I don't think that's true. The standard use case for weak references in Objective-C is a child-to-parent reference. The parent holds a strong reference to the

I don't think that's true. The standard use case for weak references in Objective-C is a child-to-parent reference. The parent holds a strong reference to the child and children hold weak references to their parents, avoiding potential cycles. In fact, part of good memory management in a reference counted system is that you should always have a hierarchy to your data structures so it never makes sense to have an actual strong reference loop.