IOS Development Tools

Whether you're an experienced iOS developer or a beginner just learning, using the right set of tools can take applications to the next level. iOS app development has a vast scope and massive potential for the actions and abilities that you can lend to the application on this platform.

This post details the Top 15 IOS Development Tools that help you build better apps.

Top 15 IOS Development Tools

Here are the tools that are essential in any iOS development. 

• Xcode
• CodeRunner
• AppCode
• Fabric
• APPlyzer
• RxSwift
• Marvel
• Mockingbird
• TestFlight
• CocoaPods
• Parse
• Raygun
• Cocoa Controls
• Flawless
• Dribbble

 1. Xcode

Xcode is one of the most amazing tools used for developing iOS applications. It's an Apple Integrated Development Environment (IDE) used to build software for iOS and Mac. Xcode manages the entire development workflow starting from creating and optimizing and submitting apps to the App Store. Xcode 12 is the latest version of Xcode that allows customizable font sizes for the navigator, new document tabs, and streamlined code completion.  

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Features:

Source Editor in Xcode allows you to write code with advanced code completion, syntax highlighting, and other context-sensitive information in line with your code.

• Asset Catalog Editor manages your images grouping various resolutions of the same asset.
• Xcode provides a Version Editor to display the running timeline of commits.
• Live Issues in Xcode highlight coding mistakes.
• Static Analysis allows you to find bugs in the code before you run the app.
• XCTest Framework of Xcode makes it easy to build unit tests that use app functionality.
• Integrated Build System in Xcode handles the most complicated builds.

Pricing: Xcode is available for free, but costs $99 per year to join Apple's developer program and upload it to the app store. 

[ Related Article: About Swift ]

2. CodeRunner

CodeRunner is a lightweight, multi-language programming editor used for iOS application development. This tool comes with advanced code compilation and one of the best IDE platforms that offer many powerful features to write code effortlessly. It doesn't cost a fortune. Debugging code has never been an easy task in any language. CodeRunner allows you to develop advanced apps while supporting debugging and fixing syntax errors. It can run your code in 25 languages.

Features:

• Documentation sidebar 
• TextMate syntaxes and themes
• File navigator
• Multiple selections
• Automatic indentation support
• Code templates
• Symbol navigator
• Web inspector and web tools
• Run with arguments & input sets
• Live running process statistics.
• Highly configurable

Pricing: You can use CodeRunner for free for up to seven days and then costs $9.99/month.

 3. AppCode

AppCode is a smart and reliable tool used for iOS and macOS development, created by JetBrains. This IDE supports many programming languages, including Swift, Objective-C, C++, JavaScript, etc., and various testing units like XCTest, Quick, Kiwi, Catch, and Google Test testing frameworks. It regularly highlights code errors with its intelligent code assistance.

Features:

AppCode has tons of useful features. The most important ones are listed below:

• Intelligent code assistance
• Built-in tool and integration
• Web & Cross-platform
• Navigation & Search
• Code Analysis
• Run & Debug

Pricing: AppCode offers a free trial version for 30 days.

 4. Fabric

When it comes to iOS development, Fabric is one of the most popular software tools in real time. It lets you automate the beta distribution and application deployment process. Robust yet lightweight, this tool is relatively easy to integrate into the development environment to build iOS apps quickly and help developers add various functions without any problem. 

Features:

• Crashlytics is now the primary crash reporter for Firebase.
• The next generation of Beta is currently in Firebase, called App Distribution.
• Digits have evolved into Firebase phone authentication.
• Analytics

 Pricing: Fabric is now shifted to Firebase. It offers a Spark plan for free and a Blaze plan for premium.

 5. APPlyzer

APPlyzer is the best tool available in the market to gain insights for app development and overall application ranking among all iTunes stores worldwide. This tool allows you to extract the most relevant keywords for your applications and competitors. Also, it enables you to get worldwide search results for iOS, Apple, Google Play, and macOS. 

Features:

• Worldwide APP rankings - APPlyzer allows you to get the top 1000 daily and hourly ranking performance for iOS across 155 APP stores.
• Profound insights of competitor data - Allows you to extract keyword rankings and search for competitors.
• Email and Slack-Alerts - Keep yourself updated with the significant ranking changes with daily and hourly alerts

Pricing: APPlyzer pricing starts at $11.00 per month.

[ Related Article: IOS Development Interview Questions]

6. RxSwift

Every programmer must have heard about RxSwift. It's a reactive programming library used for iOS development. It makes it easy to program dynamic iOS applications that respond to user events and data changes. It supports both synchronous and asynchronous code.

