Why Apple Replaced Objective-C With Swift

Designing your iOS app? Are you confused between choosing Swift and Objective-C for the development process? You maybe or at least will be confused in near future after Apple announced Swift as it’s new programming language over Objective-C. This announcement made several app developers think over how will the future be.

Many developers think that Swift programming is better than Objective-C and will efficiently replace it in the future. Now, the question arises is how true is the estimation about Swift. This article talks about how it is competent to Objective-C. Let’s see if that really is the case with Swift and know what advantages does it have over its competitor.

Although there are many advantages but for now let’s just discuss 7 of them.

Why Swift over Objective-C?

1. Both Apple and IBM have moved forward with Swift

Both renowned corporations, Apple and IBM have invested in Swift. IBM started beginning its development actively. The IBM cloud not just develops and deploys apps but also shares Swift resources and uses Swift Sandbox for experiments.

Objective-C, on the other hand, is now left with just a few features that are mainly useful for being compatible with Swift. The features are not efficient enough to be rebuilt from the first stage in any other language. In fact, all new amendments in Objective-C were designed such a way that they could be easily imported into the Swift Code.

Apple developers have themselves stated about Swift being the next major programming language and how it will be efficiently used over the coming decades.

2. A better programming language

Swift is a better programming language because it had lesser codes than Objective-C and that fact makes it more readable and understandable. Although lesser codes don’t make the codes simpler, in fact, sometimes they are difficult to write but the lesser number makes is highly reusable which isn’t the case with Objective-C.

Let’s consider a real example for this point, widely used US taxi service app, Lyft, was rewritten in Swift Programing language just when it was at its early stages and improvements were still under process. Although it was very risky for the developers but they simultaneously worked on Swift too. What happened then? The app witnessed a reduction of lines of code from 75,000 to 22,000 which is definitely a good progress and it reduced a huge amount of complexities.

3. Objective-C is more prone to errors

The way Swift’s syntax and language is constructed, it excludes several mistakes that are more likely to occur in Objective-C. This means that Swift is more immune to bugs and cases of unexpected functioning and crashes. It doesn’t prevent from writing bad or irrelevant codes but will surely protect a developer from unwanted mistakes. In a way, Swift is more controlled than Objective-C.

4. The faster, the better

Swift programming performance approaches C++, which is the fastest and the best algorithm calculation arithmetic program. In a report, Swift was a bit slower than its competitor. But, now that Apple has chosen Swift over Objective-C, let’s see how it works on improving Swift’s speed. Apple is actually believed to have brought improvements in Swift so far and it is definitely faster than its competitor and predecessor, Objective-C.

5. Swift is open for all!

Initially designed for Apple (iOS, WatchOS, OS X, tvOS), Swift, expanded itself to build on Linux and became an open source. Swift code is expected to be more portable than Objective-C could ever have been to other platforms.

There is also an initiative taken to make Swift compatible with Android. The request has already been made and even approved by Swift. Although there is no buzz about this collaboration but it has been listed in one of the major future plans.

6. Swift is communicative

Swift recently organized a tool, Swift Playgrounds, that makes it possible to test codes on the spot instead of actually compiling the whole app and then testing. This tool visualizes data and this helps the programmers to quickly check and make corrections during the developmental process. It is very helpful when you need to custom views and code experiments.

7. Swift is co-operative to other platforms

Swift programming is easily understood by non-iOS developers and that saves time from having additional explanations. This easiness, of course, leads to a better productivity and positive work. In fact, it can be used as a scripting language. It is a great option for the iOS developers in building scripts. Currently, iOS developers have split themselves for this activity. While some work in Bash scripting, others work for Ruby, etc. Swift being an all-rounder would give an opportunity to get applied in all the needs at once that wouldn’t need the developers to split up.

These are just few of the reasons as to why Swift programming is better than Objective-C programming. Swift though collaborated with Apple, has future plans to grow bigger being an open source and that itself implies it has a long way to go for future decades.