Objective-C is a powerful, object-oriented programming language that builds on the C language by adding Smalltalk-style messaging. Brad Cox and Tom Love created it in the early 1980s and, until Swift came in 2014, it was a crutch for Apple’s macOS and iOS development. Objective-C is still relevant as there are still lots of legacy app and frameworks that depend on it today. But what is Objective-C, really?
Objective C is flexible, compatible, yet popular amongst the developers. Some of the companies like Instagram, Uber, Pinterest, Slack, Snapchat developed their applications using Objective. This language helps developers develop both robust and high performance applications that take advantage completely from Apple’s APIs and Frameworks.
The purpose of this article is to define Objective C, see it’s usages, and give you specific examples of applications built using it. But we will see recent statistics and reports to see just how relevant this tech is currently.
What is Objective-C?
Objective-C is a general-purpose high level object oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language, allowing an object to send a message to another object, and the receiving object to choose how to respond to the message. Brandon Cox and Tom Love originally developed it during the early 1980s. Until 2014, Apple used Objective C as the primary language for its iOS and macOS based operating systems.
Any valid C code is also valid Objective-C code, since it is a strict superset of C. An object oriented programming and a dynamic runtime are given. It is therefore very flexible and powerful to produce software for complex applications.
A lot of people developing apps on Apple’s platform, such as for iOS or macOS, use Objective-C. It is supported by Apple’s Cocoa, Cocoa Touch APIs, a powerful set of the user interface and the application logic management tools. Instagram, Uber, Pinterest, Slack, or Snapchat are some of the many popular applications have been built with Objective-C. They demonstrate the breadth and power of Objective-C in producing powerful, feature rich applications.
Though Swift has overtaken, Objective-C was irreplaceable for maintenance and renovation of exoisting applications. Following recent reports, a large portion of legacy applications are still running on Objective-C, and a bunch of projects still use it.
Recommended reading: What Is Mobile App Development: Everything You Need to Know
The History Of Objective-C
Objective-C is a programming language that combines the simplicity of C with the flexibility of Smalltalk. Brad Cox and Tom Love developed the language in the early 1980s at their company, Productivity Products International (PPI). It is an experiment aimed at creating a language that can support object oriented programming at the same time compatible with C.
In 1988, Objective-C was adopted by a company founded by Steve Jobs, who used it as the basis of their NeXTSTEP operating system. This decision had a lot to do with the Objective-C evolution. Objective-C was the language used to program macOS/iOS applications; when Apple snatched NeXT in 1997, that language was used to program macOS systems.
Dynamic typing and message passing made Objective–C a popular programming language. But with the introduction of Swift, Apple’s new programming language in 2014, the useage has been declining. In 2023, only 2% of developers said they use Objective-C, according to a JetBrains survey.
Even though Objective-C is on a decline, its still used to maintain legacy code, and it’s also still used in some popular applications for that reason. Take for instance, Instagram, Uber, Pinterest, Slack and Snapchat – all of them have been using Objective-C as a part of their development.
The Decline vs. Swift
For years, iOS development has been built on Objective-C. But it has fallen out of favor. The reason for the move is largely because of the ease of use and modern features of Swift.
Apple fast tracked Swift, though introduced in 2014, with the intention of fixing many of Objective-C’s shortcomings. It provides a cleaner syntax, better memory management and also safety features. Therefore, many developers have chosen to use Swift for new projects.
Even though Objective-C is on the decline, it plays a role in managing legacy systems. Some companies such as Instagram, Uber, and Pinterest are still relying on Objective-C even for the parts of their applications. If you want more specific details on why one should still use Objective-C in the coming years, read on the next section.
Top 5 Reasons to Use Objective-C Today
Even today, Objective-C remains a very powerful and popular tool, and for an Apple platform, there are cases where it makes sense to develop in that language. Here are the top five reasons why Objective-C is still relevant today.
1. Class/Objects Creation
Objective-C is a powerful language for creating iOS and macOS applications. Creating classes and objects is one of its main features which is needed when you write object oriented programs. Classes serve as blueprints for objects, defining their properties and behaviors.
