[In-Depth Guide] iOS App System Design: From concept to architecture (with example)

Before writing a single line of code for an iOS app, it’s crucial to design a high-level system and mobile architecture because:

It will help you identify external dependencies
Discover any risks and limitations
It is both easier and faster to modify a diagram than it is to modify code you’ve already implemented
It forces you to clearly define your ideas

This post will guide you step-by-step through designing and implementing a complete system for an iOS app, using Spotify's iOS app as inspiration. We’ll start by creating simple wireframes, then identify external dependencies, and progressively dive into individual components, defining the system piece by piece.

Time to get our hands dirty and dive in!

The Goal

Our goal is to build a clone of the Spotify iOS app solely focused on music (for brevity). Users should be able to:

search songs
create playlists
get music recommendations
play songs.

NOTE: Spotify is a feature rich app with media other than just music (ie: video, podcasts, etc.) and a range of additional capabilities have been added since it first launched - we are not going to concern ourselves with any of their more recent functionality, instead we are aiming for a "version 1" with the core functionality of listening to music, searching music, and building playlists.

Wireframes

Now that we know the desired functionality, let's create some wireframes. The reason I like to start with wireframes is that it forces you to think clearly about how the app provides the intended user experience (UX).

Wireframing forces you to define what each individual screen displays as well as what interactions are available. This helps us define user flows and devise strategies for how users navigate through them.

All the wireframes and diagrams were created with Excalidraw.

Below are wireframes for our app's core screens, namely: Home Screen, Search Screen, Library Screen, and Music Player Screen.

Our app will eventually require authentication for account management, but we did not include a login/sign-up screen above. The reason is that for now we are only concerned with core screens specific to our apps core use case.

Now that we have identified the core screens, we will dive in a bit deeper to further define important features and interactions.

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