Building an iOS mobile commerce app takes a lot of planning and intensive coding. There’s so much to keep in mind while developing an app, that most first-time iOS developers find it quite hard to get their commerce app working right. Here are some dos and don'ts to help you.

1. Dos and Don’ts for iOS Mobile
Commerce App Development
@mobstac

2. Do: Use a combination of Storyboards,
NIBs and code to build user interface
in your iOS app
Storyboards: It is a visual tool that helps developers to lay
out multiple application views and the transitions
between them.
NIBs: Also known as XIBs, each of these files correspond
to a single view element and can be used as a visual tool
as well by laying it out in the Interface Builder.
Code: In this method you will programmatically handle
all custom positioning, animation etc.
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3. Do: Implement a parental gate, when
building a kids’App
Where to use this:
• Before opening any link that takes the user outside the
app
• Before making any in-app purchases within the app
• Before opening a link to social networks like Facebook
or Twitter
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4. Do: Use Auto Layout and
NSFormatter to make localization
process easier at a later stage
How to do this:
• Use Auto Layout. This provides you controls (labels,
buttons) with intrinsic sizes
• Depending on the type of control, these sizes can be
valid either horizontally or vertically or in both
dimensions
• If you do not clearly mention the width and height
constraints, the intrinsic size of the control will
function as an implicit constraint
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5. Do: Use Lazy loading to improve the
performance of your iOS app
How to use this:
• Provide users with better performance by creating
views as they need them
• Add them to a re-use queue when user is done
Advantages:
• Helps avoid allocation cost as you are only required to
configure your views when a scroll is performed
• Improves memory usage
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6. Don’t: Use In-App Purchases to sell
real world goods or services
• Use Apple’s IAP to sell unlockable features, media
subscriptions, and consumable assets
• Sell real world goods through a third party provider
like PayPal or Amazon Payments as done by Amazon,
eBay etc
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7. Don’t: Make all View Controllers
directly dependent on the App
Delegate for data model object
App Delegate is a custom object that is created when an
app is launched and it mainly handles state transitions
within the app.
Making view controller dependent on App Delegate:
• Increases the dependencies between your objects, thus
adding more complexity to the web of connections
between your classes
• Makes it harder to understand what is going on in your
code, and make changes accordingly
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8. Thank You!

9. Wondering where to get started?
Direct your questions to
rahul@mobstac.com
MobStac is the world's first mobile commerce platform for
developers delivering exceptional mobile commerce apps
on iOS, Android and Windows.
We offer robust SDKs and backend services for app
developers building apps for e-commerce businesses and
consumer brands.
Dev portal: http://developer.mobstac.com/
www.mobstac.com