I’ve scoured the internet looking for great open source iOS apps, and what I determined is that what is really more interesting is the open source iOS components and frameworks. So here’s my list of the most useful open source iOS components.

8. PSCollectionView
PSCollectionView is a custom collection view that allows for the easy creation of Pinterest-style image collections in your iOS apps. Source on Github

7. GMGridView
This little grid view library allows for the simple creation of highly interaction view sets. You can see a nice video of an example result here. Source on Github

6. PRTween

PRTween is an extension of the core animation framework. It is an effort to take the power of core animation, and make it easier to use. The commands available may remind some of the stupid-simple jQuery animation commands like fade, hide, or show. Source on Github

5. iHasApp
I recently was asked by a client if we could detect their other apps installed on the device, and if the user didn’t own them if we could have the app present cross-promotional ads. I wasn’t sure what the answer to their question was, it seemed like something that might fall under the dreaded “private api” category. But here this project is an App Store friendly library to detect other apps installed on the user’s phone. Source on Github

4. NUI
NUI is a very interesting project that aims to make styling of iOS apps as easy as styling in CSS. Take a look at the syntax on the project’s github page and you’ll see what makes this such an interesting project. Source on Github

3. grabKit
If you are writing an iPhone app that involves the user’s photos, one thing that’s always a bit tricky is adding support for all the various social networks that the user might prefer to host their photos on. grabKit makes this easier with this drop-in library that let’s the user import photos from Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, or the iOS device itself. Source on Github

2. MultistrokeGestureRecognizer
This library is great for anyone creating a very touch-centric game, or any app that uses lots of complex gestures. The library is based on the N Multistroke Recognizer which is a great algorithm for detecting very complex touch gestures. If you remember the gestures in the game Black & White, it’s kind of like that. Source on Github

1. Filepicker
Similar to grabKit, Filepicker allows for the importing of files from various social networks, but also includes many more services such as Dropbox, Gmail, and even Github. The library is also not limited to only photos but can be used for a range of content types. Source on Github

Honorable mention: cupertino
Cupertino is not an iOS library, but rather a ruby gem that allows for administration of your Apple Developer Account. This has been a missing piece of the formula for automating iOS development work for years, so I’m glad to see some hackers have decided to take up the challenge of making a CLI for the Apple Developer Account system.

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