iPhone Development for Beginners – 2010 Edition

So you want to learn iPhone development. Good for you! It’s an exciting platform with great developer tools and an outstanding community. Let me tell you a bit about the benefits of building an app the right way and show you some great resources to get started.

The most important point: If you want a great application with a user experience you’ll be proud of, build a native application using Apple-blessed developer tools and resources. Apple’s developer tools are outstanding applications and the iPhone frameworks provide useful, battle-tested, mature code that lets you do a lot without reinventing the wheel every time you need to build even basic functionality. Best of all, Apple gives their tools away for free.

Don’t screw around with stuff like PhoneGap or Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone binary whatsit just because it might be a little closer to your comfort zone. You’ll risk writing an application with a library that gets left in the dust when Apple releases a new version of the SDK with great new features. You’ll also risk having your application rejected if Apple decides one morning that the tools you used are accessing private methods, running interpreted code or disrespecting some other element of the SDK agreement. Finally, you’re not going to be working with the same design vocabulary expressed by every popular iPhone application.

With UIKit, Apple hands you an enormous pile of outstanding interface classes that are exceptionally clever, attractive and versatile. They’re yours to build with and do as you please. Thousands of hours of interface coding that you don’t have to do, saving you time and allowing you to write an app with an experience that’s consistent with everything your users will expect on the iPhone.

With Core Data, you get a powerful object modeling framework with built-in persistence. What does that get you? If you’re building an application, you’ve got data. Lots and lots of data, sometimes. You’re going to need a way to define and encapsulate that data so that you can keep track of relationships between different chunks, pass information around the application and store it for later use. This can be tedious, laborious, time-consuming work. Core Data does all of the heavy lifting for you.

For me, those are the biggest freebies you get with approaching iPhone development “the right way.” That barely scratches the surface, though, since Apple provides powerful APIs that let you accomplish drawing, manipulating the filesystem, performing network operations, dead-simple threading, and many other useful things.

Hopefully you’re intrigued. You’ll need to be, especially if you’re starting from scratch. There’s a big chunk of learning you’ll have to do. It’s worth it, though. The iPhone is a really fun platform and there’s something potent about developing for a mobile device that’s always in your pocket.

Find the section that describes you below and proceed from there for my advice on great learning resources.

You’ve never coded anything, ever (or, C-based languages scare you)

Let’s start with C. C is a venerable language with a long history, born in 1972. C is important background to have for iPhone development, since so many Apple APIs use either C or Objective-C, a related language we’ll talk about next.

Luckily, Dave Mark has you covered. Learn C on the Mac assumes no pre-existing experience with any programming language. You’ll get a friendly explanation of everything you need to understand C and the basics of programming. This is ground zero, indispensable knowledge for anyone who is approaching this with no experience. The best part is that Dave has written for someone who will be using Apple’s developer tools, so you’ll be getting a perspective that will be useful for your iPhone efforts a little bit later.

You’re comfortable with programming and C, but not Objective-C

Objective-C is built on top of C, so if you’ve got a basic comfort with programming in C, you’ll have an easy time getting up to speed. Objective-C lets you build object oriented code. Whuzzat? It’s Legos for programming. You can build your own bricks and trade them with friends. Put simply, object oriented programming (OOP) lets you build modular software that maximizes code reuse. Reusing code is good! Chances are, if you solve a problem once in your project, you’ll need that solution again later. OOP lets you easily package up these solutions and deploy them anywhere they’re needed in your code.

Confused? You won’t be after you read Learn Objective-C on the Mac. You’ll learn all the details of how Objective-C works. The book is packed with clear explanations of how to use object-oriented programming and practical exercises to get you comfortable with building useful code in Objective-C. You will not enjoy learning iPhone development without a solid foundation in Objective-C. You’ll get one here. Many lightbulbs will turn on for you.

You understand Objective-C but you’re not yet confident enough to build an app with it

If you feel great about Objective-C and you can’t wait to get started, go on to the next book. If you want to build a little more confidence, it might be worth spending some time practicing with Objective-C and how it interacts with Apple’s Cocoa API. What’s Cocoa? It’s a huge collection of pre-made building blocks you’ll use to build applications. (Not to be confused with Cocoa Touch, which is a version of Cocoa custom-tailored for the iPhone, which you’ll meet later.)

