What is Cocoa Touch?

A Guide for iOS Developers

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash

I don’t know about you, but there are several terms in iOS and Swift coding that…seem unclear.

People use them to describe various facets of the world of iOS development. So when you enounter the words Cocoa Touch are you confident about the meaning of them?

It’s not just a framework. It’s an entire suite of tools, libraries and APIs that form the backbone of iOS app development.

What is Cocoa Touch

Cocoa Touch is Apple’s application framework for iOS, watchOS and tvOS, and sits on top of the Cocoa framework that is used for macOS development.

We are provided with the essential tools, libraries and Apis necessary to create great apps with the functionality tailored for touch-based devices. We can then focus on making great apps, supported by functionality that we can hook into to support touch-based UI, multitasking and energy efficiency.

The Components of Cocoa Touch

Getting into the weeds of Cocoa Touch means looking at the core frameworks that provide functionality across the layers of an iOS application.

Main components:

UIKit
UIKit enables developers to create and manage the visual elements of an…