5 Third Party iOS Libraries I Have Found Useful Lately

    August 24th, 2012 Posted by: - posted under:Articles

    As I mature as a developer, I try to rely on other people’s code more an more. Why build something from scratch when a solution already exists that you can fit in your project. In , I used 13 3rd party libraries and am using quite a bit more in the project that I’m currently working on. I figured that I would share some of the libraries that I have been using so that it might save you some time in the future.

    1. CocoaAsyncSocket

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    Many of my applications involve TCP or UDP networking. There is a lot of boiler plate code involved in every networked application, and CocoaAsyncSocket solves much of that for you.

    2. Appirater

    Link:

    Screenshot

    Hopefully, you have heard of this one or a similar library by now. It’s very challenging to get users to want to review your applications, let alone give you a positive review. AppiRater allows you to prompt a user to rate your application based on either number of launches or “significant events” which you specify.

    3. Zip Archive

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    I try to ship small applications that download assets upon launch. A good way to send these assets over the wire is to zip them up and stick them on your server. I have written an article about this on iCodeBlog.

    4. Quick Dialog

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    Creating forms in iOS is pretty painful. It usually involves custom table cells and a lot of delegate nonsense. QuickDialog takes away some of this pain and allows you to easily create iOS forms. You can even design them using JSON.

    QuickDialog Screenshot

    5. TSMiniWebBrowser

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    Often times, you want a quick and dirty browser in your application. I generally use it to point to in-app documentation or take the user to a page after tapping on a link. It’s quick and easy.

    I hope you find some value in this list. I’d love to hear about the libraries you use frequently.

    Happy Coding!