5 Mistakes to Avoid during iOS App Development

iOS App Development | Mobile App Development

With the introduction of Swift as an iOS programming language, iOS development is becoming more trendy and affordable. However, use of traditional Objective-C is still in place and with the completion of Swift in all aspects of programming to compete with Objective-C, iOS developers are not in a mood to switch completely on Swift. Therefore, discussing on some programming bottlenecks in Objective-C as well as in Swift may make sense in present moment too. Therefore, this post is aiming to give an idea of better coding to iOS developers.

Mistake No-1: Don’t Indulge in MVC Trap during iOS App Development

We all software developers are familiar with MVC concept due to its popularity in web development. Fortunately, iOS programming is also adopting it widely and used extensively. According to that concept in general, three layers: Model, View, and Controller separate business logic from UI and allows rapid development process by permitting designers and programmers to work on the same project simultaneously. The model layer consists of data and business logic, and View layer has some objects to build UI (presentation of data). Fundamentally, Model and View layers are not communicating directly and need the presence of Controller layer in between to work together. Therefore, controller layer has a significant role in managing interactions between data and UI. Of course, experienced and seasoned developers are never trying to misuse ability of controller layer to absorb the code for both remaining layers and place the code for Model in Model layer while for View, in the View layer. In the case of newbies or intermediate iOS programmers, they try to find the easy way and place too much code in the controller layer. At first glance, it seems natural because after all it is the controller and can accomplish its job successfully. Unfortunately, in the end, such bad coding practices toll developers heavily and they have to end with redundant code particularly, when the application porting to another platform is taking place.

Solution:

The solution to avoid MVC trap is to create solid app architecture with careful planning. At the programming level, we can outsource delegates and create logic objects as well as create helper objects for smooth going on in iOS Application Development.

Mistake No-2: Avoid UI Operations Along With Main Thread

Multithreading problems are common in iOS programming because UIKit is not completely threaded safe. Therefore, we are experiencing some weird bugs, which are difficult to reproduce. The real cause of such happening is UI stuff done offside the main thread in programming, so iOS app programmers have to be careful while executing concurrent code. Solutions: Addressing Concurrency is tough, and Swift has not any built-in support for it. Therefore, developers have to rely on different concurrency APIs. Among those, NSBlockOperation is useful to define a block of code and NSOperationQueue saves you from blocking main thread operation by simply placing operations in the queue.

Mistake No-3: Avoid Testing on Real Devices, Previous Devices, & Versions

Practically, iOS simulator is fast and easy to obtain desired results with maximum usability. Therefore, the majority of developers love to test on the simulator and avoid daunting tasks of testing with different iOS devices and various iOS versions. On the mobile landscape, touch gestures are unique, and testing real user experiences are only possible with real devices and real users. Therefore, it is mandatory to have your iOS app tested on real devices along with iOS simulator. When we advocate using real devices for testing, it should be noted that only the latest devices must not have our preferences. In the field, iOS app users hardly pick up the latest devices as soon as it releases. Due to many constraints, a big number of iOS users have previous generation devices with older versions of iOS. Therefore, you must consider them for the sake of compatibility issues and provide them full supports by testing bugs, performance, and user experiences on older versions of hardware as well as iOS.  

Mistake No-4: Avoid Care for Memory Usage in iOS App Development

Despite the capabilities of compiler and iOS for memory handling, still, chances for memory leaks due to retaining cycles. It has observed that when iOS developers use delegates extensively, happening of memory leaks are more. It is better you use “Debug Navigator” tab, which is available in Xcode. Thus, you can check memory usage of your iOS app, along with required details.

Mistake No-5: Using “UITableViews” Wrong Ways in iOS App Development Process

We use UITableView to display tabular interface on iOS devices. It is good to recycle the objects in UI to achieve better performance. Therefore, cell recycling practices are common among all levels of iOS programmers. Unfortunately, using UITableViewCell properties demands utmost care from the developers to define all values in properties and upon any mistake, it may behave in weird ways while users are scrolling the screens of UIs.

Conclusion:

Of course, besides these mistakes, we can list some more at designing and programming level mistakes we are committing during iOS app development. However, these mistakes are needing ultimate attentions from the iOS developers to pay in order to avert disasters or bugs in your iOS app. If you want to save your mobile applications for iOS devices from such common or rare mistakes, you must have hired highly experienced and skilled iOS developers from a reputed company to work on it in cost-effective ways. Fortunately, Addon Solutions is an eminent iOS App Development Company, which has such seasoned iOS developers to take care of all minute details in your iOS app development projects, and you can take advantage of such outstanding talents in leeway using Hire An iOS App Developer packages.