What is HeapInspector-for-iOS?

HeapInspector is a debug tool that monitors the memory heap with backtrace recording in your iOS app. You can discover memory leaks, no longer used objects, abandoned memory and more issues directly on your device without ever starting Instruments.

Memory heap snapshots with backtrace record

Basically you can inspect the entire heap and see all living objects of your iOS app.

To be more precise you can record the heap for a specific part of the app. For instance when navigating through the menu. Like in Apple’s Instruments the snapshot compares the heap before you started recording. For instance you can start the snapshot before you push a new UIViewController onto your UINavigationController stack and stop after popping the UIViewController. With HeapInspector and heap snapshots you can identify:

  • Leaking objects
  • Retain cycles
  • Living objects that are no longer needed
  • static objects like singletons or cached UIImage
  • Dirty memory and your objects on the heap

HeapInspector gives you detailed information for the living objects:

  • Reference history (backtrace support) See who called retain, strong, release
  • Responder chain for recorded objects
  • Screenshots of the inspected UIView, UIViewController, UIImage
  • Detailed information about the object (Description, frame, properties, iVars, methods)

Overview