Swift iOS 24-Hour Trainer

Lesson 1

Hello iOS!

Hello and welcome to the exciting world of iOS application development. iOS is Apple's operating system for mobile devices; the current version at the time of this writing is 8.0. It was originally developed for the iPhone (simply known as iPhone OS back then), and was subsequently extended and renamed in June 2010 to iOS to support the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

At its core, iOS is Unix-based and has its foundations in MacOS X, which is Apple's desktop operating system. In fact, both iOS and MacOS X share a common code base. As new versions of mobile operating systems have appeared, Apple has brought over more functionality from MacOS X. This is part of Apple's strategy to bridge the difference between desktop and mobile computing.

With the launch of version 8.0, Apple has not only pushed the boundaries on what is achievable on smart phones and tablet computers, but has also given us a brand new programming language called Swift. This book covers iOS development with Swift only, but at the time of this writing, it is possible to create iOS applications with both the older language Objective-C as well as Swift.

This lesson introduces you to the arena of iOS development.

iOS Developer Essentials

Before you get started on your journey to becoming an iOS developer, you will need some essential resources. This section covers these basic requirements.

A Suitable Mac

To develop apps for the iPhone and the iPad using the official set of tools provided by ...