Mobile applications are the base of any online business in this digital competitive era and iOS apps capture an excellent place in this market. So, without a doubt, investing in iOS application development is worth it for your business.
But as the market is flooded with programming languages for developing iOS apps, how will you choose the best as per your business requirements?
Don’t worry, this blog caters to your needs. We have prepared a good list of 2022 of the best 9 programming languages for iOS app development.
Let’s get started with that!
Best 9 Programming Languages for iOS App Development
Swift
In the race to develop languages for iOS, Swift is considered one of the best platforms. It was designed by Apple in 2014 for iOS, Watch OS, mac OS, etc. as a substitute to Objective-C. This programming language is generalized and used to develop native-platform applications, especially for iOS.
Swift is a very interactive and user-friendly language. The coding environment is so safe that it automatically removes any sort of unsafe code. Swift is best suited when you need to create an application very quickly but modify it later on. You can easily make further improvements to your app whenever you want. Let’s have a quick look at some of its good and bad points!
Positives:
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It is a very good option for a fast development process and good scalability.
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The easy integration of Swift with Objective-C makes it a very good choice.
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In-built security features to remove unwanted code are a super point.
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The dynamic code is so lightweight, So compilation and execution are so quick.
Negatives:
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You can’t easily get good Swift developers everywhere.
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The language has limited resources as compared to the other master languages.
C#
C# is another all-time popular language option for developing iOS apps. C# is an open-source, object-oriented, and cross-platform language launched by Microsoft in 2000. Middle to advanced-level developers can easily create an iOS app using C#.
C# is very well integrated with a good runtime environment and a framework named the .Net platform. C# is a very fast language platform as it has pre-defined functions with a wide range of libraries. C# developers use the Xamarin tool to build iOS applications to jow down the C# laws and the result is native iOS and machine binaries after compilation.
Positives:
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The language is simple to learn and understand and has an efficient syntax.
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It provides support for many languages.
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It has support for libraries of other languages like C++ and .Net framework.
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It offers a fantastic feature of multi-threading and multi-tasking.
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It has default garbage collection functionality.
Negatives:
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It is less flexible as compared to other languages as it has maximum support for the .Net framework.
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C# is not so optimal in the performance, that’s why you can’t see its worldwide presence.
React Native
Facebook developed a cross-platform framework language called React Native. This is the most popular and trending cross-platform support nowadays. Initially, it was created for Facebook’s internal developments, but slowly it has gained immense popularity among Android and iOS app development companies.
The platform offers you an amazing experience of developing applications for multiple platforms. Software developers can use mobile technology to build mobile applications, as it uses Javascript to build native applications. Some of the most popular names use this platform for development, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc., which makes it a more trustworthy language nowadays.
Positives:
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Developers don’t need to learn back-end programming languages to develop cross-platform mobile apps.
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Developers can easily write modules in languages like Java, C, and Swift.
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React Native has a very large community of developers to support.
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You will have a very fast development process and a very interactive UI.
Negatives:
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As the language has so many features, but still there is a need for more compatibility and solutions for errors.
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The platform is still lacking in some components.
Objective-C
Objective-C was primarily built as an extension of the C Programming language. The language was basically used for operating systems of Apple like iOS, OS X, and other APIs like Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. Objective-C is a very good competitor of the Swift platform.
As the language was developed in 1984, it has well performed and updated programming language. The platform has high compatibility with C and C++. One of the major strengths of this language is Expressive Message Syntax.
Positives:
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The language is considered to be very well-established and mature.
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Objective-C offers dynamic typing.
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The platform supports a good connection with private APIs.
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It has a flexible coding environment due to dynamic tapping.
Negatives:
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As the language is very old, it has less security and is complex to learn.
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New updates are very rare.
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It offers you limited features and functionalities.
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It has a limited talent pool as it is not an open-source platform.
Java
The next choice on the list is an all-time popular among developers to do general-purpose development named Java. It is an object-oriented programming language that doesn’t require recompilation to run on any of the platforms.