In Objective-C a new class is defined using the @interface keyword. For example, a simple class for a Box might look like this:
@interface Box : NSObject
{
double length;
double breadth;
double height;
}
@property (nonatomic, readwrite) double height;
@endOnce a class is defined, objects can be created from it using the alloc and init methods. Here’s how you create an instance of the Box class:
Box *box1 = [[Box alloc] init];
Box *box2 = [[Box alloc] init];Dot notation allows for access to the properties of an object. For example, to set the height of box1, you would write:
box1.height = 10.0;
Classes can also define methods to manipulate their properties. For instance, a method to calculate the volume of the box might look like this:
@implementation Box
@synthesize height;
- (double)volume {
return length * breadth * height;
}
@end
Objective C is a very popular language for mobile and a large number of popular mobile apps like Instagram and Uber was initialized using Objective-C. And these apps show just how well the language can manage complex tasks and big codebases.
Mastering creation of class and object in Objective C helps developers to create effective and scalable applications for Apple platforms. The key feature combined with the lengthy history and broad community support makes Objective C ideal for any developers toolbox.
2. Dynamic & Static Typing
With dynamic and static typing, Objective-C is a nice choice for developers. Dynamic typing means, you can attach any type of object to variable and you can handle various type of data easily. Another cool thing about this is that it’s really applicable for external data source cases, for instance JSON responses or text files. For example in Objective-C the id type could stand for any object, and can use introspection methods to determine the object’s class at runtime.
At the same time, static typing by explicitly specifying the class of an object at compile time guarantees type safety. It’s helpful to minimize errors and increase code reliability. When working with known data structures, such as arrays and dictionaries, where elements type is know, static typing is useful.
In summary, Objective-C with dynamic and static typing well serves any number of purposes ranging from dealing with different sources of information to striving for code reliability.
3. Mature Ecosystem
Objective-C offers a mature ecosystem that has developed over many years. A solid collection of libraries, frameworks and tools has grown due to this long history. This ecosystem is very appreciated by many developers or because of its reliability, or due to its depth of resources.
For example, many of the libraries that we still use today were written in Objective-C for example. It’s been around so long that there’s a huge amount of community knowledge and tutorials and resources available. That is easier for developers to find solutions and support should they need it.
Furthermore, Objective-C is needed when you want to work with legacy codebases. While Objective-C is hardly new for all the kvetching that ensues when discussing Swift these days, it is still used by about 2.8 % of developers, as per a recent Stack Overflow survey. Rewriting many large, established apps built in Objective-C would be a lot of work and an inefficient use of resources — few were going to do that. This, however, makes sure Objective C is still relevant for some projects.
To wrap things up, Objective C’s mature ecosystem gives developers a productive, well resourced, safe (for legacy projects or for safe solutions) base.
Recommended reading: iOS and Android App Development: Market and Development Comparison
4. Great Memory Management
Memory management in Objective-C is well done and serves developers well. Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) takes away the headaches of memory management by automatically calling retain and release for you. It decreases the chance of memory leaks and crashes making items perform better. Even as Swift has emerged, an increasing number of legacy projects continue to run on Objective-C, something JetBrains indicates in its report.
Instagram and Uber are just two apps built with Objective-C as an example. With efficient memory management, Objective-C, these apps are stable and perform really well. Aside from that, Pinterest and Slack, are using Objective-C for their iOS apps.
ARC and best practices allow developers to write strong, efficient Objective-C applications. As a result, it’s a good fit for projects which need to be extremely careful about memory management.
5. Geared For iOs
For iOS development, i.e. Objective-C is specially made. Apple’s frameworks and APIs integrate effortlessly with it which has culminated in it becoming the first choice of language for building robust iOS applications. Apple’s own core applications including Safari and Mail are still written in Objective–C. The compatibility of this ensures that the developer can use the existing code base and libraries which means it takes less time and resources.
Furthermore, Objective C is still stable and compatible with older iOS versions so developers can relax about getting their apps broken by an update. This is especially useful when keeping old stacks and the support for apps that have a longer life.
Take as an example, Xcode, the IDE for Apple which is built mainly using Objective-C. This provides developers the ability to use easily familiar tools and workflows while building out their iOS apps. Moreover, a lot of third party libraries and frameworks, you name it, Core Data, setUserInteractionEnabled, people use all of these in Objective C so it is very important for iOS development.
So in conclusion, Objective-C is perfectly suited for Apple platform developers wanting to write high performance, stable, and maintainable applications.
