Based on published sources (http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/tools.html) I was under the impression that the system frameworks are implemented without garbage collection; with retain, release, and autorelease turning into no-ops when garbage collection is turned on.
As for property lookups, that should have about the same overhead as a standard accessor method (er... you are using accessors, aren't you?).
Now, if you need to go straight to the metal for max performance, then go down to pure C, or even assembler, and dodge the Obj-C runtime entirely...
by Bret — Jan 04
Based on published sources (http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/tools.html) I was under the impression that the system frameworks are implemented without garbage collection; with retain, release, and autorelease turning into no-ops when garbage collection is turned on.
As for property lookups, that should have about the same overhead as a standard accessor method (er... you are using accessors, aren't you?).
Now, if you need to go straight to the metal for max performance, then go down to pure C, or even assembler, and dodge the Obj-C runtime entirely...