Declaring Accessor Methods: @property

You should typically use the Objective-C declared properties feature to declare accessor methods (see Declared Properties in The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language), for example:

@property (copy) NSString *firstName;

@property (readonly) NSString *fullName;

@property (retain) NSDate *birthday;

@property NSInteger luckyNumber;

The declaration makes explicit the memory management semantics for the property.

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/MemoryMgmt/Articles/mmAccessorMethods.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40003539-SW1