Getting Started With IPhone Applications Development

By Petr Kudlacek


iPhone applications development leads the way for Apple's booming economy. Gazillions of apps are already available for free & paid downloads on iTunes, and an equally huge number are being developed. Every company & organization in every corner of the world needs an app or apps, and entrepreneurs too are having a field day turning their ideas into apps for online engagement.

It has snowballed into such a big deal that Apple has a huge infrastructure available for developers who need help with creating apps. There's a bit of a learning curve, but it is a methodical process that looks easy after a few attempts. The basic requirements are a MAC loaded with MacOSX, the iOS SDK downloaded from Apple's developer site, and rudimentary knowledge of Objective-C.

iOS SDK is the toolkit that developers use and includes the Interface Builder, XCode and Instruments. XCode is the main development environment where the project is managed. The visual interface with drag & drop modules is provided by the Interface Builder.

The Instruments tool allows developers to analyze and test an app in a simulated environment and on a real device. None of these things need any background or advanced capability, and can be easily learned with a little trial & error. The one thing that does need a bit of background is Objective-C.

It is an ANSI C extension with a few key differences. A more detailed explanation here wouldn't do much good unless the reader was already familiar with object-oriented programming. But does this mean that iPhone applications development can only be done by those who are C and C++ programmers?

Not really, since most of the coding is done by the Interface Builder and all the developer has to do is drag and drop pre-configured blocks. But it's important to at least be able to understand the logic and syntax of C programming. A few days of study wouldn't hurt at all.




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