XML : Creating a layout in iOS vs Android

There are tools to make layouts in both iOS and Android. Both have GUI interfaces that are hard to control, and get to work exactly as you want.

However Android has a xml file which actually gives you much better control of what is going on, and which you can edit to make it do your bidding (It is like html and WYSIWIG editors, sometimes the best way to change something is to manipulate html directly).

It was a while since I looked at iOS Auto Layout, and at that time there was not anything equivalent to Androids layout XML file. For that reason, my experience was that it is much easier to create and control layouts in Android than in iOS. Another factor that made it easier is that Android has a RelativeLayout, Horizontal LinearLayout, Vertical LinearLayout, and others, and that one can combine these with each other. But it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that iOS only has RelativeLayout.

I know that there are other tools for creating layouts. Java Swing for instance has its own tools. The question of creating layouts and controlling them is an important task and one that interests me. So I guess I'm asking several questions at the same time.

1. What is your experience of creating layouts with iOS auto layout, compared to how it's done in Android.

2. Does iOS have some equivalent of Android's layout xml file?

3. Does iOS have equivalents of Linear Layout which you can embed in other Linear or Relative layouts?

4. Is there some nice way that you know, of specifying and controlling layouts in general?

5. Does there exist one ar more special languages that let you describe and control layouts?