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Asked: 2026-06-13T14:26:37+00:00

I’m experimenting with ARM assembly language, during this I often use inline assembly blocks

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I’m experimenting with ARM assembly language, during this I often use inline assembly blocks in Objective-C code for my first iOS 6 small pet project. During this I wondered:

  1. Is it reasonable at all to use ARM assembly in large commercial iOS projects?
  2. Can I optimise some bottlenecks with it and exceed compiler in this?
  3. What are some common guidelines or best practicies of using assembly language for iOS: vectorization, NEON, SIMD, media optimisation (image shrinking and etc.)?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The iPhone is just a small computer so the trade-offs of using assembler are exactly the same as with any other machine.

    The general answer has to be no, you don’t want to be using assembler.

    Having said that, there are always exceptions where hand-tuned, very low level code might be faster. Make sure you use Instruments to correctly identify your bottlenecks and that you’ve tuned your code using higher-level techniques before you start.

    Use special hardware features where it makes sense, but bear in mind that you don’t need to use assembler to get the benefits of most of them.

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