An overview of iOS Architecture Patterns

MultiTech
4 min readSep 16, 2020

Any application development needs to follow some architecture patterns to develop an app. It is the base of application development. The iOS architecture patterns are layered architecture. The upper level in the iOS architecture pattern works a link between the hardware and the application. These Apps do not communicate directly with the hardware but they connect through the collection of system interfaces.

The lower layers in this architecture give basic services but the upper layer provides graphical/UI services.

Furthermore, we will discuss the most popular iOS architecture patterns that help in iOS app development,Further info go through ios app development course.

iOS Architecture patterns 2019

There are many iOS architecture patterns. The architecture design patterns provide a good foundation for the application. Here we review some most popular architecture design patterns useful for app development.

MVC Pattern: The MVC or Model-view-controller is one of the iOS architecture patterns. IOS supports this model because it is best for developing simple applications. Besides, it is divided into three different parts. They are model, view, and Controller.

The model is a collection of various classes. They represent business logics such as business and data models. The model also explains the rules through which the data can be changed or altered.

View, under the iOS architecture patterns, represents the UI using which the user can interact with the application. Moreover, he can also view the various activities of the application. It displays the data got from the controller.

The controller acts as a mediation between the model and the view. It decides the way of representation of a model as a view. It is also known as UIViewController within iOS. The controller functions involve getting input from the users through view and processing data within the model. The results get back to the view. Moreover, the MVC model is suitable for developing mobile applications under iOS architecture patterns. But due to a lot of burdens on it, the maintenance and testing of code may be difficult.

MVP (Model-view-presenter)

In this iOS architecture pattern, there are three parts such as; model, view and presenter.

Here, the Model represents the similar functions like the MVC pattern. In the View pattern, it includes UIView and UIViewController. In the MVP model, the controller replaces the presenter. Moreover, the presenter takes the responsibility of View by handling user activities. The presenter helps to convert the data into UI friendly manner by communicating with the model layer. Besides, it updates the view also.

MVVM (Model-view-view-model)

This design pattern under iOS architecture patterns is an advanced version of MVC. In the MVVM model, the view and controller are combined to form ViewModel. This new model handles the presentations. The ViewModel updates the changes itself only. Moreover, the View communicates between the Model and ViewModel.

VIPER Model: Viper is one of the architecture designs under the iOS architecture patterns. This pattern divides the application into various and individual layers. It includes View, Interactor, Presenter, Entity and Routing.

The view model is useful to display the inputs given by the presenter.

The interactor includes the business logic and the Presenter receives the inputs from the view and produces results according to the Interactor requests. Moreover, it also receives data from Interactor and applies logic to it. As a result, it informs the View to display the data.

The entity is the smallest element under Viper which handles different types of data. It also contains the basic model object used by the Interactor.

Routing is the process of navigating the screens in order under the iOS patterns.

Furthermore, the Viper model helps in the separation of concerns or issues better than any other architectural design patterns. It also helps the test-driven development of apps much easier.

Features of a good iOS architecture

The features of architecture include many things. These are balanced distribution, testability, and ease of use. The balanced distribution includes responsibility for the entity with strict guidelines. It helps to reduce the load on the individual brain. To avoid the complexity of the understanding it is better to divide the responsibilities among others. Testing the applications built is also an important feature. It helps the developer to find out the issues of failure during the run time of application. Furthermore, the easy method of writing small codes is the better solution. The developer should think to write the small and unique codes that produce fewer bugs only. Moreover, it will help to use the applications more easily.

iOS design patterns

The iOS design patterns are generally reusable in every software design. They provide wide variety of templates to write codes simply. These iOS architecture patterns of design include different methods and patterns.

  • Factory Method
  • Abstract Factory
  • Singleton
  • Builder
  • Facade
  • Adapter
  • Observer
  • Composite and so on.

The above patterns and designs help the user or developer to design the apps in various ways. Every design serves different purposes. Some design patterns follow unique methods that help other patterns. Using various templates and design the user can create different applications with different features.

Finally, we have reached the conclusion of the iOS architecture patterns. This is an important and ideal part of an application development in any environment. The iOS architecture patterns have different models and designs that help the application development very well. They are many more patterns to update which may come in the future.

To get more insights into iOS one can opt for ios online course from various online sources. This learning will help to develop skills in this regard along with career enhancement.

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