Instruments is the great tool to measure the performance of your application, problems, object allocations, memory leaks and more.
I personally don’t use it quite often. Why? I don’t have problems with memory leaks, because I know where I have to release some objects, where to keep them. How about performance? I measure the performance by debugging my application on the real device. Please remember, that iPod touch 2nd gen offers better performance because of it’s faster CPU. If your app runs smoothly on iPhone it will run even better on iPod touch but not vice versa!
OK, so far I told you my atitude to Instruments, but I’ve never said that I don’t use this tool at all. Of course I use. The goal of your application/game should’t be only the metter of how much fun or usability it provides, but also how long it takes to load, during gameplay not to show Loading screen every minute, uses as much memory as possible and cleans after app terminates.
Using the information from Instruments you have the great opportunity to improve your application. Use your application and track the graphs Instruments provides, optimize methods and delete any objects that has been allocated, but no longer needed.
In fact it’s difficult to describe, how you should use Instruments. The results are different for each application and differently interpreted by each developer. It’s up to you how Instruments can help you in development. If you can’t self-learn how to use this tool, I recommand you to read Instruments’ help.
