Beginning mac software development

Question

i recently downloaded the iphone sdk which came with xcode. what i wanna know from ur experience is that aside from iphone development is app development for mac making any money from anyone? ive been a web developer for a long time and wanna get into software development primarily on apple devices. what type on applications are in demand for mac today? i know that for windows its security apps such as antivirus or firewalls and maybe some other stuff. but what is selling high today on macs or is in great demand?

also can i make mac applications using xcode or do i have to use something else? is objective-c the mac development language or is that only for iphones thnx

Answer 1

Make an application that has a very good user interface, and make sure it does something relatively useful (except if it's a game) and get it noticed. Twitter/mac update. Also make sure that when making a shareware app, make sure the price is right :D

Answer 2

Objective C is the programming language for Mac OS X and the iphone. Apps for both are compiled with Xcode.

I've noticed that objective C has become extremely more popular since the I-phone came out, Meaning not as many people cared about it before it became essential for iphone development. (sources: objective c has recently jumped in language popularity charts, and there are more questions on SO about iphone than there are about mac os x). If you wanted to write an app for mac os x, you could just write it in java or some other cross platform language. It would work, and you wouldn't have to learn a new language. For iphone, apps have to be written in objective C to work at all (besides web apps), giving people a good reason to learn objective C. MORAL: learn how to write iphone apps.

I haven't done any professional mac development, but I would think if you are going to do something in objective C, you need to use the edge that you are using Cocoa and programming for mac natively instead of using a cross platform language, as you'll have far less competition. :D