5 Companies that Use Objective-C
With all the talk of Swift it’s important to remember that Objective-C is still essential for a number of very prominent companies. Recent reports show that Objective-C is still in play for companies like Uber, Pinterest, Instagram, Slack and Snapchat in their iOS applications. Objective-C is efficient for some tasks in these companies which maintain legacy codebases.
1. Instagram
As a popular photo and video sharing social networking service, Instagram depends heavily on its iOS app, which is largely designed using Objective-C. The Apple devices staple app was launched in 2010 and since then it hasn’t ceased to pop up in your pocket from time to time. Objective-C is being used by Instagram to build and maintain the app, and the app runs very smoothly and provides no pain in its user experience.
One example of such project is IGListKit, the open source framework created by Instagram. Written in Objective-C, IGListKit is a data driven UICollectionView framework for your fast and flexible lists. This gets you a way to create reusable components with better overall performance of the app.
Instagram’s development in Objective C shows off the use of the language to handle complex, data heavy applications. While it uses Swift, another programming language, to build the app, Objective C remains the choice to improve and maintain it.
2. Uber
Objective-C is the language used for iOS app development for the global ride hailing giant Uber. Controlling the early adoption of Objective-C helped in making the various features and services easy in the application.
As of 2024, Objective-C remains a viable option among developers with its market share of 2.37%. This robust language still benefits Uber’s iOS app, so it continues to run seamlessly and fluidly for the user.
Stackshare reported that initially, Uber used Objective-C for its iOS app, but then changed it to Swift. This was a piece of Uber’s broader strategy to improve maintainability and performance of code.
Ride booking, navigation and payment processing are all implemented in our iOS app using Objective-C. Initially, the app was built with Objective-C for architectural purposes using RIBs (Robust Interface Builder) to keep components decoupled and testable.
Luckily, thanks to Objective-C, this booking service has been offering a dependable and reliable experience to millions and millions of users worldwide. The power and efficacy of Objective-C to building modern apps is this example.
3. Pinterest
The Objective-C based Pinterest app, a visual discovery engine enables users to gather ideas for their projects and events. Objective-C’s capabilities are particularly useful in helping the platform make sense of image heavy content as the platform lets users discover and save ideas that are often visual.
Until 2024, Pinterest has remained one of the major players in the social media space with over 450 million active users. Objective C has remained in its tech stack thanks to the company’s commitment to making sure that its iOS app is powerful and efficient.
Image processing and user interface elements in Pinterest use Objective-C for various functionality inside the app. There is one notable implementation in the PINFuture library, which is type-safe asynchronous programming in Objective-C. And this library simplifies complex operations like loading images and managing user interactions.
4. Slack
Objective-C is used by the iOS app for Slack, the popular communication platform. Firstly, the company wrote separate codebases for each platform. However, Slack released LibSlack, a cross–platform C++ libary that integrates common functionality across platforms. Objective C is still an important part of building out for iOS app.
Objective-C’s usage by Slack is a good showcase of platform specific things can be done efficiently and flexibly. The Objective-C codebase of the company is maintained and updated so to provide a good performance on the iOS devices.
5. Tokopedia
One of Indonesia’s fastest growing internet companies, Tokopedia, uses Objective-C as part of its iOS app development. Millions of users use the company to buy and sell products online. In 2024, Tokopedia can keep a code base in Objective-C because it is still keeping codebase Objective-C that has been updated and kept running as usual.
Objective-C truly is a language strong enough and versatile enough to power something like Tokopedia. While the industry has been moving on to newer languages such as Swift, Objective C retains its relevance for Tokopedia. It proves the fact that Objective-C is an unending language in the world of the tech.
More about Tokopedia’s tech stack can be found in their GitHub repository.
Recommended reading: The 7 Best Languages for App Development in 2022
Conclusion
Although Swift is the go to language for iOS development, legacy codebases can be updated or maintained with Objective-C. For projects where flawless integration with older iOS applications and Mac OS X systems is necessary, at Designveloper we still uses Objective-C.
Existing Objective-C code can still be very useful in our current development toolkit for projects which require compatibility with C and C++ code. Our team has pulled off many projects using Objective-C where we also updated and transitioned clients’ apps easily.
Essentially, Objective-C still remains a very powerful tool for iOS and macOS development. It is unique in being a blend of Smalltalk’s simplicity and C’s performance. Objective-C is still an important player as we continue to evolve as a development ecosystem.
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