How to Create Outstanding iOS Apps: The Best iOS App Development Tools

For several reasons, the creation of iOS apps is exaggerated. The reality is that creating iOS applications is not as difficult as it might seem. Having said that, it’s not as if you don’t need to be familiar with fundamental coding and programming languages. The work required to create an iOS app is comparable to that of other programming languages.

However, the following list of iOS app development tools can help iOS developers with many of the tasks they typically must complete when creating an iOS app. Let’s go into more depth about each of the tools listed below.

1. iOS UI/UX design tools

Here are the most used iOS UI/UX design tools you need to check out if you are an iOS app developer.

Figma

Figma is a cloud-based interface design software that allows designers to collaborate on user interface design projects in real-time. It’s a popular choice among designers due to its simplicity, intuitive interface, and ability to support design teams with a range of features such as design systems, version control, and collaboration tools. Figma also supports various design activities, including wireframing, prototyping, and design documentation, making it a versatile tool for designing digital products. Additionally, Figma has a robust set of plugins, which allow designers to extend its capabilities and streamline their workflows.

The main features of Figma:

• Prototyping
• Team libraries
• Accessibility and collaboration
• Smooth handoff to developers 
• Wide range of useful plugins

Flawless 

Designers can use the tool Flawless to compare their designs to how they were implemented in the iOS simulator. All you have to do is start the iOS simulator that is included with the Xcode IDE for iOS/macOS development, and from there you can choose any picture (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, and even a sketch file) and launch it.

The main features of Flawless:

• Check motion and animation
• Create dynamic design
• Capture an animated.

Sketch

Sketch is generally used for designing the UI of mobile applications, web, and wearables. This is a tool for macOS and the files in this tool are saved on their own as a sketch file format. Although these very files can also be checked in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and other software.

The key features of Sketch:

• Sketch allows you to do app prototyping, logo and icon design, design wireframes, design vector illustrations, and all other types of graphics.
• Sketch is also a prior choice of designers when it comes to using more accessible design protocols and modules to obtain faster results.
• Sketch is a good choice for easy collaboration among designers.

Invision

This tool gives the designers clarity, and collaboration, and helps them experiment with their design in every which way they want. InVision is commonly known for prototyping, collaboration, and its smooth workflow. Moreover, Invision allows designers to create interactive mockups for their wireframes and designs.

The main features of Invision:

• InVision helps developers with real-time project collaboration.
• InVision consists of some useful testing tools to ensure app visuals and interactions.
• Also, many developers have stated that InVision is one of the best tools when it comes to creating smooth navigation for apps and websites.

2. Programming languages

Objective-C

Objective-C is a high-level programming language used for developing applications for the Apple ecosystem. It was developed in the 1980s and became the primary programming language for Apple’s macOS and iOS operating systems. It is an object-oriented language that allows developers to build complex applications by using objects, classes, and methods. Objective-C also provides dynamic binding, which allows developers to change the behavior of an object at runtime, making it more flexible and easier to maintain. The language is widely used by developers around the world and is considered one of the most popular programming languages for Apple development.

Swift

Swift is a robust and intuitive programming language which is launched by Apple for developing applications for iOS, Apple TV, Mac, and Apple smartwatches.

Swift is the technology that is basically designed to mitigate the tasks of iOS developers to a great extent. It’s open source and simple to work with the programming language that allows developers to create the best applications if they have a good hand on iOS technology.

3. Editors and IDE

Xcode

Xcode is a gem of a tool for debugging apps along with testing and developing the same. Apple created this integrated development environment, especially for developing and troubleshooting iOS applications.

Apart from that, Xcode helps developers with a consistent workflow for user interface design, coding, testing, and debugging. And the icing on the cake is Xcode IDE with swift programming that makes iOS app development nothing less than fun and easy.

AppCode

AppCode is a robust IDE for iOS/macOS development that is compatible with Swift, Objective-C/C++, C/C++, and various other languages through plugins. It builds a default run/debug configuration for each target and names it after the developers’ projects. Developers can also add their own configurations based on available templates.

4. Backend services

Firebase

Firebase is a BaaS: backend as a service that is known to be quite a versatile platform for iOS developers. It is a backend platform for building Web, Android, and iOS applications. It helps developers with real-time databases, different APIs, various authentication types, and hosting platforms.

Helios

Helios is a fully open-source framework for developing iOS applications that can offer a variety of critical backend services. This backend tool assists developers with integrating advanced features like push notifications, in-app purchases, data synchronization, passbook integration, logging, and analytics.

Parse

Parse is one of the most versatile tools for all iOS developers out there. It is an open-source framework to create applications backends and debug iOS applications.

