Meh. J. Sci, Tech. Vol. 2(1), 26-31, 2022 https://doi.org/10.52861/mjst.2022.2.1.

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Research on the Development of iOS Applications

Abida Shar1*, Sajida Naz Shar2, Fida Shar2, Farhan Ali Surahio2

1
Department of Computer Sciences, Mir Chakar Khan Rind University Sibi Balochistan
2
Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Mirs, Sindh, Pakistan
Corresponding Email: abdia.sukkur@gmail.com
Article Received 01-01-2021, Revised 20-01-2021, Accepted 10-02-2021.
Abstract
In this paper, tried to introduce features of iPhone Operating System (iOS) application and
give an elaborated description of iOS infrastructure from the prospective of developers. For this, an
easy audio media player provided as instance to demonstrate the fundamental working process of
iOS application components. This paper could provide better guidance to knowing the operation
mechanism of iOS applications and to developing application on iOS platform.
Keywords—iOS operating system, framework application, Darwin kernel

Introduction browser, Google chrome or Mozilla Firefox with

Application of iOS framework elaborated the
common structure of program in the particular
domain. Effective ly, an interface of an applica-
tion and integrated as set of abstract classes as
well as instances. iOS is an operating system run-
ning in iPad, iPhone, iPod etc [1]. It is based on
kernel and deployed by the Apple Inc [2]. Unlike
others personal computer (PC) operating system,
it manages phone hardware, storage, power in-
dulgence and provides other technologies to im-
plement its basic applications (Apps). In contrast
to PC developed applications, there are few
things that are different in mobile iOS phone. In
this paper, we introduced the fundamental infra-
structure and application interface of iOS, gives
elaborated description of major and main struc-
ture of iOS Apps and the way of developing ap-
plications that based on iOS framework.
Introduction of iOS
iOS is an inclusive operating system based
on Darwin kernel also known as XNU. X refers
to Not Unix. It is 64 bit operating system trans-
formed by ARM processor. Several versions like,
iPhone.2, 3, 4 and 5 have been introduced along
with various rich features supported by iPhone4,
iPod 3G etc. A development kit called SDK is
used and contains on interface and tools that fa-
cilitate to develop, install and test Apps. Most of
Apps are writing in C, C++ programming lan-
guages but, these days Swift programming lan-
guage is also under consideration and rapidly
used by developers [3]. Like others, gestures,
switches and sliders are used and web pages
could be access with safari browser because, it is
by default browser. iOS also supports to safari
some additional efforts [4]. iOS provides better
and effective security than other open source mo-
bile system like android that are very familiar
nowadays. iOS follows layered scheme, the archi-
tecture of iOS have shown as Figure.1[3].
The application layer is the location of all
iOS applications including emails, address book
(contacts), messages program, browser and oth-
ers. All Apps are written using C and C++ pro-
gramming language.
Application interface layer describes iOS
Apps interface and all Apps are based on iOS
application interface thus, the iOS App interface
layer including;
An extensible set of rich environment and
views that are used build Apps along with beauti-
ful friendly user environment, like buttons on
StackPanel, embedded browser, grids and lists
etc.
Set of touch based inputs are managing by
cocoa layer that enables these inputs and push-
notifications.
It supports to hand gestures and also part of
cocoa layer categorized it into application inter-
face layer for its better and transparent under-
standing.
Several animated scripts could be made
with Storyboard, it animates, once the phone un-
lock and live tiles are frequently changing images
and its transitions via this Storyboard [5].
Media layer (ML) contains on audio/video
and graphics technologies and it uses to imple-
ment media experience in iOS. Also, it supports
to apps to make a good quality sound
Libraries layers supports to set of C/C++
instructions and libraries that are used by the dif-

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ferent components of the iOS and also supports to
the application interface. It also supports to
SQLite classes and other graphic libraries like
OpenGL etc.
iOS Runtime includes the core libraries set
and LLVM supports to compile and create .ipa
file extension of the Apps for testing
Kernel XNU is the core of the iPhone operating
Figure.1. shows Layered architecture of iOS
Llvm
It is compiler and use collection of modules. It
is quite similar to traditional virtual machine and
to do little bit same but having different mecha-
nism. LLVM is not an acronym itself but it is
complete name of the project. It is capable to
static and dynamic compilation along with pro-
gramming language. The core libraries of the
LLVM gives modern and target independent code
optimizer with code generation support for sever-
al famous processors. It is faster than GCC (com-
piler used in GNU operating system) [6]. It uses
Clang front end to parse code and move it into an
interim format and then the code generation layer
which known as back end moves that formatted
interim into final machine code producing.
Xcode(Integrated development environment in
MacOS) also includes the LLVM compiler for
maximum compatibility. The back end of the
LLVM takes advantage of advanced code genera
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Shar et al.,
system that supports to drivers including, Blue-
tooth, display, Wi-Fi and others communication
drivers. It is an abstract layer between the hard-
ware and software heap. The memory manage-
ment, security service are the core services of this
layer. Furthermore, it interacts with the LLVM
and also resolves the issues of threads
tors. Time optimization, diagnostic in detail in-
formation and static analysis are also the features
of LLVM. The position of the LLVM is given in
Figure.2.Detailed submission guidelines can be
found on the author resources Web page. All au-
thors are responsible for understanding these
guidelines before submitting their manuscript.
Application component of iOS
The life cycle of iOS Apps comprises the series
of events that takes place between the launch and
termination of Apps. iOS Apps launches by click-
ing on the home screen icon and after tapping
occurring, the system shows some transitional
graphics as well as proceeds to launch an App by
calling its main () function. From the perspective
of actions, the volume of the instantiate work is
handed over to user interface Kit (UIKIT), which
instantly loads the App main nib file (special re-
Meh. J. Sci, Tech. Vol. 2(1), 26-31, 2022 Shar et al.,
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source type file use to store interfaces in iOS) and
prepares the event loops. An important point, the
Apps life cycle is sending messages through the
UIKit to the App delegate instance to let it know
what is actually happening. While the event loop
UIKit also posts events to Apps custom event
handlers that are views and view controller. The
Apps of iOS follows Model View View Control-
ler (MVVC) pattern architecture. The Figure.3
shows iOS App life cycle activity [6].

