In what situations is it recommended to use NSLock for thread synchronization?

NSLock is recommended for thread synchronization in iOS when mutual exclusion is needed to avoid race conditions when accessing shared resources. It is especially useful if:

• You need to lock a critical section of code so that only one thread can execute it at a time.
• You require a simple and explicit lock with the ability to try to acquire the lock (tryLock).
• You want to avoid deadlocks by using timeout methods.

Example of using NSLock:

let lock = NSLock()

func criticalSection() {
    lock.lock()
    // Code that should be executed by only one thread
    lock.unlock()
}

NSLock is suitable for cases where low-level locking without complex conditions is needed, but for more complex scenarios, mechanisms like GCD or semaphores should be considered.