The Important Swift Design Patterns For iOS App Development

What are the important Swift design patterns for iOS app development? If you’re looking for this, you are at the right planner app. According to a recent study, Swift is the only tool/language that adds more dimensions to iOS. Also, it is easy to learn and its implementation is easy. Hence, it is worth mastering this tool. 

However, working with Swift isn’t as easy as it sounds. For an effective command over Swift, one needs to have a basic understanding of the primary design patterns in Swift. These design patterns provide extra functionality and security to the apps. 

What is A Design Pattern in Swift?

A design pattern is a template for writing simplified codes easy to understand. Besides this, these codes are reusable.

Advantages of Design Patterns

The following are the advantages of design patterns in Swift for iOS app development.

• Unification of the Code

These design patterns provide solutions to the problems that arise during coding or structuring the architecture.

• Common Vocabulary

In the case of any error, you don’t need to use any complex definition to correct it. Because while using Swift, just mention the pattern used and others will understand it easily. Hence, it uses a common vocabulary.

• Tested Solutions

These patterns indicate the developers on how to combine the solutions to solve a problem. Hence, they don’t need to find the problem by themselves.

Major Categories of Design Patterns in Swift

Mainly, there are 3 major categories of design patterns in Swift for mobile app development. These are:

1. Creational
2. Structural
3. Behavioral

Under these 3 categories, there are other types/patterns. We discuss those patterns below.

1. Singleton (Creational)

This method is used when you need to use one instance for a single object copy. Also, this instance receives global access. There is a simple procedure used by Apple.

For instance: 
UserDefaults.standard, UIApplication.shared, UIScreen.main, FileManager.defaultall returns a Singleton object.

2. Factory method (Creational)

This is used when you have to choose between common procedures having combined classes and those having a common class. This pattern has a logic that selects the class. And that logic contains the entire solution.

3. Abstract method (Creational)

This method is similar to the factory method. On one hand, in the factory method, you don’t need not create groups of objects. On the other hand, in the abstract method, you create a group of objects. However, you can’t predict the performance via this pattern. But, it also helps in selecting a single object.

4. Builder method (Creational)

This method is different from the above ones. This is because it is suitable for creating complex objects from simple objects. Here, a similar code is used for creating different objects. A common example is creating a restaurant app. Here, you can carry out the order via the OrderBuilder object.

5. MVC (Structural)

Here, MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. It is an important design pattern for iOS app development with Swift. Out of these three, the model is represented with data only. The view is represented by the interface design. And the controller’s job is to collect everything.

6. Adapter (Structural)

This adapter method is a popular structural design pattern. It helps objects with distinct interfaces to work simultaneously. The adapter collects the object dealing with the meters and converts the data into feet. Hence, various iOS apps using this pattern are mostly event management apps and calendar apps.

7. Façade (Structural)

It is also a very popular and powerful design pattern under the Structural category. It is popular because it offers an easy interface to libraries, frameworks, etc. In addition to this, it helps in creating a unique class and includes other objects in it. Hence, this forms a simpler version of the interface for users. Example: including an audio playback feature in an iOS app.

8. Momento (Behavioral)

This design pattern comes under the Behavioral category. It helps in saving objects like UserDefaults, Archiving, and NSCoding protocol, using the CoreData.

9. Command (Behavioral)

This Command Pattern links a particular method up with an action touch to get an interface. Therefore, these were some popular design patterns in three categories: Creational, Structural, and Behavioral. These design patterns come with their pros and cons. However, the usage of each depends on the application and developer.

However, all the patterns are equally important in iOS app development worldwide.

Related Articles: 

Android vs iOS

New Trends In iOS App Development

Top iOS Testing Frameworks