IOS Developer Roadmap: Skills You MUST Have!

Table of Contents

Overview:

With 5.22 billion unique mobile phone users worldwide (DataReportal, 20021), it’s no surprise that the mobile application industry is booming in its prime. The US Bureau of Statistics and Labor forecasts job demand in mobile application development to grow 22% by 2029.

Currently, Apple is still the “big man” in the world of mobile development. With over 1 billion iPhones in use, all running on iOS, Apple continues to overtake Android in the world’s richest countries. Obviously, IOS Developers are hunted and invited by big technology companies.

If you are looking for a job that ranks in the top 10 most in-demand tech jobs, then iOS is the “golden field” for you.

This article will show you: iOS Development Roadmap: The Skill You MUST Have!

I. What Is An IOS Developer?

1.1. IOS Developer

An IOS Developer is a Web Developer or mobile app software powered by Apple’s iOS operating system. They focus on building, testing, and tweaking using either the Objective-C or Swift programming languages.

IOS developers create apps for use with a wide range of Apple devices, including iPhones, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, and iPads.

1.2. What Does an IOS Developer Do?

An IOS Developer designs build, develops, and maintains mobile applications using Apple’s IOS operating system that align with the goals and standard. An IOS Developer’s job is to code the base app (Swift or Objective-C), run tests on the apps to ensure the performance and quantity, fix bugs, and implement any updates to apps.

An IOS Developer job description will also include collaborating with a team to define and ship new features on time. He can often work alongside a Software Engineer, UX Designer, Product Manager, Data Scientist, Project Manager, or leader as they work on advanced or long-term projects.

1.3. A Typical IOS Developer Job Responsibility

A Typical IOS Developer Job Description would likely include all of the following responsibilities:

Designing and building advanced apps for IOS’platform
Collaborating with teams to design, define, and ship new app features.
Unit-testing code for robustness to ensure the quality and performance of apps.
Identifying potential problems, resolving app bottlenecks, and fixing bugs before the final release.
Publishing app on App Store.
Maintaining the code quality, atomization of the iOS application, and designing and implementing app updates.
Continuously discover to maximize app development efficiency.

1.4. What Tools Do IOS Developers Use?

To list out the list of tools that an iOS Developer uses is countless. Every developer chooses the right tools for his or her purpose in making, simplifying, or enhancing their tasks.

However, there are three things that any iOS Developer should know how to use when they are just getting started; The rest can often be learned on an as-needed basis. These are the main iOS programming languages: Swift, Objective-C, and Xcode, aimed at developing apps for all Apple devices.

1.4.1. Objective-C

As a superset of C programming languages, Objective-C is currently the main programming language used to write software for Apple’s codebase. As the name implies, Objective C is a superset of the C language with the Smalltalk type. It is a new feature and object-oriented programming language.

1.4.2. Swift

Swift is also a programming language used to program apps for iOS. Although Swift is a new language, it has many outstanding advantages, especially in terms of speed, simplicity, logic, and much better processing performance than Objective C.

According to Apple – Swift runs 2.6 times faster than Objective-C. It’s not hard to understand how quickly Swift’s popularity is growing. Twice as many users today as Objective (BrainStation’s 2020 Digital Skills Survey)

Swift also has other advantages over Objective-C, including improved safety, public metrics, and communication formulas.

1.4.3. Xcode

Apple introduced this tool for building Swift apps. XCode is a top priority for iOS app developers to create apps for Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Xcode allows Developers to perform certain functions without necessarily writing source code. Therefore, it is the most powerful and reliable tool on the market today, providing consistency and high speed in the IOS application development process.

II. Reasons To Become An IOS Developer.

There are many reasons to become an iOS Developer such as high demand, competitive salary, and creative challenging work with various projects.

2.1. IOS Developer Salary

As mentioned, IOS Developer is a job that ranks in the top 10 most in-demand tech jobs. This is also the biggest reason why many developers choose to become IOS Developers.

Thanks to high demand, salaries for iOS Developers are quite competitive, even compared with other careers within the tech industry.

