iOS 11 Programming Fundamentals with Swift

Chapter 9. Life Cycle of a Project

This chapter surveys some of the main stages in the life cycle of an Xcode project, from inception to submission at the App Store. This survey will provide an opportunity to discuss some additional features of the Xcode development environment: configuring your build settings and your Info.plist; editing, debugging, and testing your code; running your app on a device; profiling; localization; and final preparations for the App Store.

Runtime Environment

After creating your iOS project, you may want to make some further adjustments specifying the precise environment under which your app will be permitted to run. These are all build settings, though some of them can be more conveniently configured elsewhere:

Device Type

The device type(s) on which your app will run natively. This is the project’s Targeted Device Family build setting; the easiest way to set it is to edit the app target, switch to the General pane, and use the Devices pop-up menu (under Deployment Info). The settings are:

iPhone (Targeted Device Family 1)

The app will run on an iPhone or iPod touch. It can also run on an iPad, but not as a native iPad app; it runs in a reduced enlargeable window, which I call the iPhone Emulator (Apple sometimes refers to this as “compatibility mode”).

iPad (Targeted Device Family 2)

The app will run only on an iPad.

Universal (Targeted Device Family 1,2)

The app will run natively on both kinds of device.

Base SDK

The latest system your ...