The language is not so popular among iOS app developers but still, many people opt for it. You can easily translate Java source code to Objective-C when it comes to developing iOS applications. It is well used in the iOS development field when the business has already an Android application based on it and it can be easily expanded in the Apple ecosystem.
Positives:
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Java has a very vast community to support.
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The language is very flexible and vast in functionality.
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The modifications and stability of the platform are one major positive point.
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It offers automatic garbage collection.
Negatives:
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The coding may seem complex to many people.
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There is a need for significant space if you are using Java.
HTML5
The 5th version of Hyper Text Markup language (HTML) is the latest one. It is used for structural development along with CSS and Javascript. The language is very cost-effective and is good to use for beginners.
The language is so well opted by iOS developers to build simple applications that can be used in offline mode too. HTML5 can be one of the best choices if you don’t have much time and money to spend on the process.
Positives:
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The language has support for more than one platform.
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It can even assist you to provide good page ranking.
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It is best known for developing offline applications.
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HTML5 provides support for several browsers.
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It’s easy to use and learn.
Negatives:
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You can’t develop native applications.
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You can face media licensing issues sometimes.
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You can’t get responsive designs as per requirements while working on HTML.
Flutter
Flutter is an open-source software development kit (SDK), which has a vast range of widgets and tools to develop cross-platform apps. The platform uses Dart language to develop iOS-based applications.
It provides full support for native features, which makes it famous among developers. The user can easily build visually attractive, and native-compiled desktop applications with a single code set by opting for Flutter.
Positives:
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The platform is popular because of the efficiency of time and money.
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The platform is freely available as it is open-source.
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The basic architecture is based on reactive programming.
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You can develop two applications with a single code base.
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The vast choice of its own widgets and tools makes it a good choice.
Negatives:
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The community behind Flutter is mainly the young generation.
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The resultant applications are relatively big in size.
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You can’t get enough standard development suggestions and guidelines.
Python
The next pick for the list is Python- one of the easiest to learn and use programming language platforms. It is full of object-oriented programming benefits like the abstraction of data, separating methods, etc.
Python is also known as a multi-purpose programming language because you can develop any sort of application with this. The platform is very versatile which makes it a good choice for many large businesses to opt for.
Positives:
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Python is very trouble-free to learn and deploy.
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Its multi-platform and multi-system support makes it a popular choice.
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The language uses interpretation techniques rather than a compilation, So it runs a single code line at one time.
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It was developed with beginners in mind, So the code is not so confusing.
Negatives:
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Sometime, it may take more execution time.
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It doesn’t have many modern mobile development techniques.
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The accessibility of data is limited.
C++
C++ was rolled out in 1985 as an extension of language C, but still it has been evolving among developers. The platform is well recommended for iOS app development, as you may have good control over using of resources and memory of the systems.
The flexibility of language makes it suitable for developing many kinds of applications. Its rich libraries and vast memory allocation dynamically make it a popular choice.
Positives:
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You can get support for built-in libraries and compilers.
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You can get rid of the garbage collector in the background.
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Developers can single handily have full control over the application development process.
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Lower-level manipulation offers to scale the program’s code as per the business requirements.
Negatives:
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The platform has complex syntax for many people.
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It offers complex dynamic memory allocation.
Parting Thoughts
That’s all for this blog!
Selecting the right programming language for iOS app development for your business is the most important decision to make the platform successful in the market. Hence, you should collect and define all the needs and requirements of your company before opting for one.
To sort it out for you, we have presented the best programming platforms with their positive and negative points, the rest depends on your choice. If you want to build a professional-level application, you can always go for an iOS app development company to help you out.
If you are still facing some queries, feel free to ask us… We will serve you happily!
Hope you had a great reading time!
About Author
Upma is the Seo Executive at JoomDev. She loves to convert her ideas into reality by developing products to make your online business successful with her WordPress plugins and android app development company.