Create singleton using GCD's dispatch_once in Objective-C

This is a perfectly acceptable and thread-safe way to create an instance of your class. It may not technically be a "singleton" (in that there can only ever be 1 of these objects), but as long as you only use the [Foo sharedFoo] method to access the object, this is good enough.

instancetype

instancetype is just one of the many language extensions to Objective-C, with more being added with each new release.

Know it, love it.

And take it as an example of how paying attention to the low-level details can give you insights into powerful new ways to transform Objective-C.

Refer here: instancetype

+ (instancetype)sharedInstance
{
    static dispatch_once_t once;
    static id sharedInstance;

    dispatch_once(&once, ^
    {
        sharedInstance = [self new];
    });    
    return sharedInstance;
}

+ (Class*)sharedInstance
{
    static dispatch_once_t once;
    static Class *sharedInstance;

    dispatch_once(&once, ^
    {
        sharedInstance = [self new];
    });    
    return sharedInstance;
}