Becoming an iOS developer is a dream for many programming enthusiasts. What makes a developer better than others is the quality and efficiency of the code. Below are the steps one has to know to become a better developer.
WWDC Conference:
WWDC is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. In WWDC, Apple releases its new OS for iPhone/iPad and Mac. They will have a 1-week session. All the session videos will be published on their site and the developers can easily gain insights through those. As a developer, it is essential to have updates from this conference to update one to the current trend. This year WWDC is on June 4th.
Apart from the WWDC some of the other conferences to follow can be seen here.
Learn through Tutorials:
Apart from Apple documentation learning from tutorials gives an edge in learning and understanding the concepts. A huge number of tutorials are available for implementing various features in iOS. By learning through tutorials you can try out new features and explore the concepts.
Some of the tutorials I follow are RayWenderLich, Stanford Video Course, Appcoda. Here you can get a number of tutorials.
Keeping up with Weekly blogs:
Reading weekly blogs to understand the trend and progress of the contemporaries is important. It helps you in being relevant in this dynamic field. iOS Dev Weekly, Swift Weekly are some of the blogs which give you some better insights regarding iOS developments. Here you can get a number of blogs to follow.
Well versed with App Store guidelines:
Before beginning any application it is essential to be well versed with the App Store guidelines. App store guidelines are stringent than of Android Play store guidelines and perfecting an application that meets the standard guidelines of App Store is much more important and that makes an app get a way to reach the major audiences. Before beginning any project, you have to check if any of the features is violating the App store guidelines or not. This saves a lot of time and helps in avoiding last minute changes.
Before any app comes to AppStore there is an AppStore review process in the process they will check whether the App has met the guidelines properly.
App Distribution process:
Once an application is developed before uploading the app in Appstore it will be given to testers for testing purposes. One should be aware of the App distribution methods to do this process correctly. App distribution in Android platform is simple, as we can generate APK of the file and share it with all we want. But in the case of iOS, it’s pretty complicated. In iOS, we need to create an App-Id, certificate and profiles for distributing our Apps. You can follow the link to create the App-Id, certificate and profile process. Apple provides a service called Testflight to send the beta version across of the testing users.
Some of the services I am using are TestFairy, Instabug, AppBox, Diawi, Fastlane. The service to be used can be decided based on the particular needs and constraints.
Analytics:
Analytics is the key to understanding the success of an application and plays a major role in driving the application towards success. There is a huge number of applications available to check the app analytics ranging from Google, MixPanel and iTunesConnect. Making use of it properly and exploring it to the fullest makes you a complete iOS developer. Some of the services which I use are InApptics, Mixpanel and Google Analytics. You can get more insights regarding the Analytics tools from this medium blog.
Crash Reports:
One of the most important thing after completing the development of an application is looking for the App crashes. App crashes play a major role is user engagement and success of an application. You should track the crashes in the app regularly so that to fix it in the next update. If the frequency of the application crash increases then highly likely for the person to not use the app more than ever. Some of the prominent crash services used are Google Analytics., Crashlytics.You can get the crash report from iTunesConnect also.
Optimal usage of Libraries:
You might be well versed in handling few things in iOS but it might take time. Instead, you can use the third party libraries to finish the work in no time. With the help of libraries, you don’t have to handle all the scenarios by yourself. You can also contribute to the libraries which will be of a great help to the community. From these libraries, you can learn a new way of coding, approaches and understanding of other’s code.
Some of the famous third party libraries are Awesome, Alamofire, Alamofire Image, IQKeyboardManager, Moya, DZNEmptyDataSet and MGSwipeTableCell. Here you can get best libraries to be used.
Conclusion:
In this blog, we have seen 8 must known factors for an iOS developer to excel in creating an application in iOS platform successfully.
–
Yogesh M,
iOS Development Team,
Mallow Technologies.