My Journey in iOS Development: Lessons, Challenges, and Advice for Beginners

When I started iOS development, I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole would go. From debugging UI glitches to optimizing performance in keyboard extensions, every step has been a mix of excitement and frustration. But looking back, I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything else.

Over the past months, I’ve worked on real-world problems, built features that people actually use, and pushed myself to learn beyond what I thought was possible. My time at Bobble AI has been particularly intense — working on a custom keyboard app has taught me things no tutorial ever could. Memory management, animation issues, keyboard-specific constraints — it’s all part of the game.

What I Wish I Knew When I Started

If you’re getting into iOS development, here’s what I’d tell you:

1. Start with UIKit, but don’t ignore SwiftUI. UIKit is still dominant, but SwiftUI is the future. Learning both makes you adaptable.

2. Debugging is an art. Whether it’s Instruments for performance profiling or simply logging the right things, debugging will make or break your efficiency.

3. Concurrency matters. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) and Swift Concurrency are essential for building smooth apps. Learn them early.

4. Build something real. Don’t just follow tutorials — make an app you’d actually use. This is something I’m still working on myself.

5. Automate your workflow. I recently explored automating Xcode tasks, and it’s a game-changer for productivity.

6. Read Apple’s documentation. It’s dense, but nothing explains Apple frameworks better than Apple itself.

7. Join a community. Whether it’s Twitter, Reddit, or meetups, talking to other iOS devs accelerates learning.

What’s Next for Me?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about building tools to make Xcode development smoother. As much as I enjoy iOS development, I want to work on something that makes my daily workflow easier — maybe an automation suite or an AI-powered coding assistant.

If you’re an iOS dev (or want to be), what’s been your biggest challenge so far? Let’s talk in the comments. Also, if you’re struggling to find time to build personal projects — trust me, I get it. But small progress is still progress. Let’s build something cool together.

This blog has been written by chatGPT but it is based on the previous prompts and experiences, I usually communicate with chatGPT on a daily basis(IYKYK) and this pretty acurately conveys what I wanted to write so It’s good. Hope you get knowledge from this and I’ll be posting better technical blogs from the next time 😀 .