Analyse at least FIVE developments that have taken place to improve the process of iOS application development and the performance of the app.

1. critically analysing each of the five developments.

 

 FIVE developments that have taken place to improve the process of iOS application development and the performance of the app.

5 Steps of Mobile App Development

• Research. First, the mobile app development services company needs to figure out how the proposed ideas can be merged into one functional mobile app. ...
• Prototype. A prototype is a rough, preliminary version of the final app. ...
• Design and develop.
• Testing.
• Deployment.
•  

To develop iOS apps, you need a Mac computer running the latest version of Xcode. Xcode is Apple's IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for both Mac and iOS apps. ... Xcode includes the iOS SDK, tools, compilers, and frameworks you need specifically to design, develop, write code, and debug an app for iOS.

 iOS developer will face many challenges during the development of an application. That is why I want to share the five iOS app development tools that will help you or your team develop an iOS app efficiently.

analysing each of the five developments.

a. macOS

macOS is a series of graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Apple Inc. You will need this for development since Xcode can only work on macOS.

b. Xcode

Xcode is a fast and consistently smooth iOS app development tool. It is Apple's IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for both Mac and iOS apps. Xcode is the graphical interface you'll use to write iOS apps. Xcode includes the iOS SDK, tools, compilers, and frameworks you need to design, develop, write code, and debug an app for iOS. But for native mobile app development on iOS, Apple suggests using the modern Swift programming language.

c. Simulator

Simulator allows you to rapidly prototype and test builds of your app during the development process. Although it is installed as part of the Xcode tools, simulator runs on your Mac and behaves like a standard Mac app. During use it can simulate an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or Apple TV environment.

d. iOS Software Development Kit (SDK)

Some iOS SDK essentials are the Cocoa Touch frameworks that include the UIKit, GameKit, PushKit, Foundation Kit, and MapKit. Use these iOS app development tools to build software much easier.

Now you have the tools that make code easier. How about when your team goes to build the framework? What tools give them an easy environment to set the stage for a well-developed app?

2. Standard practices for a project using iOS app development tools

a. Set Up the iOS Environments

It's best to have separate environments for your iOS apps, especially if they are communicating with any servers. For instance, consider an iOS app and three different available web backend environments: development, staging, and production.

b. CoreData for local DB operation (if needed)

Core Data is one of the most popular frameworks provided by Apple for iOS and macOS apps. Core data is used to manage the model layer object in your application. You can treat Core Data as a framework to save, track, modify, and filter the data within iOS apps; however, Core Data is not a Database. Core Data uses SQLite as its persistent store but the framework itself is not the database. Core Data does much more than databases, like managing the object graphs, tracking the changes in the data and many more things.

c. Version Controlling

Version control is a system that records changes to a file or set of files over time. This allows you to recall specific versions later.

d. Git

Git is the most recommended system to manage the versions. It is a free and open-source, distributed version control system. This system is designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

By the time you have developed a framework, you have hopefully settled on an optimal design for the app. So what is it going to be? There are various architectural structures that you can choose from, as you will find out in the next section.

3. Adopt an optimal architecture design pattern

It is very important to adopt an efficient architecture well suited for the project you are supposed to work on. Adopting an architecture helps in the future enhancements and maintenance of the project, if needed. Here are a few architectures to use while developing:

a. MVC

It stands for Model, View and Controller. MVC separates applications into three components - Model, View and Controller.

i. Model

Model represents the shape of the data and business logic. It maintains the data of the application. Model objects retrieve and store model state in a database.

ii. View

This is a user interface. It displays data to the user, using the model, and also enables them to modify the data.

iii. Controller

Controller handles the user request. Typically, users interact with view, which in-turn raises any URL request. This request will be handled by a controller. The controller renders the appropriate view with the model data as a response.

The following figure illustrates the interaction between the Model, View and Controller.

Xcode

The de rigueur iOS development tool is the free Xcode, Apple's Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for both Mac and iOS apps. The graphical interface used to write apps, Xcode now includes everything needed to write code for iOS 8 with Apple's Swift programming language.

1. critically analysing each of the five developments.

there are five main phases in an app development cycle.

• Planning Phase - Before launching an app, it is important to have a clear focus: what challenges does the mobile app solve, who is the target audience, what features to include, and so on. Besides, it is important to carry out a comprehensive market research to ensure the app would be competitive in its market or market niche. The planning phase also includes arranging all the requirements needed in the subsequent phases of the app development process.
• Design Phase - On this phase, the design team comes up with the user interface and user experience, that is, the looks, feel, and navigation. The design is then carried over to mobile app developers.
• Development Phase - This phase of the app development process flow involves creating a functional app from the existing design.
• Testing Phase - When the development is finished, it is obligatory to test the application. QA engineers review the app to make sure it functions seamlessly and has no bugs.
• App Launch & Maintenance - Once the app is tested and reviewed by the client, it can be launched release to market. However, this does not end the app development process steps, since every application requires continued maintenance and needs to be updated often to address the quickly changing customer demands. So, this phase simply marks the beginning of another development cycle.

We can describe an app having a good user experience based on the following properties.

1) The effort to do any task should be minimal i.e app should not take un-necessary extra steps or demands extra user inputs to do a particular task. minimal user efforts should be required to do a task.

Example - the app should not ask user details again and again, it should instead save the details during registration (sign up) time and use that info for future purposes.

2) The icons and images used in the app should be self-descriptive. Don't use complex or irrelevant images that confuses the person about the task that is to be performed by the icon .

Example - Try to use standard icons for simple tasks like calling, messages, comments, profile.

3) The major tasks that has to be performed by the app should be present on home page of the app.

Example- Suppose there is a document validation app then all the major functionalities like validating the document , open camera to validate, make a call to an agent should be present on home page of the app.

4) Always do a proper error handling for the app and always assure the user for a quick resolution.

5) Maintain the font style, font colors, back colors and positions of icons in the app. Keep all these things consistent within the app .

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