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Comment by jspru | Hacker News Reader

A completely different suggestion: Neither - learn C# and use Xamarin. Lower learning curve than both Swift and Objective-C, you can port your apps to other platforms more easily, and your new skill will be applicable across paradigms beyond iOS development.

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1) Your app is now tied for life to a third-party vendor. 2) There's is a steep yearly licensing fee. (starting at 300 USD PER developer, PER platform). 3) Xamarin Forms is notoriously buggy if you're looking to also use it for cross-platform UI code. 4) It's debatable how much easier C# is to learn than Swift.

I wouldn't advice Xamarin to someone who wants to learn to write apps for iOS.

Xamarin in great but it makes most sense to use in a professional environment where a single app needs to be target at multiple platforms. Usually developers using Xamarin already have a great understanding of iOS and Android (and Windows?) before they start using Xamarin.

I think for someone new to developing apps it would be too much of an abstraction.

Well yeah, there are numerous different approaches one can take. You could also build hybrid apps if you're familiar with HTML&CSS, you could use RubyMotion if you're a Ruby dev, etc. :)

Lower learning curve than both Swift and Objective-C

I would have to see some evidence of that. Neither Swift nor Objective C have a particularly scary learning curve.

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