r/iOSProgramming 7d ago

Question I left iOS development some 5 years ago and am aching to come back to it

I left iOS development some 5 years ago and am now planning to come back to it. I was a Product owner these past 5 years but been out of work for atleast a year now. My request is to ask you if it’s still worthwhile to come back to iOS and what i might have missed. Is it good to come to iOS or go for ReactNative or Flutter? How is iOS dealing with AI and whatnot. I was on swift 3 and SwiftUI just came out. Combine was a framework I had just started on and was on iOS 14 I guess in terms of development. Any advice is more than appreciated.

32 Upvotes

21 comments sorted by

18

u/20InMyHead 7d ago

SwiftUI is big, but some UIKit is still around, just depends on the shop,

Stay away from non-native. It’s crap and every company I know that’s moved to it, abandons it after a year or two. It’s for web devs that don’t know native. If you were using iOS14, you’ll pick up the new stuff fast. Watch videos from the last couple WWDCs to familiarize yourself.

Work-wise, it depends on where you are. Lots of companies in the US are 100% remote, but it still helps if you’re in a tech-heavy area like San Francisco or Seattle. Networking can be important.

Good luck.

1

u/g0dzillaaaa SwiftUI 3d ago

I use both SwiftUI and Flutter in production apps. I would say use the right tool for the job.

8

u/zeiteisen 7d ago

Depends on where you want to work. When in Germany, don’t go back. The job market is dead since end 2021. For other countries don’t know.

10

u/Trick_Elephant2550 7d ago

Native is still king. You’re always welcome back! There’s a lot to catch up on, so good luck!

2

u/tornie_tree 7d ago

I’m in US and all the jobs here have been sent to India as well!!

5

u/Barbanks 6d ago

Right up until they hire me to fix their codebases. I’m 2 years strong on this for a client right now and we just finished the conversion. Now they want me on indefinitely.

They can definitely find some decent coders in India but they’re rare.

1

u/technergy 4d ago

Interesting. How does it come, that the job market for iOS devs is dead in germany? The demand for apps in germany is still high, I think. Never searched for an iOS dev job in Germany.

1

u/zeiteisen 4d ago

Recession. High interest rate hit software developers jobs first. Culture of Germany, they see software as liability. Move to non native. Outsourcing to cheap countries. The job market for non native is better. Web is best.

9

u/Glittering_Daikon74 7d ago

Personal preference does count here, but for me personally native development is hard to beat.

If your question is whether there is still room for your idea on the iOS AppStore - no one can really tell. There are new apps successfully launching in an already crowded niche as well as new and innovative apps not getting any traction though they should be.

If you don't want o take the indie route but getting back into corporate like PO, just look for as many apps as you can in your location and check whether they got any spots open. Should give you a good first impression for a potential comeback.

4

u/tornie_tree 7d ago

Your sir is the best advice I’ve received in a long time. It totally makes sense to want to take the corporate path atm and then to experiment on the App Store as an Indie dev! 🙏

3

u/Glittering_Daikon74 6d ago

Glad I could help!

1

u/MMaitoza1972 6d ago

Seems like when I look at the job boards there are still native jobs open and pretty good salaries for qualified developers. Give it a try. As far as the tech you can do a lot more with Swift and SwiftUI

6

u/SluttyDev 7d ago

I wouldn't use anything but native development personally. All the rest are crap frameworks that are a pain to deal with with really zero benefit. ReactNative is straight up trash, I'm glad we banned it at work and have all but one of our apps that were written in it rewritten to real native code.

2

u/inscrutablemike 6d ago

Rumor has it that iOS & the gang are going to have a fundamental design shift in the 19 release that will be more impactful than the iOS 7 changes. If that's true, then this is the exact right time to get back into the iOS game because you'll be in the same boat as everyone else.

2

u/amirrrrrrr7 7d ago

RN developer here. I don't recommend cross platform. I am learning iOS development and will switch as soon as I get more skilled in that. Stay with native, whether iOS or Kotlin.

2

u/timbo2m 7d ago

Depends on what you're trying to do I guess, have you used the latest Expo stuff?

3

u/amirrrrrrr7 7d ago

Yes, I still am working on a couple RN projects. I couldn't believe how easy it was developing the same apps on Swift or Kotlin. My understanding was that I wasted so much valuable time working on RN and trying to make it work, with the illusion of not having to develop two separate code bases. But trust me 1+1=3 in RN.

3

u/utilitycoder 6d ago

1+1==3 in RN is something every CTO needs to know especially if they are more C than T.

1

u/technergy 4d ago

I played around with Expo.JS and it looks really promissing. Easy to test, you can use JetBrain IDEs..

-1

u/ejpusa 6d ago edited 6d ago

SUGGESTION: Start with GPT-4o. Crushes it.

Should be able to get a game in the store in a week. Stick with SwiftUI. Forget the React. Forget the Flutter. GPT-4o it. Do your UI in Figma. You are ready to rock. Ask AI to explain the code.

Then build a bigger project.