5. Game development

Unity

Using the cross-platform game engine Unity, you can complete a variety of activities linked to the game development process. It offers a 2D and 3D platform for game developers to create video games. However, that is not the only factor. Because Unity is so user-friendly and smooth, developers don’t have to start from scratch with it, which is what makes it so intriguing to them.

Buildbox

Without using any programming, coding, or scripting, Buildbox is a no-code development tool primarily targeted at game development. Entrepreneurs, designers, and other gamers who are not familiar with game development or coding standards make up the software’s core audience.

6. Security

Frida

Frida is a dynamic instrumentation tool that allows iOS developers to run their own scripts in software that is often secured. It is completely free. This tool is used by malware experts on both jailbroken and non-jailbroken smartphones. When it comes to the security of iOS applications, this is regarded as one of the most effective techniques.

Ghidra

Ghidra is the best tool for examining iOS binaries and gathering cross references. Ghidra is a reverse engineering tool that the NSA created, produced, and made available in 2019. Malware analysts are well-versed in utilising this tool because of how brilliant it is at removing malware activities. Another name for it is a disassembly tool.

7. Plugins

Wider

Wider is a stereo widening plugin for Mac and iOS. It helps developers expand the stereo image of a mono signal to a surprising amount of width. In addition to that, it can boost the stereo image of any Mono signal up to 200% of full stereo for an extra wide exaggerated effect.

LRC5

This plugin of iOS is accessible on both iPhone and iPad, LRC5 is a five band EQ. It is a great option if you find GarageBand’s native three band visual EQ a little limited. Neon Silicon could charge for this particular EQ, as it is pretty versatile and a useful addition to your iOS app arsenal.

8. Testing

iOS applications are very well known for their streamlined performance and seamless user experience. For continuing the belief, tools for testing iOS applications are more than important. Let’s learn about these top testing tools for iPhone applications.

EarlGrey

EarlGrey is an open-source native test framework created by Google for UI test automation in iOS. The best part is, Google uses this framework as well internally, for testing the functionality of native iOS applications like Google Calendar, Google Photos, Google translate, Youtube, and so on. Not just that, EarlGrey lets QA engineers get access to one-level-up synchronization features to stable the UI testing.

Built-in synchronization is a main feature of this testing tool that regulates test scripts until any specific UI event occurs then only the process of interaction with app UI begins. Also, this tool synchronizes with the UI and network requests.

OCMock

OCMock is a robust mock object testing library that is used to develop stubs in an iOS application. Mock objects play an important part in software testing as they enable a QA engineer to regulate the behavior of complex, real objects.

Since developers are not able to get built-in support for Mock objects in Xcode. Thus, OCMock is used as a separate library. Also, the OCMock library greatly supports Objective-C. OCMock allows a user to add mock objects in already existing test cases like a cakewalk.

Detox

Detox is one of the most used automation frameworks for testing cross-platform mobile applications. The only downside is that it is not able to support testing on real devices for iOS platforms, but does so in the case of Android.

9. Libraries

Libraries are one of the most important aspects of iOS app development for app developers out there. Let’s take a look at some of the most used libraries by developers. 

Kingfisher

Just like a cameraman catches the best spot to capture, the kingfisher catches images from the web. If something like remote images you work on, then you should give a try to the robust, swift library with these impressive additional options.

RxSwift

RxSwift, the swift version of Rx, is a workable and effective library that facilitates simple self-paced operations and events in a separative manner.

Nimble

With this library, you can match your tested units in iOS with the respective framework. Nimble is the matcher for swift and objective C. It depicts the best practice and ornate features of code in an easily understandable manner.

Spring

Spring helps with a unique experience by simplifying iOS animations in Swift. It animates from the beginning state to the end state without putting the iOS app developer in an adverse situation.

10. Documentation

Since documentation is a pretty important aspect of the software development life cycle, there are certain tools we are listing down to carry out the same process smoothly.

Jazzy

Jazzy is a prominent tool for building Swift and Objective-C documentation that is beyond analyzing sources with the amalgamation of Source kit and the Clang AST model of the code and comments in order to get the on-point conclusion.

SwiftDoc.org

Swift makes sure that the code is clear and efficient. Writing Swift code is interactive and comparatively easier in Swift Playgrounds, playgrounds in Xcode, and REPL. Its documentation is fully auto-generated and is accessible online. SwiftDoc.org allows developers to browse all types of protocols, operators at a rapid pace.

Conclusion

iOS software development is backed by many useful tools, out of which we have stated the most prominent tools of iOS categorically. You can check out these tools and optimize them to gain the maximum advantage of each of the tools. Many tools are so versatile that they can help you with multiple services.

Also, we have an extensive team of iOS app developers who can help you relatively and help you with surprising insights to transform the landscape of your business dramatically.

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