Learning iOS Development seemed like a daunting task when I realized there’s a lot of required skills and tools to master in becoming a great developer. Many iOS job listings will have a large wish list and some small for entry level roles. I even taken the time researching blogs and articles that list all the skills to learn in iOS development (up to Senior Roles). I wanted to make sure I’m ready for an entry level role so that I know what I’m doing in my dream job, but in reality mastering all of the required skills will take over a year just to be good enough for an entry level position (depending on how much time is allocated for studying). Just to be clear, I do work a full time job with 12 hour shifts. 

Through a quick google search and some reading, I’ve came across several essential skills most developers commonly say are great to have basic understanding as for an entry level role. 

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

― Malcolm X

1. Swift — Language Basic Syntax

Swift language is becoming more popular in application development for Apple than Objective-C ( Another programming language made by Apple). It’s only used for building applications for Apple products (mobile iOS Apps, iPhones, MacOS, and WatchOS) Swift is known to be safe, fast, and expressive. 

What does it mean being a safe language? XCode (IDE program used to build Mac OS applications) checks your code for any syntax errors live before your program runs. It also has indicators that points out where syntactic errors occur at a given line. 

Fast- memory is automatically managed and the compile time is smoother.

Expressive- there are different ways of writing code achieving the same result. It allows flexibility and code readability.

2. Spatial Reasoning — Constraints, UI & UX Design

Familiarity with spatial reasoning is highly important when it comes to designing applications for Apple products. The Apple Human Interface Guideline is a good start if you’re not so familiar with Apple products. I’ve been accustomed to the aesthetics of Apple since I’ve owned their products for many years.  Apple’s design style leans more towards a simple, clean, and modern design architect. Designing applications all comes down to spacing and positioning relationships between UI elements. Setting the right constraints is highly critical for superior functionality so that objects won’t overlap and the user can easily interact with UI elements without any issues.

3. Apple’s Design Guidelines — MVC & Delegate Patterns

Design Pattens are great to consider when building your application to ensure organizational structure for others to easily navigate through your project. There are many recommended design patterns that developers use on how they approach their project. The main design pattern that is highly looked upon is the MVC approach. MVC stands for Model, View, and Controller.

Model- How third party data is handled.

View- What the users see on screen. Main Story Board (Device)

Controller- The relationship between the model and the view on how data is displayed to the device.

4. Networking — API (Application Programming Interface)

Networking is another important asset to study. Most applications that we use rely on third party APIs. API is basically a task to request or put information from or to a remote server (a computer at a remote location that holds data). I never understood the extreme importance of it when I realized how powerful it is when I was creating AtlasOne. My app relied on receiving JSON data from my Firebase Server in order for my application to manage data efficiently. I can also create, update and delete data to my Firebase Server from the application. If I needed to make updates on certain objects, I can do so on the server end instead of pushing new versions of my application which will take time on the appStore for approval. It can save you much trouble and time just by relying on third party APIs for networking, especially if your application needs constant updates with data. There is also webAPIs to consider instead of re-inventing the wheel. You should look into webAPIs as well when creating applications.

5. Core Data — Data Persistance

Core Data is a widely known framework in the Apple iOS world. It is not to be confused with being a database, but it is used to create, read, update, and delete data from memory. Essentially it manages the application object graphs, filter data, tracking changes and much more. For example, changing the background color of your profile page in the app from blue to green. You exited the application and logged back in to see your background color green instead of blue. Core Data provides that ability to save the changes you’ve made to your application. Core Data can use SQLlite as its persisted store and it is a powerful interface for searching object graphs. There are many other ways to persist data through SQLite, RealmSwift (Third Party Library), and User Default.

6. GCD — Grand Central Dispatch

Using Grand Central Dispatch helps manage the application queues. It basically executes data through queues to avoid crashes through concurrent programming. iOS phone devices have multi-core processors which allows concurrent threading to occur where multiple tasks can be executed asynchronously or synchronously. 

When using GCD, you’re able to execute multiple blocks of code on many queues.  The main queue is the system where all UI code is executed on. It’s what users would see on the screen (operations and objects pulled to the main). The back thread is where robust amount of objects and data is being loaded. Heavy operations such as network request, database queries and loading files which takes time to execute should run in the background thread. 

Calling GCD synchronously means that no other tasks will start until the first operation is finished. It processes one by one approach (FIFO — First In First Out). Calling GCD asynchronously will allow other tasks to be executed at the same time, but will finish processing at different times. Asynchronous dispatch is mainly used to avoid blocking the main thread of your application. 

In Closing

These are just basic explanations of what these six skills are and there’s more in-depth study to consider working in the iOS world. With daily perseverance, you can master these six key skills that are highly in demand for an entry level role. These are just some of the skills I’ve listed and some roles may require different skillset priorities depending on the position in iOS development. I hope this helps you along your journey learning iOS Development.

Thanks for taking the time to read. You may leave a comment below if there are any topics you’d like to see on CodersUnited.