In this mobile-first generation, having apps for your business on popular mobile app platforms such as Android and iOS has helped businesses expand their reach to many more customers. Understanding the potential and benefits mobile apps can bring to organizations, more and more companies are adapting to the mobile-first era and developing mobile apps.
This increases the demands and expectations of mobile app developers to build next-gen mobile apps with the latest features and security protocols. And developers can’t handle all the development requirements and deliver such mobile apps in a timely manner by themselves. There are several app development tools available for aiding developers with their mobile app development projects. Today, we will focus on some of the best iOS app development tools available for iOS app development. If you plan to develop an iOS app, ensure to hire iOS developers with experience and expertise in using these app development tools.
Technical Mobile App Development Skills
What Are App Development Tools?
iOS app development tools are any group of frameworks, extensions, libraries, and any other resources that helps developers with different phases or tasks of iOS app development. Such tools can help with mobile app testing, debugging, code editors, UI/UX, and all other aspects of mobile app development whenever you are planning to develop or update your iOS app.
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Top iOS App Development Tools
Without further ado, we should get right into the list of top iOS app development tools as per their use cases and popularity. These tools will help you build customizable, scalable, and secure iOS apps with appealing UI/UX that conforms to the Apple App Store guidelines –
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Top 10 iOS App Development Tools That You Can Consider
I will show you my favorite iOS development tools. so let’s dive into the list of my favorite iOS development tools and first stop as you already might have guessed it is xcode
Xcode is the development tool to build iOS Mac OS iPad OS and so on watch OS apps and this is an dispensable need to have Xcode on your computer in order to build iOS apps so that is the first one that takes care of the elements in the room.
Let’s move forward to the next one and that is SF symbols now I really love SF symbols let me just open that up for you if you don’t know what access symbol is go ahead and download it from Apple’s website it’s basically these new icon sets that you can use in your apps now if you open it up you will see that you have all of these symbols in categories and if you select one you can just go ahead and go to the menu bar select edit and you can copy symbol or copy name you can’t see this because it’s on behind my pack now copy symbol is command C copy name is ship command now.
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- Swift (Programming Language)
- Objective-C (Programming Language)
- Xcode (IDE & Editor)
- CodeRunner (IDE & Editor)
- Flawless (App Design)
- Peckham (Plugin)
- RxSwift (Libraries)
- AlamoFire (Libraries)
- RayGun (Debugging)
- Parse (Backend Services)
1. XCode
Tool Type: IDE & Editor
No best iOS app development tool list can start without mentioning XCode. It is the first IDE tool included in the Apple app development kit. It runs on macOS and is designed and developed to develop software for macOS, iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and more.
Xcode is the only official tool for creating and publishing apps to App Store. Developers of all experiences can use it. Xcode is an all-in-one iOS app development tool that allows developers to write, compile and debug their apps and submit their apps to the Apple App store for deployment.
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Xcode supports various programming languages such as –
- C
- C++
- Objective-C
- Objective-C++
- Java
- Ruby
- Python
- Swift
- AppleScript
- ResEdit
Key Features of Xcode
- Latest SDKs
- SwiftUI & Interface Builder
- Analysis Tools
- Asset Catalogue
- Graphical Debugger
- Version Editor
2. AppCode
Tool Type: IDE & Programming Editor
AppCode is one of the best iOS app development tools developed by JetBrains. It is an integrated development environment used for developing iOS and macOS apps. It is an intelligent IDE that helps developers code faster and improve their accuracy. Developers can build apps for Mac, iPads and iPhones using AppCode IDE. It analyses the app code structure and manages routine tasks so that developers don’t have to waste their energy or time on repetitive tasks.
AppCode is built to be entirely compatible with Xcode without any additional configuration from the developer’s end. It also provides seamless integration with CocoaPods, Jira, Perforce, Reveal, Git, etc.
AppCode supports various programming languages such as –
- Swift
- Objective-C
- C++
- XML
- CSS
- HTML
- C
- JavaScript
- Xpath
Key Features of AppCode
- Smart Editor
- Run and Debug
- Xcode Integration
- Unit Testing
- Other Integrations
- Navigation and Search
- Code Generation and Refactoring
3. CodeRunner
Tool Type: Programming Editor
CodeRunner is a lightweight, multi-language supporting programming editor useful for iOS app development. It comes with advanced code compilation and the best IDE platforms helping developers write code efficiently. It is widely popular for its debugging abilities. It supports running code in 25 different languages.
