Apple is popularly restrictive to approving apps on the App Store. Therefore, your application needs to be top-notch and adhere to the platform’s policies to be successful. For a smoother experience, we recommend taking professional guidance from a reliable iOS app development company to guide you with all the technical aspects. However, before we move forward with iOS app development, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: The iOS app development programming language.
Why is choosing an appropriate programming language important? Picking the best programming language for app development is vital because if your application is successful, you will want to expand it with new features and functionalities. Moreover, your app will be required to be introduced to new platforms and devices where you might need a flexible language.
This exhibits that the correct coding language can be a huge selling point for your application. iOS app development allows working with a range of programming languages offering quality and scalability.
The top five languages are mentioned below:
- Swift
No matter how naive you are in the world of iOS app development, there are very slight chances of you being unfamiliar with Swift. Swift is rated as one of the most preferred languages for iOS by enterprises, startups and top-tier organizations. Swift was released in 2014 and has been a popular option for reshaping the iOS future since then.
In fact, according to an iOS index for Swift, the language was rated as the 11th most used language for iOS, three years in a row. Swift is basically a general-purpose programming language used to create rich quality native applications specifically for iOS.
It is created to verse well with frameworks like Cocoa Touch and Cocoa.
Benefits to Swift are fast and open-source availability, interoperability (with Objective-C), scalability and flexibility. Swift development also assures data security and has ARC (Automatic memory arc) for effective process.
When to use Swift?
You can choose Swift if you are confident of your application scaling quickly. You can use it as a language app for Apple Tv, Mac, iPad and iPhone app programming language.
- Objective-C
Objective-C is an extension of the Object-Oriented programming language C, offering similar functionalities. Created in 1984 and being a predecessor of Swift, Obj-C is now a general-purpose programming language that runs efficiently with Mac OS and iOS.
When it comes to preference, Swift and Obj-C are always put on the board for comparison. Both languages are compared in terms of coding, code maintenance, readability, execution time, processing and other factors.
However, Swift wins a lot of bets since Obj-C has become unavailable as an open-source coding language. Moreover, it has started exhibiting limited properties and functionality issues due to which its popularity is weighed down.
When to use Objective-C?
You can only use Obj-C when you want to update the older versions of iOS that are not compatible with Swift.
- Flutter
Flutter was created by Google in 2015 (officially launched in 2017) and is a popular programming language for application development. It is basically a highly flexible open-source development kit that is used to create apps for desktop, Windows, Android, iOS, Google Fuschia, Mac, Linux etc.
You can create versatile and aesthetically attractive cross-platform applications using Flutter. The language, however, has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Some well-known benefits of using Flutter are quality rich, time-efficient, total customization capacity, own widget set and open-source availability.
But at the same time, Flutter has a limited talent pool since it’s still new to application development.
When to use Flutter?
Flutter is one of the most popular languages for cross-platform applications. Hence, you can consider using Flutter when you want to create an iOS app and make the web app, desktop and Android version for the same.
- C#
C# is a general-purpose, object-oriented, high-level programming language created to respond to the JAVA language. According to an Index survey of 2021 for coding languages, C# was considered the most versatile and skilled language in app development.
C# makes iOS app development relatively easier for advanced and intermediate-level developers in terms of its benefits. The language also offers a rich library, supports cross-platform development and is cost-efficient. Apart from that, C# has a vast worldwide community that keeps working on recent challenges faced by enterprises and product owners.
When to use C#?
You can use C# if you have a dedicated iOS app development company to provide you with skilled C# developers. Besides, C# is ideal if you want to migrate your app to other platforms.
- HTML5
HTML5 is generally used in combination with CSS and JavaScript. It is preferred as a coding language when working with hybrid applications, although it does not work well with native apps.
Some popular advantages of working with HTML5 are consistency, multi-platform support, cost efficiency, offline browsing etc. Some of the cons that come along with the pros are limited functionality and challenges with design responsiveness.
When to use HTML5?
HTML5 is generally preferred when you do not want to invest too much in iOS app development and want a simple app design that can be accessed offline.
Closing Words
iOS app development allows you to work with various programming languages; however, your ideal language should be based on your application’s requirements. You can always choose a reliable iOS application development company to help you with the project and the development process.
