demand, payscale and scope. By opting for iOS development, companies gain the opportunity to reach a huge audience by creating user-friendly applications. They also get the advantage of brand recognition, high privacy and security measures, and immense revenue potential. 

1. Xcode

As one of the best iOS development tools, Xcode facilitates efficient iOS app development experience across platforms like iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. As Apple’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE), it streamlines development across these platforms. It is free for macOS users to build, design, and publish apps.

Besides that, Xcode supports source codes of various programming languages such as Swift, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Python, C, C++, etc. It also enables limited use of Python and Java for specific tasks. Xcode is the only tool you can officially use to create and publish your apps on the App Store.

Xcode app development tool has various functionalities and features to ensure seamless iOS app development. The tool offers developers a simulator that helps developers test and prototype applications in a simulated environment without a real device.

Xcode gives developers various instruments to profile and analyse the applications. This makes it easy to improve app performance, detect issues, and resolve them with the data gathered from instruments. You can also use Xcode to produce augmented reality experiences and 3D compositions to offer a high-end user experience.

Xcode is specifically designed to surpass developers' expectations with its integration features. Xcode seamlessly integrates with frameworks like Core ML and enables development for platforms like Apple watchOS, iOS, tvOS, etc. These integrations let developers create a different application that provides all the required features that one can ask for in an iOS application.

2. TestFlight

TestFlight enables beta testing and refining applications before they get released on the App Store. This iOS development tool allows the sharing of beta versions of the application with up to 10,000 testers. Thus, you can gather valuable feedback and detect bugs/issues before the app goes live.

This lets you identify and resolve issues, improving app quality before launch. It is also highly usable as it enables you to upload app builds to TestFlight from Xcode, and invite testers in a few clicks.

This streamlined process is hassle-free, hence you can focus on app perfection. TestFlight provides all types of insights into how the app performs, where you can see the crash reports, user engagement data, etc. This lets you make informed decisions for app improvement and app development.

3. Sketch 

Sketch is a well-known design tool that helps with iOS app development. It is a versatile tool with vector editing, symbols, and artboards. Sketch enables designers to create scalable, reusable and appealing designs for applications.

iOS designers use Sketch to build quality-centric and stunning designs that are highly appealing and serve the business requirements of clients.

4. Adobe XD

Adobe XD is a popular tool for iOS designers and developers. It is a powerful and swift vector-based UI/UX tool that helps designers craft visually stunning designs that work well for web, mobile, and smartwatch design. Designers can use Adobe XD to build wireframes, prototypes, and animations for the above-stated designs.

Other exciting aspects of the tool include 3D Transforms, which enables designers to manipulate objects in three dimensions. Another tool is Repeat Grid, which helps designers who search to create responsive designs by choosing elements and duplicating them vertically or horizontally. It helps duplicate design elements efficiently across various artboards.

5. Swift

Swift is the go-to language for iOS app development. Developers use Swift to make their app ideas a reality, enabling apps to run smoothly without unexpected crashes. Additionally, it is easy to learn. Apple continuously adds new features and updates to maintain efficiency.

It has a concise and expressive syntax and advanced features to help you build your dream app. Swift officially supports Linux and the community members are actively working to extend its compatibility across different platforms like Windows. Moreover, Swift is optimised to suit modern server applications, specifically those which need runtime security, compiled performance and bite-sized memory footprint. 

6. SwiftUI

 SwiftUI is a user interface toolkit that enables developers to build applications in a declarative way. Developers tell the framework how the user interface should look and work, and it identifies how to achieve this based on the user’s interaction with it. This framework includes everything developers require to create stacks, lists, buttons, pickers and various other user interface components. It also helps with core technologies to ensure adaptive layouts and accessibility.

Developers use SwiftUI to build exceptional applications across every Apple device with Swift and without requiring massive amounts of code. SwiftUI works on the Apple platforms like iOS 13 & later, macOS 10.15 & later, tvOS 13 & later, watchOS 6 & later, and visionOS 1 & later. Another feature of SwiftUI is that it replaces storyboards with a code-based and declarative approach to make views more reusable. 

7. Alamofire

 The well-known open-source iOS and macOS developer-friendly HTTP networking library, Alamofire is written in Swift. It breaks down the process of making network requests in iOS apps with a concise and clear API that handles basic networking processes. Alamofire is one of the most ideal networking libraries for open-source projects.

It is open-source and HTTP-based, written using Swift, which essentially contributes as an elegant wrapper throughout the URL session. Alamofire stands out due to its holistic features like chainable requests/response methods, support for the Combine framework, and capabilities for JSON and Codable decoding.

