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The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

writings.withoutfriction.com

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Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#11

Post by transmit101 »

marksu wrote: post #8

Yes – programming is fun to hop into, but just a heads up: the most difficult process to learn and master is the marketing and promotion part of releasing an app. I feel that two blog posts linked in this article touches this subject in an interesting way: http://struct.ca/2010/the-story-so-far/ and http://blog.endloop.ca/blog/2010/08/12/100k-in-4-months-a-ni... That said, I would recommend Corona - http://www.anscam…

Really not sure I agree with that. Coding is tough, and in my experience developing iOS apps well (and Cocoa apps in general to a lesser extent) is one of the most difficult forms of programming.

And as for marketing and promotion, I'd say even more challenging is coming up with an idea which doesn't need marketing or promotion :)

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#12

Post by rimantas »

stevederico wrote: post #7

The Stanford iTunes U Courses should not be overlooked. They do a great job of taking you from crawling to running in no time. I enjoyed doing the homework too, it really increased my learning experience. Winter 2010- http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/iphone-application-devel... Spring 2009- http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/iphone-application-progr... Spring 2011 (Starting Soon)- http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs…

I think you missed the best one—Fall 2010 http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/developing-apps-for-ios-hd/... Downloads: http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/download...

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#13

Post by xsltuser2010 »

withoutfriction wrote: post #6
xsltuser2010 wrote: post #4

Is there a similar resource for Android ? I don't currently own one, but this kind of writeup would be helpful to estimate the effort to get into developing first things for it..

If this guide stays popular on HN for a bit, I will strongly consider (read: will) research it and write one up.

Oh that's nice. Looking forward to reading it.

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#14

Post by program »

drpancake wrote: post #9

Coming from Python, web development and Android, I found interface Builder to be the trickiest part of iOS to learn. The way it instantiates some of your classes requires you to build up a really odd mental model; I still don't fully understand it after a couple of months. You're welcome to do it all in code, but it seems to be discouraged by many.

Model View Controller is an odd mental model? It's quite popular right now and I think that it's the best pattern for decoupling user interfaces from the underlying code.

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#15

Post by drpancake »

program wrote: post #14
drpancake wrote: post #9

Coming from Python, web development and Android, I found interface Builder to be the trickiest part of iOS to learn. The way it instantiates some of your classes requires you to build up a really odd mental model; I still don't fully understand it after a couple of months. You're welcome to do it all in code, but it seems to be discouraged by many.

Model View Controller is an odd mental model? It's quite popular right now and I think that it's the best pattern for decoupling user interfaces from the underlying code.

MVC is fine. It's the way that your controllers are instantiated by a NIB that I find odd. It's too magical for me.

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#16

Post by cpr »

drpancake wrote: post #15
program wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Model View Controller is an odd mental model? It's quite popular right now and I think that it's the best pattern for decoupling user interfaces from the underlying code.

MVC is fine. It's the way that your controllers are instantiated by a NIB that I find odd. It's too magical for me.

It's exactly the opposite of magical: you're simply building objects in IB that are "live" while you're building them and that then are freeze-dried when you save the file, and reconstituted at runtime.

It's certainly magical in the sense that it's a beautiful way to do things. ;-)

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#17

Post by guelo »

The fine print for new iOS devs:

If you succeed in overcoming all of the obstacles ahead of you and actually create a worthwhile app on Apple's platform their is a good chance they will screw you over without warning or explanation by blocking your app, yanking your app, changing the rules, calling you a pornographer, randomly charging you new fees, prohibiting whatever it is your app does, changing the hardware you're allowed to use, changing the software you're allowed to use, and many other ways that seem impossibly outrageous right now until it actually happens.

Invest your time and money at your own risk. You've been warned.

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#18

Post by cmaggard »

guelo wrote: post #17

The fine print for new iOS devs: If you succeed in overcoming all of the obstacles ahead of you and actually create a worthwhile app on Apple's platform their is a good chance they will screw you over without warning or explanation by blocking your app, yanking your app, changing the rules, calling you a pornographer, randomly charging you new fees, prohibiting whatever it is your app does, changing the hardware you'…

Man, there's all these things standing in the way of success! I'd better not even try.

Come on, seriously? There's risk involved in pretty much every venture, and you can't exactly control the actions of outside entities. If I kept avoiding tasks because there was a chance of it being screwed over by someone else, I'd never get anything done.

Re: The Complete Guide for Starting iPhone and iOS Development

#19

Post by Zev »

guelo wrote: post #17

The fine print for new iOS devs: If you succeed in overcoming all of the obstacles ahead of you and actually create a worthwhile app on Apple's platform their is a good chance they will screw you over without warning or explanation by blocking your app, yanking your app, changing the rules, calling you a pornographer, randomly charging you new fees, prohibiting whatever it is your app does, changing the hardware you'…

Been doing iOS dev for a few years, friends with many others who have been doing the same. Sometimes things suck. But, not usually. How is this any different from relying on Google to "guarantee" a base minimum to dev against… that seems to be ignored by handset makers

All platforms have downsides.

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