Updated March 4, 2023
Differences Between Swift vs Objective C
Swift is a multi-paradigm, a general-purpose programming language that Apple Inc. developed for its different operating systems like iOS, tvOS, macOS, watch OS. It was licensed under Apache License 2.0. It first appeared in the year 2014. It supports multiple operating systems such as Linux, Darwin, Free BSD, etc.; it is static and strongly typed discipline. Swift is designed to work along with Apple’s Cocoa framework and Objective C library to work in Apple products. The filename extension for the swift files is .swift, and it supports many core components from Objective C.
Objective C is also an object-oriented and general-purpose programming language plus small talk style messaging to C programming language. It is reflective, class-based, and designed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in a company named Stepstone and first appeared in 1984. It is both a static and dynamic typed programming language. It supported cross-platform applications and was influenced by Small talk and C programming language. Objective C is a superset of the C programming language. The file extensions normally include .m or .h, depending on whether it is a program file or header file. Let us understand the difference between Swift and Objective C in detail in this post.
Head To Head Comparison Between Swift and Objective C (Infographics)
Below are the top 9 comparisons between Swift and Objective C:
Key Differences Between Swift vs Objective C
Let us discuss some of the major differences between Swift vs Objective C:
- Swift is the latest programming language that is developed by Apple and can be run on various cross-platform operating systems such as Linux, Darwin, Free BSD, etc., whereas Objective C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language used by Apple in its operating systems and APIs Cocoa, etc.
- Swift has several programming features such as safe programming patterns, syntax like Objective C, complete access to Cocoa frameworks, whereas Objective C also supports the same features as C++ except for STL and includes foundational frameworks.
- Swift has object-oriented and procedural features in its language and in-built functionalities in its library, whereas Objective C has different data types, tokens to recognize the identifiers, declarations, and assignments, and pre-processor to define constants.
- Swift supports different operators such as Arithmetic Operators, Logical Operators, Bitwise Operators, Relational Operators, Assignment Operators, Range Operators, and Miscellaneous Operators, whereas Objective C also supports the same operators except for range and pre-processors which are not part of the compilation process.
- Swift supports Dictionaries, Functions, Closures, Enumerations, Structures, etc., whereas Objective C supports Posing, Extensions, Dynamic Binding, Protocol, Composite Objects, Memory Management, and Enumerations.
- Swift supports optional chaining, typecasting, generics, protocols, subscripts, etc., whereas Objective C allows dynamic dispatch, auto-generation of accessors to access member variables and properties, and allows a method and a name to share the same identifier.
- In Swift, calling a method will be decided at compile time and is similar to object-oriented programming, whereas in Objective C, calling a method will be decided at runtime, and also Objective C has special features like adding or replacing methods like on a class which already exists.
- In Swift, errors can be handled using protocols to avoid the unexpected flow of program control, whereas Objective C has nil which can be safely handled in a powerful way by safely sending messages to nil objects.
- In Swift, operator overloading is supported and is global in terms of scope and simplicity, whereas Objective C does not support default parameters but can be implemented by multiple methods manipulation and also do not support private members.
- In Swift, Arc (Automatic Reference Counting) is the feature that handles the garbage collection where emptied memory is allocated to the required processes. In contrast, Objective C does not support stack-based memory objects, and allocating memory in Objective C is very expensive. It plays a key role in writing successful programs for the delivery of efficient applications.
- In Swift, class objects are declared normally. They are similar to that of general object-oriented programming languages. In contrast, Objective C has a composite object feature with an embedded object inside an object, which means a private cluster object will be embedded into the main object and some primitive methods.
- In Swift, advanced operators exist to handle the manipulation of the complex value, whereas Objective C has a fast enumeration feature where collections are core components of this feature.
Swift and Objective C Comparison Table
Let’s look at the top Comparison between Swift and Objective C below –
| Basis Of Comparison | Swift | Objective C |
| Design | It was designed to develop Apple operating systems | It was designed to be object-oriented along with the Smalltalk messaging feature |
| Inheritance | It does not allow multiple inheritances | It does not allow multiple inheritances |
| Paradigm | It declares type-level methods to call the implemented functionalities | It uses messages to call the implemented functionalities as it was implemented based on Smalltalk messaging |
| Classes | Only classes exist in Swift but not Structs | Structs and classes are treated differently in Objective C |
| License | It is Apache Licensed open-source project | It is licensed under GPL (General Public License) |
| Type | It is static and strongly typing | It is dynamic typing |
| Polymorphism | Polymorphism can be implemented by typecasting, but it does not exist directly. | Parametric polymorphism in Objective C is checked at compile time |
| Boolean Operators | Swift uses true and false values | C++ uses YES, NO and BOOL |
| Templates & Libraries | Swift has multiple library supports along with Objective C | Objective C lacks template libraries |
Conclusion
Swift is a programming language mostly used for the development of Apple operating systems also being used in Apple operating systems where there are different operating systems for different Apple products. Objective C is mostly used for the development of operating systems like OS X and iOS for Apple products like Mac or iPhone. Objective C is mostly used for Apple Operating Systems and is confined to Apple products development, whereas C++ is open source and can be used for most of the hardware and embedded applications but lacks insecurity in the usage of programming features and data being managed.
Swift is being used along with objective C for most of the Apple products applications development. Objective C is also used to develop Swift applications. I hope now you must have got a fairer idea of both Swift vs Objective C.Stay tuned to our blog for more articles like these.
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