CodeRunner supports various programming languages such as –
- Python
- C
- C++
- PHP
- Java
- Octave
- JavaScript
Key Features of CodeRunner
- Write and Run Code in any Language
- Advanced Code Compilation
- Live Errors and Linting
- First-Class Text Editor
- Easy Debugging
4. Figma iOS UI Kit
Tool Type: UI Kit
Figma is one of the most popular iOS UI Kit that comes with UI elements, iOS components and customizable templates. It works with multiple browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Safari browsers. It is a browser-based SaaS application that comes with the benefits of never worrying about updates or compatibility issues with your OS.
Figma comes with many easy to edit styles and customization options, helping developers make bulk changes together and significantly reducing overall app development time. It is a design tool for entrepreneurs, agencies or even individual designers.
Key Features of Figma iOS UI Kit
- App Prototyping
- Multiplayer Collaboration
- Team Libraries
- Components
- Constraints
- Version Controlling
5. Flawless
Tool Type: UI Kit
As the name suggests, Flawless is one of the top iOS design tools that allows developers to carry out various iOS app design, comparison, analysis, and execution tasks. Using Flawless, iOS developers can develop dynamic designs, check motions and animations, and capture animated screenshots. It is embedded with Xcode making it one of the most reliable UI tools for iOS developers. One of the biggest benefits of Flawless is also that it doesn’t require any additional setup or configuration to make use of.
Key Features of Flawless
- Display design on iOS simulator
- No additional setup or third-party configuration needed
- Easier to notice changes or issues
- Animated Screenshot Capture
- Dynamic Design Generation
6. CocoaPods
Tool Type: iOS app development library
CocoaPods is one of the most reliable application dependency managers for your iOS projects. It allows developers to specify all their dependencies in a basic text file named Profile. It then resolves all dependencies between libraries, gets the source code for all dependencies and helps create and maintain an Xcode workspace where developers can build their projects. It has more than 78k libraries for scaling your projects.
Key Features of CocoaPods
- Multiple Swift Versions and Pod Project Support
- Dynamic Scheme Launch Environments
- Automatic Generation of. Xcfilelist
- Incremental Installation
7. TestFlight
Tool Type: Testing
TestFlight is a native framework that lets iOS developers conduct tests on various Apple devices. It is also ideal for a situation that requires live users to perform beta testing of any iOS app prototypes, semi-finished and finished iOS apps. It helps developers collect important feedback before making their app available on the App Store. You can add a maximum of 100 people to the testing team, and each one can test upto 30 devices. Hence, 30,0000 testers can be invited to test your app via a shareable public.
The various device you can test your Apple app for using Testflight –
- iOS
- iPadOS
- tvOS
- macOS
- iMessage
- watchOS
Key Features of TestFlight
- Internal Testers can access all Beta Builds made available for Testing
- The ability to invite External Testers
- Using sharable public links to invite testers
- Update Test Information
8. EarlGrey
Tool Type: Testing
EarlGrey is one of the best iOS app testing tools developed by Google. It uses Unit Testing Target and comes with robust synchronization between network requests, UI, and more. With EarlGrey, developers can enable Apple developers to write easily maintainable and readable tests. If you have used Espresso’s Android testing tool, you will find EarlGrey very similar and easy to use.
Key Features of EarlGrey
- Powerful built-in synchronization
- Flexible design
- Visibility checking
- User Like Interaction
Best Plug-ins for iOS App Development
We’ve listed a handful of the most well-known and useful ones, but if you don’t see one that fits your needs here, keep looking!
- Alcatraz — An open source plugin and package manager with its own plugin, template, and colour scheme discovery engine. (Xcode 7 and higher required.)
- CocoaPods — This plug-in for the popular iOS and OS X dependency manager simplifies using CocoaPods from within XCode.
- Xcode Injection — Change the implementation of an Objective-C class without having to restart the app.
- XCodeBoost — A plug-in with a variety of features aimed at making code easier to analyse and change.
- Search by keywords is now possible with Code Pilot.
- Remote — Use XCode to control your iOS device while testing. On the smartphone, macros are also possible.
- XCAddedMarkup — From within Xcode, preview hyperlinks and images.
- Showingithub — Go straight to the code’s GitHub repository. BitBucket is also supported.
Final Words
These are the best iOS app development tools available in the market for optimizing your iOS app development project. They follow the iOS app development best practices and maintain global coding standards that help make your iOS app secure, robust, and scalable while easing development tasks for developers.
OK that is it for iOS development tool. I hope you enjoyed and found useful all over these productivity tools that i use on a daily basis to boost my iOS development. In my next article i will be writing about iOS development on windows. It will going to be interesting, make sure you have bookmarked us tech blog website.
