Question

I want to create a synthesizer for iOS5 and the interface that I have in mind is quite advanced to be made with the IB. So I was hoping there would be some tools or libraries for more advanced GUIs for iOS. Preferably I’d do this in C++ and use as little Objective-C as possible.

Here’s an example of what it could become:

You could look at this as some sort of 2D game as I’ll also need small animations etc.

Any suggestions of what could be helpful to me?

Answer 1

While the screenshot looks nice, it’s not very complex IMHO. All I see are buttons, a segmented control and a custom LCD-like view. All of these can easily be done with Cocoa Touch, and you’d be even able to do most of this with IB if you want.

Since the native framework is Cocoa Touch and that one is done in Objective-C, it doesn’t make much sense to use anything else unless there’s a very good reason for a different framework. Since every other framework needs to use Cocoa Touch as well they are all by definition lagging behind Cocoa Touch, might not provide all the features and/or even introduce bugs on their own. If Apple adds new features, you’ll have to wait until the third party framework makes use of it.

Additionally, you’ll get the most support with Cocoa Touch: almost every (advanced) iOS developer can help you with Cocoa Touch issues, but if you use a third party framework there are a lot less people that can help you. That even starts with books: you shouldn’t have a problem finding good books on UI programming with iOS using Objective-C/Cocoa Touch, but there are considerably fewer books on third party frameworks.

Animations are pretty easy in Cocoa Touch. For easier things the normal UIView animations are sufficient, but for anything more complex you’d add CoreAnimation animations. Apple has lots of guides and sample code on these topics on their developer site and usually they are pretty good.