Starting iPhone Development

Question

I'm soon going to be starting some iPhone Development (3.0) building a simple app that communicates with a web service and uses push notification.

My objective-c is pretty much non-existent but I've already got some good information from this question and also from Apples development centre.

Basically if you've developed with the iPhone before what caveats/hints/pitfalls/tips/etc could you recommened in general?

Cheers Tony

Answer 1

Get "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass" and go through the first half of the book. Get "Beginning iPhone Programming" after that and pay the $99 so you can run apps on your phone. There are a lot of design patterns in Objective C that are strange to begin with, but as you work more with them, they make sense.

One of the best things I found in the Hillegass book is his advice in the introduction: "assure yourself that you are not stupid and some things are hard".

Answer 2

I agree, Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass is a great book to learn Cocoa, and it covers Obejctive-c nicely, but if you really want to KNOW the language, I would recommend: Programming in Objective-C 2.0: http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Objective-C-2-0-Developers-Library/dp/0321566157

Both are fantastic books and nicely complement eachother.

Its very important to remember that other people are having a hard time learning Cocoa too. Reading Aaron's book is a fantastic way to start. Reading source code is also another great way. THere is some open source iPhone projects (for example: wordpress), and there a bunch for OS X. Read what other people are doing so you can get the flow of an application. I found that to be the hardest part about learning (especially the Cocoa part).

Answer 3

I had great success getting started by diving into the Apple developer guides. I read the following:

• Apple Objective-C guide, a good place to learn the basics
• Apple Cocoa Fundamentals Guide
• Apple iPhone Application Programming Guide

Spend time looking over the various examples, read the code, make changes, etc. Apple also has many good examples (outside the books) that you can learn a great deal from.

I also write developer tips and suggestions that I come across as I develop iPhone apps.