As the title says have you got any available resource to start developing for iPhones?
Books, Online resources, tools, development environment, pre-requisites and everything is related to iPhone programming will be good!
Thanks
Assuming you are a beginner, for books, this list is a good place to start
http://cocoadevblog.com/objective-c-cocoa-iphone-programming-books
Apple and Stanford have a free class in iTunes that you can download and follow along. It is taught by Apple engineers to beginners.
http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/iphone-application-development/id384233225
Finally apple has a wealth of reference and tutorial type information.
http://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action
It depends on what your looking into doing. But the developer site always has lots of examples and all of the methods/class/references you can use.
http://developer.apple.com/
Of course you can always post questions or search them on google/stackoverflow.
If your looking for like books, you can check out the public library. Free books for reference are always good.
I just recently started programming for iPhone as well so I can pass on the resources that have helped me immensely.
eBooks:
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Objective-C_2.0_Essentials
http://www.techotopia.com/index.php/IPhone_iOS_4_Development_Essentials_Xcode_4_Edition
Tutorials:
http://www.raywenderlich.com/
The eBooks I have linked are both absolutely fantastic and one of the few xCode 4.0 books that I was able to find that seemed to be of an actual usable quality. They both contain easy to follow and clear tutorials on simple and more advanced aspects of programming for iOS.
Ray's site is an immensely helpful resource as it contains both a very active forum base for iOS programming in addition to a constantly growing tutorial collection as there are 4-5 people that constantly are creating new tutorials that the community votes on and suggests every week. It contains some more advanced topics than the above books and I would recommend looking at it after doing a few walk through/tutorials from the books.
You are also on a pretty good site already for clarifying questions you cannot find covered elsewhere :D
Best of luck!
-Karoly
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Please put the great sites for learning objective c, essential things to iphone apps, UI codings like this with examples and codings....
Thanks....
I would recommend downloading the Stanford University videos using iTunesU in iTunes. Very informative and the course data and downloads are still available on Stanford's website.
The course page is here http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/
The videos are free in iTunes.
Apple's iOS Dev Center may be the most useful online all-in-one resource that you can find.
They provide coding how-to's, getting started videos, sample code, and other such general resources, combined with all of the technical knowledge (SDKs, reference libraries, etc.) that you'll eventually need.
In the very beginning I used resources from the Stanford University videos and then read some of the official iOS guides and references. Then I started working on an app project and tailored my learning around that. It's very difficult to learn all of iOS programming in one go without working on a project because the API is a lot to digest.
Once you've learned some of the iOS programming lingo, I would go ahead and use stackoverflow and the official developer forums to search for specific examples and solutions to the problem you are having while building your app.
Learn by doing!
Video tutorials are a good way to learn objective C. But i would suggest that at a initial stage it can help you but when you go deeper inside into programming want to play with objective C you should opt some time to look into the Apples Documentation. Apple's Documentation provides everything .
Dont miss thier Sample Code also.
Is there any iPhone development community blogs where a user can create an account and start blogging to get more exposure?
There is iDevBlogADay where you can get added exposure for your blog posts, at least to fellow developers.
There's iPhone Dev SDK. It doesn't QUITE match what you asked for, however there is a forum where you can do "shameless advertising" and stuff like that
I have been programming in Microsoft Dot net for the past 4 years. Now, I want to develop an iPhone application. I have no idea where to start. I do not know anything about MAC OSX or any other Apple "words":). Searches on the google about books and online articles fetch a lot of results which is confusing. It would be great if anybody can share their beginner's experience. Thank You.
I've learn all about iPhone programming with this great book: Beginning iPhone 3 Development.
I found it surprisingly easy to pick up. The Apple dev center includes a lot of sample code, and because it's the programming language du jour, there's a lot of forum links and StackOverflow questions about it, as well as plenty of people looking to answer new questions.
It's pretty satisfying to do too, if you've never done mobile development before.
Get yourself a machine and download XCode, the supplied Apple IDE. It's a bit lamer than Eclipse right now, but the new version which is on the verge of release looks much better. Grab yourself access to the developer center (which is worth the investment) and build a simple App or two. Get to know Interface Builder first, because you may not have worked with things like this before.
There are some idiosyncracies in the syntax and whatnot, but you get used to it pretty fast. And then come here and ask more questions. :)
I just ran through this tutorial to get familiar with XCode and Interface Builder.
Then joining a local group about it should be helpful - I'm a member of the Iphone London Users Group and chats with other developers is the most useful tool I have to find out how to do things.
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Addition: Think it's worth having a look at this again as a number of new books have/are being released with updates to iOS 4 and the inclusion of iPad programming.
