Using Vim instead of (or with) Xcode for iOS development

Developing for iOS or Mac with Vim can be really powerful and fast, especially if you use TDD or want quick feedback.

But it takes a bit of finagling to get it working. The few important things you need to know are:

• Use the xcodebuild command-line tool to run your build and units from some vimscript.
• Use the clang_complete plugin to give you full code completion from within vim.
• Use the ios.vim and cocoa.vim plugins for navigation.

This is my preferred method of working. In fact, I wrote the ios.vim plugin to make this easier for more people.