iPhone Application Development: How To Begin | The Communication Blog

Saturday, March 26, 2011

iPhone Application Development: How To Begin

By Ty Willington


Let us get started!

The very first thing you must do when developing iPhone applications is to get your development environment setup. Usually, you will need an iMac or a MacBook to get this done. You can go the route of using something similar to AppMakr although confined, it can be suitable for someone just getting started to mess around with UI design. AppMakr will aid you to setup an easy application for a company or individual just looking to create a cheap and quick application. But, it is not really the way to go if you wish to actually understand iPhone development. If you would like to create a more complicated application but don't have the time and ability, you could use Elance or Odesk to get one developed.

The Software You Have To Have

To get going with creating your iPhone applications, you must get yourself situated with the proper software. The main thing utilized to do development is the XCode IDE. To be able to have the XCode IDE, you must become an Apple developer. If you just want to fool around and just test the waters, you may be a developer for free by registering with Apple. You have a few options available to you. First, the free option allows you to download the latest version of XCode which is 3.5 and you can use the simulator that Apple provides and create your own apps. The second option costs $99 a year and this will permit you not only to download the latest XCode preview, but will also allow you to submit your app to the Apple Store and download you apps to your phone for testing. If you are planning to be doing any kind of real developing, I suggest that you pay the $99. You must register as an individual if you're a sole proprietorship. If you are an LLC or any other kind of business then it may seem like you can use the business development alternative.

You may download XCode when you've got your development membership setup. For the purposes of this site, I will possibly utilize the XCode 4.0 because this is the way Apple will be heading in the foreseeable future. You should be able to follow along with XCode 3.5, but using 4.0 will make it easier. My next post will go into the basics of XCode so make sure that you get ready by downloading it.

Things You Will Have To Know

Various other stuff that you will need to get familiar with. For starters iOS, this is Apples mobile operating system. It is utilized on the iPhone, iPad and the iPod touch. I will have a follow up post that goes into this in greater detail, but if you should jump ahead you can check out some of Apple's documentation.

The language that is primarily used when developing these applications is Objective C. You can now use C and C++, but Objective C is usually the way to go for most things. I will dive into this in more details eventually, but if you are interested in attaining several information in advance, I suggest Programming in Objective C 2.0.

Another concept you need to be acquainted with is Cocoa Touch. This is actually the API that's a high level interface to the system. It sits on top of the OS and provides you with the means to access all of the views and user controls and stuff. Again I'll dive into this in a later post.

Other Superb References

In case you are really ambitious and want to get started right away I advise a few things. First, this can be a handy eBook and crash iPhone development course. This course was super beneficial when I was ramping up and the book was solid as well. If you buy the crash course the book gets thrown in at no cost. Also if you like the book in your hands this book named iPhone Development was helpful.




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