OK, I have read a number of posts regarding iPhone development books, Cocoa and Objective-C. The general consensus seems to lead to one of four books.
Kochan's Objective-C book.
Hilleglass' Cocoa book.
The pragmatic programmers iPhone SDK development book.
And Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche.
I've also added in the following:
iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
I'm looking for advice on which two to buy in order to get started. I'm looking firstly to get a better understanding of Objective-C. Which two books would compliment each other?
I have a background in Java, with NO Objective-C experience and NO C or C++ experience either.
Firstly, I'd like to get a good idea of the layout and structure of objects and certain data types - obviously it's worth keeping in mind a lot of this will be similar to that of Java. Concepts like pointers and garbage collection are completely new to me.
Kochan
C - primitives, structs, etc.
Objective-C - Foundation framework
Compiler - pre-processor, macros, directives
BNR iPhone Programming Guide
Shares material from the Cocoa Book on core concepts like Objects and Delegation etc.
Covers Navigation, TableViews, Tab Bars which are critical to iPhone development.
In both books, every line of code in the sample projects are listed and explained in detail allowing you to type out the code (follow the bouncing ball anyone?), make mistakes, then correct them, which is critical to the learning process.
Programming in Objective-C 2.0 by Stephen Kochan for the foundation, The iPhone Developer's Cookbook by Erica Sadun for additional badassery. I learned more from Erica's book than any other source.
Some of this will depend on your familiarity with Objective-C and it's API's.
Having said that, the Hilleglass Cocoa book and the Dave Mark book are both excellent (especially the Dave Mark book). I haven't read the Big Nerd Ranch book yet, but these two are 'must haves'. Dave Mark's book puts every other book on programming for the iPhone to shame.
In addition to those you probably want to take a hard look at 'Cocoa Design Patterns' by Erik Buck and 'Programming in Objective-C 2.0' by Stephen Kochan. The Cocoa API's are heavily influenced by Design Patterns and understanding how to use them as well as the language semantics will go a long way.
You may want to add a couple of specific books on some of the Cocoa API's as well, specifically Core Data and Core Animation. Understanding Core Data very well will change your coding abilities forever. The best book on that subject is the Pragmatic one by Marcus Zarra.
Having more then a couple of books is always a good thing... ;-)
I've read through parts of the new Hillegass iPhone development book (not his older Cocoa book) at the bookstore, and my impression of it is that it's great, even for someone with not as much Mac development experience, but it works at a fast pace and is very terse. With prior Java experience, you're obviously a coder by background, so you may appreciate that, but he doesn't linger that much.
If you're only buying 2 books, I wouldn't buy a Cocoa/Mac one specifically. Stick with Objective-C and iPhone development in particular. While a lot of the Cocoa concepts exist in UIKit/Cocoa Touch on the iPhone, no point in learning things you can't apply on the iPhone. You can always pick up Mac development too once you've gotten the hang of Objective-C and iPhone development.
I'm reading Beginning iPhone Development right now and really like it. Most iPhone development books provide a good enough Objective-C intro that I wouldn't even recommend a dedicated book on it. You can learn the rest through online research, especially Apple docs. As a second book, I'd recommend Erica Sadun's iPhone Developer's Cookbook, since there's a lot of bang for your buck in the 1,000 page edition.
Also take a look at Craig Hockenberry's iPhone Development: The Missing Manual. He's the author of Twitterific, and his approach is to go through the entire design and development process for a souped up flashlight app, from start to the end. It covers design considerations that the other books don't, but to time, since they switch between a lot of smaller sample apps.
It really depends on your learning habit.
If you are the learn-by-examples type, go for:
Beginning iPhone Development by Dave Mark (Author), Jeff LaMarche
The iPhone Developer's Cookbook by Erica Sadun
the above two will get you start on some real world projects fast.
If you are the read-all-before-hands-on type, go for:
Apple docs, and save yourself a few bucks
I found it a bit strange to start a question with a criteria of 2 books. Every book mentioned in your list is money well spent. You won't regret to buy them all. Besides, the Stanford course videos is also good for beginners, not a book though.
If you do not have C or Objective-C background I would suggest to start with "Learn C on the Mac"(Mark) followed by "Learn Objective-C on the Mac"(Dalrymple,Knaster) and then "Beginning iPhone 3 Development"(Mark,LaMarche), all by Apress. If you really want to nail it down to two books leave off "Learn C", because you might only really need C, when you start diving deeper into Core Foundation.
