It was only June 29th, 2007, when the first iPhone came out, but it feels like we have been living with these devices and their apps for much longer. Smartphones have created a new way of living. We are always connected, have instant access to information, instant directions to any location, and much more. The mobile experience is now expected, and enterprises have to adapt and provide these experiences to their customers, employees, and partners. Having ready apps of all kinds available for business, fun, and general purpose is an expectation today. xCode has become a developers dream in meeting this need.
xCode extends and replaces Apple’s previous development tools: Project Builder (inherited from NeXT) and Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop (for classic Mac OS software). It also superseded CodeWarrior, a popular 3rd-party IDE for developing classic and Carbonized PowerPC software. xCode works hand in hand with Interface Builder (also inherited from NeXT), a graphical tool used to create user interfaces. xCode includes GCC, and can compile C, C++, Objective C++, Java, and Objective C source code with a variety of programming models, including but not limited to Cocoa, Carbon, and Java.). Today, Swift, is the programming language of choice that is used with the xCode IDE.
- How has mobile application development impacted the use of tablets and smartphones? Explain.
- Why is understanding mobile application users important to mobile app development?
- List/Discuss five (5) challenges faced by iOS developers
- Discuss the benefits of using xCode for developing iOS apps.
- Why is Swift the programming language of choice for xCode developers? (what are its benefits?)
- In what ways (at least 5 ways) are the xCode IDE and Google’s Android Studio alike?
- Which of these two development frameworks (xCode ir Android Studio) provide the best tools for developing cross-platform apps that have native features and functions?
