Professional Mobile Application Development

Chapter 7

Getting Started with iOS

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• History of iOS
• Getting an iOS development setup
• Objective-C Basics
• iOS Project Basics
• Implementing the Derby App

This chapter is not intended to make you an expert iOS/Objective-C/Cocoa Touch developer; it’s intended to give you an idea of what it takes to create a mobile application on the iOS platform. In our everyday interaction with developers, we have found that many developers dread learning Objective-C, the native language used to create iOS applications. At technical conferences, we have often sat in on beginning-level sessions on how to develop iOS applications, where the presenter has said, “This is very difficult, you don’t want to do it.” We have no idea why some of the developer community thinks this way. Code is code (unless you are working with a functional language, but that’s a topic for a different day). Learning a new programming language/framework takes time and a bit of passion — if you are reading this book, we have no doubt in our mind that you can obtain some more Objective-C resources and have what you need to become an Objective-C developer.

THE IPHONE CRAZE

The first iPhone was revealed at the Mac World conference in early January 2007, and later released in June of that year. Initially, third-party native applications were not allowed. Apple executives argued that developers could build web (HTML/CSS) applications that would behave like native iPhone apps. Developers pushed back, and in October ...