What Type Skills an iOS Developer Have
The process of choosing the right career path for yourself can be a bit difficult, especially in the technical domain. Currently, the mobile app industry is booming and looking at the current scenario it seems that the sector is likely to expand in the next few years. This means that there are many learning opportunities for career development.
In this article, we will focus specifically on building your career as a top iOS app developer and what key skills to help you begin your journey into one of the leading iOS app development companies in the industry.
Key iOS App Development Skills for an iOS Developer
Below is a list of iOS developer skills that you should definitely specialize in, which are as follows:
Strong command on Swift programming language
Having a strong command of the Swift programming language is the primary skill that an iOS app developer must possess. To be specific, you should be familiar with Swift's 3.0 programming language and all the functionality it provides.
This is because Swift is a universal language owned by tech giant Apple and is built on all iOS applications. Some functions offered by the Swift language are control flow, error handling, classes, inheritance, and initialization.
Spatial Reasoning
When it comes to designing and developing iOS mobile apps, spatial logic plays an important role. In simple words, it is mainly to consider from the user point of view i.e. interaction with mobile app, overall experience of using the app and so on.
Here, iOS app developers need to find that out-of-the-box thinking as well as innovative and effective ways in which they can make the app more efficient while enhancing the user experience. Thinking from a user's point of view, an app developer can design a user interface that is simple to navigate and includes features and other functions in a more accessible way.
Knowledge of Grand Central Dispatch
App users like applications that are simultaneous in nature and can simultaneously handle various tasks such as displaying information, understanding user-added inputs, collecting data from the Internet, and more.
In iOS applications, all this simultaneous task handling is possible due to Grand Central Dispatch, also known as GCD. The main purpose of using Grand Central Dispatch is to provide an intuitive and seamless experience to iOS app users.
Good understanding of Apple's Xcode IDE
If you don't fully understand Apple's Xcode IDE, you can't think of becoming a top-up iOS developer. The Xcode IDE is a real reason that makes the iOS app work smoothly while providing amazing user experience. During the journey of conceptualizing an idea for the coding part of the application development process, app developers are required to master the Xcode IDE.
Xcode IDE is highly integrated with frameworks such as Cocoa and Cocoa Touch as it is also a primary environment for building mobile applications for Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and many more.
Importance of Networking
Networking is one of the iOS app development skills that many mobile app developers do not pay attention to and considers it as an alternative application development skill. Think of it this way, if your iOS app can't interact with the web, what use will it be and most of its features won't work?
Nowadays, almost every mobile application needs to interact with the web in one way or another and this shows the importance of networking. This is usually done with JSON which stands for JavaScript Object Notion. This is why app development companies also pay more attention to the networking aspect of the application.
Specialization in UI / UX Design
As an app developer, you might be aware that both the UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) are related to the design of a mobile or web application, but when it comes to functionality, there are some differences in the two terms. Basically, the user interface (UI) is based on the look of an app while the user experience (UX) depends on how well the end-user is using the app.
There are some important things you need to keep an eye on while following the design guidelines:
Delegate pattern: Delegate pattern is a well-known method used for the purpose of passing information between objects in the Cocoa Framework. This approach works very well when only one recipient and one sender are involved in the process.
Model-View-Controller (MVC): The MVC is responsible for determining how information is being stored, how data is being presented and how the information stored is being updated in response to the latest user interaction.
In addition to the above points, using notifications is another great way to pass notifications from one place to another, for example, application notifications allow app developers to send data to multiple app users at the same time.
Apple Human Interface Guidelines
Speaking of rules and guidelines, Apple follows a very strict policy for them. As an iOS mobile app developer, you should be familiar with all the Apple Human Interface Guidelines because following these guidelines will help you create a simple and intuitive app experience for end-users.
These human interface guidelines by Apple help iOS app developers incorporate more creative practices that can result in maximum impact on the app user and provide a better view without issue.
Last but not least, you can also add learning about core data to your skills. This is because it can be quite frustrating for a user when minor issues like data loss, interface glitches, and other bugs are encountered repeatedly. With core data, all these issues can be eliminated easily.
So, these are some of the top iOS app development skills that will help you become the best mobile app developers in the industry. Also, if you are not completely confident about making a career as an iOS app developer then you can always try your hand in the field of Android app development. To become an Android app developer, you need to develop a different skill, for example, learn programming languages that are specifically designed for the Android platform.
