Published: Apr 19, 2019

If You Are a CTO or VP of Engineering, Faced with the Need to Develop an iOS Version of Your Software System, You Cannot Afford Not to Learn about an iOS Development Approach that Can Be of So Much Assistance

Architecting an iOS app is much akin to architecting a building. If you handle it the wrong way, you may wind up with a lop-sided, fissure-ridden and ungainly structure despite the empire-building effort you make. And then your app will be a hell to develop and a hell to test. Moreover, it’ll be a hell to redesign too.

While finding more optimal iOS architecting approaches has been at issue for ages, one of those attempts has grown into a full-fledged, viable and fully practicable methodology that has come to be known as Clean Architecture.

In a nutshell, the essence of the Clean Architecture concept is to make the app core utterly independent of the app’s outer layers, thereby ensuring better performance, greater testability, greater scalability, and greater flexibility. After the concept came into being almost 5 years ago, it quickly caught on (including in the iOS realm), spawning a bunch of standalone iOS development methodologies that are based on it.

the VIPER architecture

Among others, these methodologies include one we regard as the jewel of the Clean Architecture crown (when it comes to iOS, of course), called VIPER. While being capable of invoking various associations, the title of this Clean Architecture methodology does somehow fully reflect its key trait, - efficiency.

In brief, VIPER provides extremely powerful methodological and technical means for aligning one’s iOS development with the SOLID principles, and, thus, rendering it immeasurably more efficient.

Yes, we know that as techies we’ve all tested a diverse number of approaches and not all of them have proven to be as good as they sounded. What are the actual outcomes you can expect in the case of VIPER? Is it, even, worthwhile to bother to include it in one’s project’s tech stack and to look for iOS folks who have a grasp of the thing?

Our iOS developers have used VIPER extensively enough to note several distinct strong points of this methodology. These advantages, including cost advantages, have spurred us to make VIPER a regular part of our iOS development efforts.

Here is why our iOS engineers think VIPER should be recommended to all our iOS prospects, - it’s a safe guess you will see at least some of their observations as relevant valid points:

  1. Meant to enhance an app’s flexibility through the clarity and stringent alignment of its architecture, VIPER allows you to easily incorporate or remove any amount of code.

    Among other things, this ability can be immensely helpful in MVP development. In those cases, when your MVP fails to appeal to your client and a native iOS architecture would entail a cumbersome re-design effort, VIPER allows you to quickly adjust the existing functionality to your client's preferences.

    Native buffs may object to the effect that the development of an iOS MVP takes a bit longer using VIPER. Nevertheless, overall, this approach allows a lot more flexibility, while also safeguarding you against unexpected budget losses.

  2. Modifying an app’s screen sequence can be troublesome and time-consuming. VIPER can facilitate and expedite things in this department too. From our experience, using VIPER can, actually, reduce the time your iOS developers will spend on modifying your app’s screen sequence by a factor of 2 or 3.

  3. If you’ve never come to grips with the process before, testing an iOS app can get quite complicated.

    With VIPER, your iOS app will have a modular, service-driven structure that will make the app a great deal easier to test. The app core will contain all the business logic and each component will be responsible for the performance of one single function.

  4. Sometimes, VIPER can help you out even in those situations, when there are some investor-imposed or other tight deadlines involved (which, is, frequently, the case) and they are hard to make otherwise. How?

    Owing to the flexibility VIPER affords (including the much better code integration ability it provides) you can use a bigger R&D team, cutting your time-to-market very significantly.

    Your iOS developers will be able to develop large parts of the application functionality independently of one another and with minimum interactions between themselves.

  5. One of the things that are always valued in an app is its ability to scale. With VIPER, you can achieve, virtually, unlimited scalability of your iOS application. Furthermore, you will be able to scale your app up relatively quickly and effortlessly. The modular structure of the VIPER architecture promotes scalability due to the services being separated from the modules. This approach allows one to:

    • Re-use some previously developed functionality multiple times.

    • Compose modules for multiple screen states.

    • Create a connection to services wherever required.

In our view, using VIPER is a great boon for any iOS development project. If time-to-market and budget constraints are high on your list of concerns, VIPER is, definitely, the technology you want to make friends with.

Disclaimer: The present article reflects solely the subjective viewpoint of the SYTOSS Development Team on the topics, covered herein, and does not represent a guarantee of any kind or an advice to buy or not to buy, or use or not to use any software product or technology.