January 21st, 2011
Category: iPhone/iPad
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How to start with iOS?

I spent the past weeks getting myself familiar with iOS. I’m a Flash Developer for more than 7 years now (started in 2004), so Objective-C was completely alien to me as well. I made this little guide that should help out any developer to start properly. I should mention this is the best of all the resources I went through, so hopefully it will save you hours of browsing time.

STEP 1 – research

ManyFriends – read every word on this wiki. You will make an idea about the mobile business, from an iOS developer point of view, and get to some very useful links as well. I went through hundreds of blogs. Here you will get information you won’t find anywhere else. I highly recommend you start with it first (he even mentions what he charges and how he charges).

STEP 2 – get familiar with the syntax

The syntax is different, but in my opinion it’s better than AS3. You will understand what’s better after you read these articles entirely. The bad thing is that although Objective-C 2 has garbage collection, it’s not YET supported in the iPhone SDK. This means us, the developers, have to handle all the memory stuff.

1. Learn Objective-C

2. Naming (part 1) (check part 2 as well)

STEP 3 – start (blogs & forums)

Articles and tutorials: http://mobile.tutsplus.com/

Forums to subscribe to:

  • http://www.iphonedevforums.com/forum/
  • http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/
  • http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=135
  • http://groups.google.com/group/iphonesb?pli=1

STEP 4 – a complete guide

This book gets you from A to Z with the technology and modules available on iOS today, you should buy it and read it! (I’m at page 296 at the moment of writing this article)

Beginning iPhone 3 Development Exploring the iPhone SDK (Jul.2009)

STEP 5 – practice

Download and watch the free Stanford classes for programming for iPhone on iTunes:
a) iPhone Application Programming (Spring 2009)

b) iPhone Application Development (Winter 2010)

c) Developing Apps for iOS (HD)

(the last link is to dig deeper)

STEP 6 - dig deeper

Apple’s website (everything but the iOS Reference Library, which is too much information to go over – only use it as you code)

Make sure you start with the HIG!

STEP 7

Write your first basic app.

This post has 3 comments | Post your comment

  • wickedpixel
  • on January 21, 2011 at 1:58 PM

    STEP 8
    Count money.

Reply
    • Andrei Potorac
    • on January 21, 2011 at 5:44 PM

      There’s a few steps there as well. :-)

      You’d like to set-up some statistics for your apps. Per my sources, the best there is appfigures.
      You’d also care to distribute the apps for testing, and the best way to do it (other than Apple’s way which is difficult) is using testflight.

  • Andrei Potorac
  • on February 13, 2011 at 3:10 PM

    Wanted to let you guys know I finished the first app in a month, and used it as part of my final exam.

    What I do is check Dribble and Frost on a weekly basis or by RSS, tagged by iOS. It helps and inspires me, as most of my hundreds of feeds. :)

Reply

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