Why is init not a class method?

Question

Why is the init method not a class method? I mean init's method body starts with an -. Methods starting with - are instance methods as far as I know, but obviously we want to create an instance.

Answer 1

init is not for creating an instance; that's alloc's job (and alloc is a class method).

init is for setting up the created instance. It needs access to the new instance's ivars, and must be an instance method.