According to Indeed, the average salary for an IOS developer is $127,029 per year in the United States and $6,000 cash bonus per year (updated on April 11, 2022)

That salary depends on years of experience, technical skills, and education. IOS developers who have knowledge of a wider range of programs often attract high salaries.

2.2. IOS Developer Demand

The U.S. Department of Labor has also predicted 22% growth in the mobile apps sector by 2029 much faster than average for all occupations, with an estimated 300,000 more new jobs in the future.

Besides, Apple, one of the companies that boast the largest market capitalization on the planet, is still the king of the industry. Looking at the increasing popularity of the iOS platform namely Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iPod, and the macOS platform, it is safe to say that IOS developer demand isn’t going away, it will increase more and more.

2.3. Challenges At Work

The work of a developer in general and of an IOS Developer, in particular, is always changing and constantly updating in many different projects. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for iOS developers. It requires seriousness and constant research from them to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology.

The reality is that developing for iOS has a relatively steep learning curve, and the limits of what you can learn never come — there’s always more to discover and new skills to gain.

III. Roadmap To Becoming An IOS Developer

To make it easier for you to imagine, here the article gives a schematic diagram of the roadmap to becoming an IOS developer.

STEP 1: Xcode

As you can see, the first step is Xcode. You have to download Xcode from the Appstore. Then, you just figure to know how it works and all of this stuff because Xcode is the idea to build out IOS apps and that’s where your code, where you add your swift packages, and all of that stuff.

So, you really need to know how to handle Xcode. Even you will Xcode open all the time as an IOS Developer.

After Xcode is Playgrounds. It’s a little bit like a playground where you just play around with code. Basically, you don’t launch the app with playground, you just can do that with Xcode.

STEP 2: Learn the basic

Version Control

Version control is a must-have on any developer’s plate. Here we have Github and BitBuket.

One day, you accidentally delete your code or lose your code maybe mac will go on the fire and then you have no version of your code. That’s bad news for you.

With version control, you will save your code, and then you just add something and you save it again. Besides, you can connect that to Xcode because Xcode has support for it.

Languages

As mentioned above, you have to kind of choose Objective-C or Swift. As to which language to choose, it will depend on the company, the project, and your choice. However, it is still undeniable that Swift’s speed and convenience are extremely.

STEP 3: Foundations

Human Interface Guidelines

First of all, as an IOS developer, you need to be aware of and know human interface guidelines. It’s important because when you are making IOS applications such as our Instagram, firebase app over here. You need to know how to put together UI that makes your user want to interact with your application.

Besides that, some things like sizing and buttons or the scrolling ability all come from HIG.

IOS Specific Technologies

Obviously, you need to know how to architect your IOS application, how to manage all the views controllers, and how to put them together.

Application architecture: at least, you need to know 2 common architectures: Model-View-Controller and Model-View-ViewModel + Coordinator
Application lifecycle: This is also important knowledge if you want to deliver the best, rich, diverse, and best experiences for your users. There will be many methods that you have to understand to program the view and view controller.
Touch: you need to know how to use things such as UI tap gesture, UI pan gesture, swift gesture, etc

Cocoa Design Pattern

Design patterns help us solve a lot of problems when developing software such as writing code that is easy to read, reuse, or change components of the code without being too complicated, with little impact on the whole system.

Popular design patterns in iOS such as

Initialization: Singleton.

Structure: MVC, Decorator, Adapter, Facade.

Behavior: Observer, Adapter

Networking

All applications are always closely related to each other and do not operate independently. Every programmer needs to have networking skills to understand how to transmit and receive data over the web. You can learn and refer to free resources on the internet like GitHub.

STEP 4: UI

IOS programmers must not only have in-depth knowledge of coding but also need to equip UI skills. Simply, because they directly determine the best user experience and interface design.

You can go with either UI Kit or Swift UI. They are not mutually exclusive. UIKit code can be used in SwiftUI views and vice versa.

