So you have been developing iOS Apps for sometime now, and you have been pulling in external libraries from GitHub to help speed up your development. Wouldn’t it be nice if the cumbersome process of adding these libraries to your project was streamlined? Well, here comes CocoaPods to the rescue!

CocoaPods is an easy to use, easy install dependency management system for iOS and OS X development. CocoaPods does all the leg work for you when integrating libraries into your project. Adding or updating libraries is as simple as adding a single line to a file and typing a command into the terminal. CocoaPods provides easy to follow installation instructions and user guides to get you up and running and integrating Pods into your projects in no time.

We have been using CocoaPods in our projects for a while now and have had great success. Some of our favorite Pods to use are:

• AFNetworking - A east to use networking library for iOS and Mac OS X.
• MAThemeKit - Easily create a coherent color theme throughout your entire application using a single line of code.
• MZFormSheetController - An alternative to the native iOS UIModalPresentationFormSheet.
• SIAlertView -  UIAlertView replacement.
• MMDrawerController - A lightweight, easy to use, Side Drawer Navigation Controller.

There are thousands of other libraries there, feel free to share some of your favorites with us on twitter @716labs!