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Ask HN: Writing my first iPhone app

10 points by japhyr ↗ HN
I am trying to find a good tutorial to follow for writing my first iPhone app. There are so many things to think about, I'd like a little guidance e on what direction to take.

I have a working prototype written in JavaScript, and I am familiar with C, java, and python. So I don't need a whole bunch of background resources, just a tutorial that runs through building a simple app.

I have found some good tutorials, but many of them date back to 2008-2010. I don't want to work off of something too out of date. Can someone with a good understanding of current best practice recommend a good tutorial?

7 comments

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danielna
Me and a team of 3 others recently completed an iPhone app for the Evernote DevCup (I literally just submitted this link 3 minutes ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4228897). From what the two iOS devs told me, the best resource is the Stanford iOS lectures on iTunes U. They offer lectures as recent as the last semester of classes. Good luck!
japhyr
I'll take a look, but I work much better from written tutorials. Any suggestions?
kyle_martin1
Agreed, the Stanford videos are AWESOME. The professor was actually one writers of Objective-C at NeXt. He explains how most of the major frameworks work and the design decisions behind them which gives you a strong intuition. Honestly, I can't recommend these enough.
ninthfrank07
I personally had tremendous fun following Matthijs Hollemans' tutorials (http://www.raywenderlich.com/store/ios-apprentice).

You can get the first tutorial for free if you sign up for the raywenderlich.com newsletter. It assumes no prior knowledge of iOS or Objective-C and runs you through building a simple game. Then for 54$ you can get the three other tutorials.

The second tutorial shows you step by step how to build a checklist app (using Storyboards).

The third tutorial is about doing a simpler version of Foursquare (using Core Location, Map Kit, the camera and photo library, Core Data and Core Animation).

And in the fourth tutorial you'll learn how to make a clone of the default iTunes app by using the iTunes Store Search API (http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/resources/documentati...) as well as AFNetworking.

japhyr
Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for to get started. It's up to date, and focuses on getting an app working, with just the right balance of theory and application.

I notice this tutorial uses the visual editor in Xcode to place buttons and widgets. Do most experienced iOS developers use the visual editor, or do good developers write the ui code directly?

cnp
Forget ALL of that and use RubyMotion! www.rubymotion.com.

Complete Obj-C - Ruby cross-compatibility. Our entire team switched and we no longer outsource anything, nor deal with 1/2 of the bugs. Best company move of our life.

ssmc
+! for Paul Hegarty's iOS course from Stanford found here: http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application-dev...

Seriously can't go wrong with it. He's ex-apple I believe and was something like the 10th employee or something. IE: One of the makers of Obj-C.

Great lectures packed with tons of demos to get you coding as he talks.

He doesn't do any Cocoas2D stuff though; so if you're looking for games I would go somewhere else.

Ray Wenderlich's site is also a really good resource here: http://www.raywenderlich.com/