You should absolutely be using ARC in your iOS projects, and if the project predates ARC, go ahead and use the refactoring tool to get it to ARC. It really doesn’t take long and you’ll end up with a more stable app that will be easier to maintain.

That being said, you can’t completely ignore memory management. You can still get EXC_BAD_ACCESS, Zombies, leaks, etc., even with ARC projects. Here are some things you should know

1. ARC is not garbage collection. It statically analyzes your code and then puts in release and retain calls where they are needed. It’s still susceptible to a retain-cycle — two objects with references to each other. You can still have references to dead objects.
2. If you have a retain-cycle, a common way to deal with that is to make one of the properties weak (which you should probably do), but now that reference is susceptible to becoming a Zombie. A weak property will not call retain on the object, so when the object is deallocated, it would then refer to a dead object. If you have weak properties and get EXC_BAD_ACCESS, go reproduce it under the Zombie instrument.
3. Under ARC, you cannot use autorelease any more, but the calls into non-ARC libraries can (and do, especially iOS frameworks). This means that you sometimes need to use your own autorelease pool. Under ARC, use the @autoreleasepool keyword to wrap areas where autoreleased objects are created that you need released before you return back to the thread’s main pool.  If you see leaks of objects in Instruments that you don’t alloc or hold onto, and use threads, add in @autoreleasepool blocks.
4. Don’t use non-ARC code in your project by copying the source in. Build them in their own Xcode projects and then use the resulting .framework or .a in your project. It’s likely you wouldn’t be able to anyway, but just in case. (if you happen to be MRC — then really don’t copy ARC source into your projects — this will usually be compilable code, but will leak like crazy)
5. Test your code under the Zombie and Leaks instruments — especially if you use bridging, weak references, or are in any way managing retain-cycles (breaking them yourself without weak).
6. It’s rare, but I ran into a bug in the iOS framework that didn’t retain Storyboard created Gestures correctly in a tabbed-app. It was my first big ARC project, and it didn’t even occur to me to check for Zombies, but that would have pin-pointed the issue right away. Rule of thumb, the underlying code is still normal retain/release/autorelease based — debug it the same way you would have with Manual Reference Counting.

Further Reading:

• Apple’s Transitioning to ARC

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