iOS Application Development With Xcode And iOS SDK

In the present times, iPhone apps have become an inseparable part of everybody's personal and business life. With the iOS apps, comes mobile engagement. It is a term defined for uniform interaction between the users and the iOS application for a long time. While interacting with the new iPhone apps, users look for an easy way to get their problems solved.

Both iOS SDK and Xcode, are a must for developing apps for iPhone. iOS SDK, or the software development kit that is featured by Apple enables any third party mobile application development company to develop apps. These apps then feature on the App Store and run on various Apple devices like iPhone, iPod and iPad. The iOS SDK includes:

• Xcode IDE

• Instruments

• Simulator

• Shark analysis tool

• Frameworks

• Samples

• Compilers

Many more important tools are included that assist the app developers to create applications.

Developers can download the latest versions of Xcode and iOS SDK from the App Store. These are available for free and can be downloaded instantly. Membership of the developer program for iOS developers will let the programmers access certain additional features that are not a part of the software development kit.

Xcode is an integrated development environment or IDE, created by Apple. It consists of various tools for software development that are used by the developers for creating software for iOS. The integrated development environment is generally used to define an application that enables the developers in creating apps. The list of tools include:

• Source code editor

• Automation tools

• Debugger

• Different Browsers

• Build

• Version control system

and many more important development tools. This means that the Xcode provides an environment to program, compile, and debug the apps.

In the later versions of Xcode 5 , Apple has added an interface builder editor in the IDE. This feature allows the iOS developers to create a complete user interface without actually coding for it. Just like drag and drop, the developer can add all the necessary aspects such buttons, fields, portals and other objects on the design template.

This makes it possible to create a robust user interface for iPhone, Mac, or iPod. Swift is a revolutionary coding language for Cocoa as well as Cocoa Touch. It has made coding really sharp and easy and is compatible with iOS and OS X projects.

Cocoa is an object-oriented based programming interface (API) created by Apple. This coding interface is used in building applications for the OS X. Likewise, Cocoa Touch is the synonymous application programming interface used for making apps for iOS. The interface is mostly coded in Objective-C language and consists of features like gesture recognition, graphical control elements, animation etc.