Figure.2. displays the position of LLVM

Figure.3. displays iOS app life cycle activity.

iOS services runs in the background and also can activities or to work for remote process without
say it is a component that performs long running having interface. The actions can be binding a

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service that is running. It always runs into the
main function of an App.
Likewise, particular permissions are required
to run Apps in the background without being de-
layed or suspended. These long running jobs also
required particular permission to run in the iOS
background including
An audible content will be played by App to
user during in the background just as media play-
er App.
All the times users are informed kept loca-
tion like navigation App that supports to voice
over internet protocol, newscast Apps that need to
download them and process new contents.
App receives regular updates from external
accessories that implement these services for
support and use system interface to implement
related aspects of services. Sometimes it’s system
interface that really prevents Apps from being
delayed or suspended.
cPersistant is SQLite function (another ser-
vice) wrapper following by C programming lan-
guage used as application template for database
access and its routines that are nuisance when
written code as whole and each call involves with
some steps including, SQL statement preparation,
SQL format for string, execute and release the
resources [3].
New iOS Application Features
Several new features recently introduced by
Apple Inc. these days, iOS 11 provides more bet-
ter way to organize photos either portrait or land-
scape than precede. Moreover, it increases the
learning capabilities on device machine and fo-
cused on new artificial intelligence and provided
voice for Siri professional capabilities. Thus, the
camera integrated effects and other illustration
activities also extended by the company. The core
features are given below with short description
Multitasking gives customable dock service for
rapid option access.
Increased high quality motion sensors and a kit
known as arkit permits to programmers to tap to
vision technologies.
Included true tone flash that shot and looks more
professional. Live photos with loop bounce effect
are also made more beautiful and attractive.
Do not disturb while driving feature is increased
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Shar et al.,
that detects automatically silence and to keep
screen dark. Now user can subscribe by creating
profile and it is a new organizing way of sub-
scription [7].
Related Work
It has not been found any precise way to intro-
duce iOS. Despite, only one contribution found
regarding to mobile operating system platform
survey proposed by [8]. Other all contributions
are giving immersive information about the other
perspectives of the iOS that are discussed along
with suitable examples.
Audio Media Player as an Instance
Here is a simple audio music player; some
important components of iOS have been ex-
plained in this instance. AudioMusicInterface is
an object of player activity interface type and it
provides an interface to users for communication
with services used to play music in background.
MPMediaPlayerController is a class that manages
audioplayback files. MPMediaIns is used as an
object of MPMediaPlayerController, it instantiate
its object and performs a query for media that get
an array of MPMediaItem class. Thus,
MPMediaPlayerController sets queue with the
array obtain in MPMediaItems. After following
these steps, play,pause, next etc commands can be
issued. The state of play items or external volume
can be increase or decrease via these instances.
We used Model View Controller (MVC) architec-
ture to develop audio music player with the help
of Xamarin Studio under the C++ language.
Model helps to store data, whereas, view provides
facility to design an interface of iOS App. Thus,
controller interacts with all the actions controls
behavior of an App. Three classes’ files have been
used entitled with MusicMainFile, MusicAudio-
PlayService and MusicInfo. While developing
some special resource permission already given
into property list (PList) file because iOS 11 does
not support to several audio extensions. We locate
the media item and instantiate an MPMediaItem
and call a dictionary with media item attribute.
Thus, we predicate three sets like Album, Title
and Artist. Next, we created s set of three predi-
cates and then we generated a media query that
allocates and filters the predicates. An interactive
mode of App is given in Figure.4.
Meh. J. Sci, Tech. Vol. 2(1), 26-31, 2022 Shar et al.,
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Figure.4. shows interactive mode of App

Results Only one time, audio music player shows an

Many media files with different exten- exception that could not identify the reason.
sions are player with this audio music player Thus, 24 music files have played during test-
along with different file duration. Almost we ing, their extensions and duration is given in
got positive results while playing music files. Table.1.

Table.1. shows media files duration and format

Particular Qty Format Duration Played Not

Played
Naats 12 .Mp3 05 to 11 12 0
min
Songs 12 .Wav,Mp3 03 to 09 11 1
min
Conclusion framework with its principals and services. In the
iOS is a better operating system that mostly end, we provided an audio music player as an
found in iPhone mobile phone(s). We provided a instance to illustrate the working mechanism.
detailed introduction of iOS App interface and

Thus, some front screen of the audio music player and playlist screen is given in Figure.5.

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Figure.5 shows audio music player

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