Features: 

• Multi-use code.
• Rational management of application resources
• Compatibility with MVVM template
• Rapid development with broad support

 7. Marvel

Turn your sketches into interactive prototypes with the Marvel app. It's one of the well-known tools used for iOS development to bring ideas to life.

Features:

• Supports over 1 million free icons and stock photos to design
• In Marvel, you can create screens directly or add images from Sketch or Photoshop.
• Create prototypes for the iPhone and iPad. 
• Collaborates with clients to get real-time feedback on designs. 
• Automatically turn designs into specifications.

Pricing: Marvel offers free versions and premium plans, depending on team size. 

 8. Mockingbird

Mockingbird is a Swift framework that simplifies unit testing on iOS. Mostly for examining the application at the initial stage of development, we use Mockingbird. This tool is simple to use as it provides Drag and Drop UI elements for mobile application design. This web-based wireframe application works like writing down a sketch that and allows you to get your digital ideas onto a digital medium. It will enable you to create several pages to build your vision and supports adjustments of alignment, font, color, and then sharing sketches with your team to get real-time feedback.

Features:

• Simple to wireframe 
• Real-time mobile app design 
• Work with compelling collaboration features. 
• Turns low-fidelity wireframing into high-fidelity previews 

Pricing: Mockingbird pricing starts at $9.00 per month.

 9.TestFlight

TestFlight is a helpful tool that lets you invite users to test applications. You can collect feedback before releasing apps on the App Store. To get benefitted from this tool, you should upload a minimum of one beta build of your application to App Store Connect and invite testers through a public sharing link. A maximum of 100 members can be added to the team to test the apps, and each one can test up to 30 devices. A maximum of 10,000 testers can be invited to test apps through a public sharing link.

Features:

• Internal testers can access all the Beta builds available for testing.
• You can invite External Testers and create multiple Groups and add the builds depending on the features you want them to focus on.
• Email invitation link to install and test the app.
• Using Public Links to Invite Testers 
• Update Test information

Pricing: TestFlight is entirely free

 10. CocoaPods

CocoaPods is the best dependency manager for Objective-C and Swift Cocoa projects among developers. Millions of iOS-based apps have utilized CocoaPods globally. It boasts over 78 thousand libraries to scale projects elegantly. Using this tool will help you to know more about iOS development resources.

Features:

• Access code from any source - CocoaPods supports almost every way you want to get source code.
• Define Podfile once, and CocoaPods updates it quickly.

11. Parse

Parse is an open-source application for iOS to carry out the back-end development of apps like file storage, dashboards, push notifications, and more. Parse supports database index, optimizes queries, auto-scaling, and backups data automatically. This platform presents a complete set of features to backend development faster and easier. 

Features:

• Parse supports the REST server and dashboard to manage data.
• Presents various SDKs and Libraries
• Parse Server Adapters

 12. Raygun

Raygun is an error and performance monitoring tool that checks how users experience iOS apps. This tool provides real-time and actionable insights into the quality and performance of iOS apps. It offers in-depth error diagnostics and resolves issues quickly to build great software.

Features:

• Application Performance Monitoring
• Error monitoring and crash reporting
• Quickly identifies and resolves front-end performance issues.
• Real-time visibility for every deployment.
• User tracking

Pricing: Offers Simple, flexible, affordable pricing that scales with you

 13. Cocoa Controls

Cocoa Controls lists custom controls and views for iOS apps includes more than 1000 libraries from the open-source community. This resource can be a real time-saver.

14. Flawless

For developers who look for versatile iOS development technologies to implement and compare iOS app design, the Flawless tool will be a perfect choice. It comes within Xcode and allows developers to compare the old system to a new one quickly.

Pricing: Flawless offers a 14-day free trial and then costs $30 for a lifetime license valid on two machines plus product support. 

 15. Dribbble

Dribbble is a platform for creative professionals and designers to find inspirational iOS designs, illustrations, and graphic elements. It is among the best iOS development tools today and helps you to explore various beautiful designs of iOS icons, UI elements, and full-screen designs, and connect with top designers. Some Captivate designs include animation, too.

Conclusion

There are many iOS dev tools available today, but in this article, we highlighted the solutions that improve the quality of apps and streamline your development process. Whether you're a beginner or expert, you'll be able to find what you're looking for in this list. Refer to these tools and use them in your iOS development projects. 

 Also, tell us what the best iOS tools you use in the comment section.