Mobile Architecture Patterns

iOS MVC/MVVM/VIPER, Android MVVM/MVI, React Native vs Flutter vs KMP

Technical Reference & Key Concepts

iOS (Swift) Architecture

  • MVC: Default Apple pattern. Massive ViewControllers are the main pain point.
  • MVVM: ViewModel holds presentation logic. Better testability, works well with SwiftUI+Combine.
  • VIPER: 5 layers (View, Interactor, Presenter, Entity, Router). Overkill for small apps but scales well.

Android Architecture

  • MVC: Standard Android pattern. Activities/Fragments become massive.
  • MVVM: ViewModel + LiveData/Flow + DataBinding. Official Google recommendation.
  • MVI: Unidirectional data flow. Intents -> Model -> State. Great for complex UIs but more boilerplate.

Cross-platform Tradeoffs

  • React Native: JavaScript bridge can be a performance bottleneck for animations.
  • Flutter: Skia engine, great performance. Larger binary size.
  • Kotlin Multiplatform: Shared business logic, native UI. Steep learning curve.