Question

I’ve been making some iPhone apps for a few months now, and I’ve been using xibs, and now storyboard. My question may be somewhat subjective, but I would like to know what are the advantages/disadvantages of creating the UI of an iPhone app using the storyboard vs creating it programmatically. I want to start making more apps, and I need to know if the storyboard approach will end up hindering me in the long-run. Hopefully I can get a good discussion on this topic.

Answer 1

I have enjoyed using storyboards as it eliminates the clutter in file structure as well as the nice ease of use with segues. It makes following the flow of an app extremely easy without jumping through multiple files. I have found that I can do all that I could do with separate xibs just as easily. I have not found any hindrance in using storyboards only a much easier developing experience.

I have noticed it is frustrating that you have to be zoomed in completely to edit the views. This is difficult for developing on my laptop as the iPad’s whole view doesn’t show up! The view hierarchy can be frustrating to find the correct view controller. On complex view interactions the arrows can become super crazy and convoluted as they always go in at one spot and out at the other with certain radius.

I have noticed that the assistant feature, while it is very nice, causes an internal crash error 50% of the time. I have connected things to the wrong view occasionally as it doesn’t always pick the right header view, which is frustrating. Most of these things I expect to be taken care of with updates to Xcode, hopefully.

Overall I really like the switch to storyboards and love being able to see how all the views relate and using segues is a very slick way on doing transitions. I don’t think using storyboards will hurt any future development.