Find Your Way Around Swift and iOS 🗺️

Learning iOS development can feel like being dropped into a huge city without a map. There’s a new framework around every corner, three ways to do everything, and a fresh WWDC every June.

These roadmaps are that map. They break the journey into stages, put the topics in a sensible order, and link each one to a guide or article on this blog, so you always know what to learn next and why it matters.

How to Use These Roadmaps 🧭

If you’re new, follow the stages in order, since each builds on the one before it. If you’re comfortable with the basics, jump to a topic that challenges you. Build a small project at each stage to put what you learn into practice, and focus on knowing where to look rather than memorizing everything. Each guide groups its topics into a learning path. Unlinked topics are planned articles; the progress bar shows how many topics already have published articles.

The Swift Roadmap 🐦

Swift is the foundation everything else stands on. A solid grasp of the language makes every framework easier, and the questions you get in interviews are mostly about this part.

Stage 1: Speak the Language

Swift LanguageTypes, optionals, collections, functions, closures, and memory management: the vocabulary you'll use every day.64 / 64 topics written Object-Oriented ProgrammingClasses, objects, inheritance, polymorphism, and the core principles of OOP.31 / 31 topics written Protocol-Oriented ProgrammingProtocols, extensions, and generics: the Swift way to share behavior.31 / 31 topics written Functional ProgrammingThinking functionally: map, filter, reduce, immutability, and purely functional data structures.20 / 20 topics written

Stage 2: Write Better Code

Data Structures & AlgorithmsElementary data structures, sorting, trees, graphs, and Big O notation for reasoning about performance.38 / 38 topics written Design PatternsCreational, structural, and behavioral patterns: proven solutions to problems you'll meet again and again.35 / 35 topics written ArchitecturesMVC, MVP, MVVM, VIPER, Redux, and more: how to organize an app so it stays easy to change.26 / 26 topics written TestingEight guides covering unit testing, FIRST principles, test doubles, async code, flaky tests, integration, UI testing, and CI.8 / 8 topics written

Stage 3: Work With Time and Data

Concurrencyasync/await, tasks, actors, and keeping your app responsive and free of data races.28 / 28 topics written NetworkingCalling APIs with URLSession, decoding JSON with Codable, and handling errors gracefully.30 / 30 topics written CombineApple's framework for processing values over time with publishers and subscribers.22 / 22 topics written RxSwiftThe popular open-source reactive library, plus RxCocoa. You'll still find it in many existing codebases.21 / 21 topics written

Stage 4: Keep Exploring

More Swift TopicsDebugging, reverse engineering, source control, regex, the terminal, Objective-C basics, and more.9 / 29 topics written

The iOS Roadmap 📱

Knowing Swift is half the story. The other half is Apple’s frameworks: how to build screens, store data, draw, animate, and talk to the hardware. This roadmap walks through them in the order you’ll usually need them.

Stage 1: Get to Know Your Tools

XcodeProjects, schemes, the debugger, previews, and Instruments for finding performance problems.0 / 26 topics written

Stage 2: Build Interfaces

SwiftUIApple's modern, declarative UI framework. Start by understanding why views are values. UIKitThe original iOS UI framework: view controllers, Auto Layout, and Interface Builder. Still everywhere in real apps.0 / 32 topics written

Stage 3: Handle Data

NetworkingFetching data from the internet with URLSession, and keeping the UI up to date while you wait.30 / 30 topics written PersistenceSaving data on the device with SwiftData, Core Data, files, and UserDefaults, and when to use which.0 / 28 topics written

Stage 4: Bring It to Life

Core GraphicsDrawing paths, shapes, gradients, and images in 2D.0 / 24 topics written Core AnimationLayers, transforms, and smooth animations that run at full frame rate.0 / 24 topics written Audio & VideoPlaying, recording, and editing media with AVFoundation and AVKit.0 / 28 topics written SensorsMotion, location, and more with Core Motion and Core Location.25 / 25 topics written

Stage 5: Ship Something People Trust

AccessibilityVoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and building apps everyone can use. SecurityProtecting your users' data, from secure storage to network security. Want to go deeper? See my book. TestingBuild confidence across unit, integration, and UI tests, with deterministic fixtures and reliable CI feedback.8 / 8 topics written

Keep Going 🚀

These roadmaps grow along with the blog: as new articles are published, planned topics become article links and the progress bars fill. If there’s a topic you’d love to see next, let me know. Your requests help decide what gets written first.

Happy learning, and enjoy the journey!