Yes. According to http://clang.llvm.org/docs/AutomaticReferenceCounting.html#self http://clang.llvm.org/docs/AutomaticReferenceCounting.html#s..., ARC assumes t

Yes. According to http://clang.llvm.org/docs/AutomaticReferenceCounting.html#self http://clang.llvm.org/docs/AutomaticReferenceCounting.html#s..., ARC assumes that self is valid for the lifetime of the call. This will not be the case if the last reference to the object is changed or cleared during the call, which may result a segfault. The performance loss of retaining and releasing self across all methods was deemed too much compared with the safety gains.