STEP 5: Persistence

This blog will focus on Core Data – a native framework from Apple. The reason, why core data is so important, is because even if we don’t use core data in all of our IOS apps, it would be really cool if we understand how to set it up. correctly set up the database.

And so core data allows you to build the base of your application based on the data structure you need inside your application and how to circumvent that logic.

As for database architecture, learn both iCloud and firebase as well as how to keep data on external services, etc

STEP 6: Project

By using different stuff such as your build configuration, your actual app’s schema, and then how to create multiple targets, you can build your app faster.

STEP 7: Build & Deployment

The analytics tools that you install for your iOS apps are also very important.

Problem: Unfortunately if you encounter some problems for unknown reasons while building and developing your app. However, consider it a blessing because you discovered them early to find a solution in time.

When you launch or deploy your application to production, it is very difficult to keep track of whether your application is performing the way you expect. And so one way to monitor and track apps is to install Test Flight which allows you to deploy your app without seeing the entire Appstore process.

STEP 8: Appstore and Launching app

Finally, you need to know how the review guidelines work and how to publish your app using the iTunes connection. For example how to generate metadata like screenshots, icon descriptions, and how to create app store purchases. To connect all of that, you’ll probably have to learn a lot more about AppStore connect.

IV. IOS Developer Skills You MUST Have

Learning all the skills or knowledge, the tools an IOS Developer needs will probably take a lot of time, even very difficult to learn all of them. The exact skill set will depend a lot on the type of app you’re building. However, this blog post will show you a set of core skills that any iOS developer needs to do their job well.

4.1. Technical Skills Required Of An IOS Developer

In the above section Roadmap To Becoming An IOS Developer, you already have an overview of core skills an IOS Developer have to need. General, technical skills can be divided into two types:

4.1.1. Computer science knowledge

System design
Abstract data types
Algorithms

4.1.2. Practical knowledge

Catching and persistency
Software architecture
Multithreading & concurrency

Language
Testing
Cocoa touch

Dependencies management
Memory Management
Version control system

4.2. Soft skills Required Of An IOS Developer

Soft skills have never been unnecessary for any job, especially when you have a desire to become a Senior IOS Developer.

This article will not list the soft skills a developer needs. Simply put, self-development is like a long-term plan. Therefore, it is extremely important to be organized, manage time and withstand high pressure. Besides, cultivating skills such as patience, diplomacy or teamwork will always be an advantage to help your work go better.

You can read more: Top Magento Developer Skills You Need To Have

However, the Special iOS Developer Skills required here are big picture thinking and an “Apple mindset”. Because the requirement for an iOS Developer is not only to build the app but also to make it perfectly compatible with Apple devices and Apple users as well. Perhaps, this is a really special skill that not every Developer can do.

V. Is the iOS Development Certificate really necessary?

Of course, owning an IOS Developer certificate is well worth it. Because:

First, IOS Developer is in high demand, and salary of them are on the rise.

Second, Apple is still a powerhouse, and the demand for IOS-tailored apps simply isn’t going to go away.

Third, it is probably the fast way to gain the necessary skills you will need to succeed as an IOS Developer.

Finally, learning to get an IOS developer certification is not easy, it can become a great tool to convince employers

VI. Free IOS Developer Courses You Should Use

Based on the above knowledge and skills, surely you can see that the path to becoming an IOS Developer is not easy, and where to learn it? How to learn must also become a topic of concern for many people.

In fact, there is no course that teaches all of the above. In this article, I won’t specify which course is best, as this depends on many factors. But I will show you some learning resources that you can refer to:

First, learn from the official Apple website: Here’s everything you need to know about Apple’s latest official updates. From learning and using languages, integrated applications, mindset apple, etc. It would be a waste to ignore this useful resource. Of course, it’s free.

Second, you will learn from Udemy: The leading online learning channel. There are both free and paid courses here. But I believe you will be able to get a lot of quality courses here.

And finally, you can find all of the things about IOS Developer in Community Network. Some websites like:

Hope you will find the most suitable course for you from the above sources!

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