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X is great introduction to Cocoa. You’ll learn about using Objective-C with Cocoa, use Interface Builder to construct some interfaces and walk through plenty of exercises. You even get to play with Core Data. By the first dozen chapters or so, you should be ready to rock. Many of the Cocoa goodies you play with on the desktop will be waiting for you on the iPhone.

You’re comfortable with programming and Objective-C

It’s time to get rolling with the iPhone.

I own several iPhone development books. None is a better, more useful introduction to developing for the platform than Beginning iPhone Development. It’s Dave Mark again, alongside Jeff LaMarche, with everything you need to get started. Beginning iPhone Development is a comprehensive exploration of building software for the iPhone. The authors provide friendly guidance as they break you in gently. You’ll learn how to construct interfaces, master table views, and how to store and load data, even using Core Data. The book is filled with useful, practical exercises that you’ll be able to use for your own projects. Dave and Jeff are great about providing code that is both understandable for learning and yet practical enough to serve as a springboard for solving your own problems in your own apps.

If you’re learning how to develop for the iPhone but you don’t have their book, you’re doing it wrong.

They don’t stop, there, either.

Jeff and Dave’s latest, More iPhone Development, is loaded with meaty chapters on advanced topics. My favorites: several chapters on Core Data (nearly half the book) and an outstanding tutorial on how to use Xcode’s debugging tools.

The breadth and depth of these titles together is unbeatable for a beginner iPhone developer. Between both books, you’ll have answers for most quandaries you’re likely to encounter in your early projects.

On teaching yourself

So how do you use these great learning tools? I’m a passionate, lifetime autodidact. Here’s my advice:

At least one hour, every single day.

The books I’ve described present their content split up into chapters. Read and work through at least one chapter per day. Don’t try to cram it all into a couple of weekends, skimming examples and reading exercises instead of trying them.

Even if you’re starting from the ground up, you can easily get through every single book I’ve described here within three or four months.

You’re setting up your own little school. Make a point of setting a time when your studies begin and end and make a habit of sticking to that schedule. If you have to miss a night of your programming school, give yourself some time to make up for it the next day.

Equipment

Get the PDF eBook editions of the books you need. You can never lose them, forget them at the office, spill coffee on them, whatever. They’re instantly searchable and much easier to work with in a nightly home school setting than paper books. They’re sometimes cheaper than paperbacks, you don’t pay shipping and you can get them instantly via the web. I have a blend of paperbacks and PDFs — I’m much happier with my PDFs, especially when traveling.

If you’re serious about programming, you’re going to need a second monitor as well, unless the one you already have is enormous. One day you’ll have real projects to work with, which means a debugger window, some documentation open at all times, and plenty of other clutter. A second display will make your life manageable. During your programming school, having a second display for your eBooks will make working through your exercises on the main monitor much easier.

Finally, you’ll need a notebook. As you work through books and exercises, make note of the important, central concepts and create lists of basic vocabulary. You’re going to have a lot of new knowledge to sift through. Make it easy on yourself by building your own cheat sheets to reference in the middle of exercises or when you make the jump to the next level of learning. It’s a lot easier to consult your own notes than try to figure out which book had which handy tip.

Start

Just get started. Pick a book, pick a time and start. It’ll be weird at first, especially if you’re new to programming. That’s okay. Wikipedia is close by with a wealth of technical articles on anything you might want to know about. If you have questions and don’t know who to ask, Stack Overflow is filled with knowledgeable (and not so knowledgeable) members who will be eager to point you in the right direction, no matter how specific or arcane the query.

Good luck! This is an exciting time to develop for mobile devices. The iPhone is the most potent and exciting handheld computer ever. You’re going to have a great time — once you get started.

(Note: Apress didn’t sponsor this post or anything but I notice they make up almost all of my recommendations. Kudos to them for hiring outstanding writers who care about relating their wisdom in a clear, enjoyable manner. Their books have great layout and intelligent structure, so they work as well for reference as they do for sequential, hands-on learning. Truly a great publisher who understands the needs of its audience.)

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