Swift Extensions to Speed Up Your iOS Development

iOS development is the process of creating applications for Apple's mobile operating system — the operating system used by the iPhone and iPad. In its most fundamental sense it has a lot in common with other types of app development, but there are a few key differences.

What Is iOS Development

iOS development refers to building mobile applications for Apple hardware, using either Objective-C or Swift. Apple has three requirements for iOS developers: a Mac computer running the latest macOS, Xcode, and an active Apple Developer account. Because Apple standardizes iOS development, developers rely heavily on Apple's native APIs, libraries and SDKs — and, where an app connects to cloud-based services, Apple's cloud tooling for storage, database management and caching. Testing requires a physical Apple device, and the final step is listing the finished app in the App Store.

Mobile developers moving into iOS should be aware that each developer needs a Mac — generally more expensive than an equivalent Windows machine — and that a finished app faces a stringent quality review before it can be distributed through the App Store.

iOS Programming Languages

Working in iOS typically means being fluent in Xcode, Swift, Objective-C and Apple's proprietary tooling and frameworks.

Swift was created by Apple in 2014 as "a general-purpose programming language built using a modern approach to safety, performance, and software design patterns" — intended to be the best available language for a large range of projects, from iOS and Mac to Apple TV and Apple Watch, giving developers more freedom than before.