Considering data security and integrity, Alamofire supports HTTP authentication processes, including basic authentication, and can be extended to work with OAuth libraries. Alamofire can manage data transformation for inputs and outputs automatically in formats like JSON and XML. Moreover, it supports upload/download progress monitoring by leveraging the capabilities of URLSession.

8. URLSession

 URLSession is a standard API in iOS and macOS development frameworks. It lets developers accomplish networking tasks like data fetching from the Internet, communicating with web services, or file uploads. Built upon the lower-level networking protocols, it is a part of the foundation framework. It offers the optimal way of managing HTTP and HTTPS network communication.

URLSession is the best way for developers to build and manage data, upload, and download tasks. Data tasks are meant for memory data transfers, whereas upload and download tasks manage huge payloads, usually directly streaming data to and from files. It offers support for background sessions, enabling tasks to continue even while the app doesn’t run in the foreground. This is highly useful for long-running uploads/downloads.

It is highly customisable and helps developers to configure aspects such as timeouts, caching and security policies with URLSessionConfiguration. It also manages features like custom headers, cookie management, and authentication handling. It is lightweight, reliable and involves no external dependencies. Hence, URLSession is good to go for developers who demand complete control over their network stack or want to reduce dependence on third-party tools.

9. Firebase

 Firebase is a Google-owned mobile and web app development platform with a focus on iOS development. Being highly versatile, it offers various tools you can use to make the app the way you need. It also offers ways to solve common problems developers might face while building applications. Using Firebase, you can work on applications without worrying about complicated setup, since it provides access to user authentication, push notifications, database, etc; without writing too many codes.

This backend platform is specially suited to build mobile and web applications for iOS and Android devices. Firebase is one of the few platforms that offer a suite of tools to developers that help create apps based on their needs. For beginners, Firebase lets developers implement systematic iOS app development while helping them release and track apps confidently.

Authentication is one of the most remarkable features of Firebase, where developers can utilise Firebase authentication SDK for integrating multiple sign-in methods in a single app. Nevertheless, Firebase provides access to a real-time database that lets syncing data across the clients in real-time. Firebase hosting uses global CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to ensure quick and reliable web content delivery. You can send out notifications with minimal additional coding.

10. Realm

 As a mobile database platform, Realm offers a quick and efficient storage solution for Android, iOS, and web apps. Realm, acquired by MongoDB, is a well-known mobile database platform with features like storage efficiency and flexible sync for iOS and Android. If you are a developer who works with complex information across various platforms, you can rely on Realm.

Object Oriented Data Model is one of the primary features of Realm, enabling data storage and management in object forms to simplify complicated data structures and improve development efficiency.

It has cross-platform sync that enables real-time and bidirectional data sync across platforms and devices. It makes sure your data remains accessible and updated, thereby accelerating user experiences and applications’ reliability. It is strongest while considering security. It involves the AES-256 encryption and security measures that safeguard the data at rest and while in transit.  

11. CocoaPods

 CocoaPods is a dependency manager focusing on iOS and macOS development. It manages library dependencies for your Xcode projects. It makes managing and integrating third-party libraries to Objective-C and Swift-based projects in Xcode simplified.

The ultimate objective is to enhance discoverability and engagement in third-party libraries with a unified ecosystem. It acts as an open-source dependency manager that coordinates the integration of libraries. This helps developers eliminate the manual process of downloading and linking dependencies.

The dependencies for projects are encompassed in a single text file, known as Podfile. With CocoaPods, you can resolve dependencies among libraries, access the resulting source code, and link it then to an Xcode workspace for building the project.

12. Swift Package Manager

 Swift Package Manager (SwiftPM) manages the Swift code distribution. It is integrated with the Swift build system and automates compiling, downloading, and linking dependencies. It offers developers a method to control which packages and the respective versions of those packages the project would consume. As an essential aspect of modern iOS development, it offers an efficient approach towards dependency management. It encourages code reuse, simplifies the process of integrating external libraries, and aligns the best with Swift ecosystem. The features also include:

• Easy use of reusable and lightweight libraries  
• Minimises code duplication  
• Supports best development practices with modular coding support  

The iOS development tools mentioned above are some of the most effective solutions for iOS app development. They cater to various aspects of the process, including coding, design, testing, and deployment. If you are looking to take your iOS app development projects to newer heights, make sure you do it with an expert’s assistance.

At WAC, we responsibly leverage advanced technologies and tools to develop high-end iOS applications for our clients. We take a unique approach to iOS app development services, carefully considering offering the best possible user experience while keeping up with the client’s expectations. If you’re looking for a reliable iOS app development company for your next project, WAC should be your reliable choice. Contact us today, and let’s make your next app development project a masterpiece!