iOS Autorelease After Creating New Object

It is recommended to call "autorelease" after create a new object via the "new" operator (or any other method that leaves the retain count set at 1 but doesn't call "autorelease"). This is because after a "new" operator, the retain count of the object is set to "1" to ensure that it doesn't get destroyed. If "autorelease" is not called, the object will continue to take up memory until "release" is called on the object. Calling "autorelease" will ensure that the object's retain count is set to reduced by one (important!) after the current event loop is completed and the autorelease pool is drained. This means that if "retain" is called subsequently, the object will still not be destroyed if that is not matched with a corresponding "release".

Note: I ran my tests on Cocos2D-X's implementation of the autorelease pool system but as I understand, it behaves the same as the iOS one.

References:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2076402/what-is-the-difference-between-releasing-and-autoreleasing
• https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/DOCUMENTATION/Cocoa/Conceptual/MemoryMgmt/Articles/MemoryMgmt.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000011-SW1
• http://www.cocoanetics.com/2009/08/understanding-autoreleasing/