I do not know Kochans Objective-C book, so I can't compare, but coming from a different language you should really have a book about only Objective-C. The introductionary chapters in some iPhone books may be sufficient to get you starting, but to advance you'll need to know about all the possibilities of the language.
I personally would not suggest "The iPhone Developer's Cookbook" by Erica Sadun to learn coding for iPhone, although I use it as quick reference quite sometimes.
At least, buy Hillegass's book. I haven't seen the iPhone one; the one for OS X is just fantastic.
I'm not sure about the second book to buy.
I prefer Learn Objective-C on the Mac than Kochan if you know c already.
Beginning iPhone 3 Development Exploring the iPhone SDK is a pretty good tutorial to iPhone development. Many others are good too.
Hilleglass all the way.
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I'm a web developer and I'm getting envious of all the cool iPhone apps. I know nothing about C or what ever language they use to make iPhone apps. I really have no idea where to start. What do I need to do? Should I take a class, buy a book? I have a pretty good grasp on programing, I do tons of HTML, CSS and Javascript development and some PHP and Action Scripting. I'm not very good with Object Oriented Programing but I think I could pick it up if I used it more. I love video tutorials like lynda.com or net.tutsplus.com. I learn best buy jumping in and getting my hands dirty.
By far the best book I read on beginning iPhone development is called just that, Beginning iPhone Development. Very easy to read and takes you from a total beginner to reasonably competent. Check it out: http://apress.com/book/view/1430216263
I should also mention that every chapter has you jumping in and doing practical work. Most of the time you enter some code, get it running, and then go through it to understand it.
I haven't really looked into iPhone development at all. But as far as I know you can create a normal web app that can be accessed from the phone.
So depending on what you want to do, you could use your existing skills to make web apps specifically targeted at the iPhone.
Otherwise, if you want to develop an app, then Objective-C is the language the iPhone uses.
As far as I know you have to have to develop any apps on a Mac if you want them to go into the apple store. There are possibly a few other restrictions as well that you would have to look into if you want to publish the app that way.
You may start by some online videos as you love video tutorials, the Stanford course is one of the best.
Then you can pick up a book or two.
If you still feel comfortable after that, you may start a real project and ask questions on StackOverflow along the journey ;-)
Enjoy~
You sound just like me!
The first step is to know what iPhone apps are programmed in, which is Objective-C, an object-oriented version of C. Basically, Objective-C is how you write for the Cocoa API (which is the preferred API for all things OS X).
Personally, I say write really great web apps that have style/scripting for when the user is viewing from their iPhone. Here are some sites with that in mind:
iui - css for iPhones
iwebkit - general framework
PastryKit - js framework for iphones
Learning iPhone programming and Objective-C programming at the same time will be daunting. If you're serious about getting into this, I recommend you start by learning C on the command-line, then advance to Objective-C GUI apps on the desktop, then eventually move to the iPhone.
If you want to short-cut the process, there are plenty of join-the-dots tutorials online and a whole bunch of iPhone programming books targeted at different levels of experience, but you'll need to be pretty tenacious; the online stuff is of extremely variable quality and there will be a lot of cursing and hair-pulling. I have almost 20 years of C and C++ under my belt, but I still lost a lot of sleep getting up to speed.
Don't be discouraged, though; it is extremely gratifying to finally get something up on the app store and see people enjoying it.
If you really want to know how to make a good iPhone app, don't take shortcuts. Leave all of the intermediate products out and forget about just wrapping a website up in a UIWebView. Learning how to do it the right way will make you a better, more well-rounded programmer.
Since you don't know much C or Objective-C, I'd recommend reading Programming in Objective-C 2.0 by Stephen Kochan. It's a great book for going from no C experience to learning Objective-C. It also includes some iPhone-specific stuff.
Check out Jonathan Starks book on iphone apps. He shows how to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript to make iphone apps. You can distribute them from a server or use phonegap to convert them to native apps (legally!). This is probably the first direction to look into to leverage your existing skills.
http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/
Like so many has written already. Start by learning Objective C. Here is a great list of resources updated regularly. The comments are really helpful.
http://iphoneresources.aribraginsky.com/
The resources covers both Object-C and iPhone programming. Sections can be found various topics like game programming, twitter, etc.
If you are serious about this, your first step is to buy an Intel based Macintosh. They all come with Xcode (the developer tool) on a DVD.
Then you can seriously think about learning Objective-C and there are many good suggestions about that already here.
Stanford has their iPhone development courses on iTunesU but if you aren't good at Object Oriented programming then you are going to struggle with Obj-C.
Personally I would suggest learning Java to pick up the OO fundamentals first and then looking into Obj-C programming.