These days learning iOS development it’s possible for anyone, especially with the advent of Swift. Great learning resources can be found online, but iOS programming is a broad topic. That’s why you need to expose yourself to the topics of interest and to know where to start.
If you don’t know how to code, you can find many great resources and development tutorials online. If you do, you need to get familiar with Apple’s development tools and guidelines.
The best way to start is with the developer’s guide. Here you will find information on how to build your first app, along with tools you need and concepts and best practices.
- This might be discouraging for those who have little or no experience in programming. Nevertheless, it’s good to learn something about a topics you are not familiar with, as it’s easier to understand what and how you should continue learning.
iOS development is done primarily in Objective C and Swift, and Apple’s IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for iOS apps (and Mac) is Xcode, the graphical interface.
It’s free, and you can download it from Apple’s site. Maybe you have experience in Java or c++ and c# programming and object-oriented languages. If yes, it becomes easier to apply what you already know from one platform and use it in another.
Whether you use Objective C, Swift, or other languages, it’s up to you. However, if you need more information, tutorials or guides to cover the basics you should start with the best resources for learning iOS development.
We have created a list of the best sites and courses to help you start.
Take a look at these great sources for learning iOS development
Learn iOS from tutorials and courses
Introduction to Swift
If you are new to iOS development, this is a good place to start with.
Apple’s Development Videos
Apple provides great resources for learning with video from WWDC, whether about various parts of development, tricks, and tips, or basic tools.
Stanford’s Courses
These classes are probably the best free online courses. This year they released new courses including Swift programming language. The classes cover iOS 8 development, interface design, animation, power management, and more.
Designing great apps
Apple has a set of design and interface guidelines; they have collected great talks from WWDC on a design that will help you get started.
Additionally, check out Apple’s Human Interface Guideline to see how to make a well-designed app. Also, you can check out what Apple is looking for in the design and a guide for designing interface in iOS 8.
Apple’s API
It is good to be familiar with different APIs so you can integrate your app with Apple Pay or HealthKIt, and more. Apple has a set of review guidelines, so you should check App Extensions, HealthKit, HomeKit.
objc.io
A magazine that covers one particular subject with in-depth analysis of technical topics, the best practices, and techniques for OS X and iOS development.
GitHub
A collaboration tool and a go-to place for collaborative work. Share you code with over seven million people, invite beta testers to try your app. Learn how to write better code and more. It’s very easy to link Xcode and make it accessible to other people.
Ry’s Objective-C Tutorial
This book will bring you straight to the point of Objective-C programming language. It’s great for newcomers because the book walks you step by step through each language and explains complex programming concepts on examples.
By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to handle basic language constructs, important techniques, and many of the built-in Objective-C data types like NSArray, NSNumber, and NSDate.
AppCoda
Made for both beginners and advanced developers, this site will give you an opportunity to choose the method you want to learn.
Books or tutorials, it’s your choice. AppCoda believes that everyone can learn programming and build apps even without any prior experience. AppCoda community will help you with any topic, whether is about Core Data basics or language tips and tricks.
And more tutorials…
NSScreencast
On this site, you can get a weekly cup of iOS. Stay up to date with a help of NSScreencast videos that cover large collection of iOS development screencasts. It’s great for the whole team and it’s for people of every skill level. It doesn’t cost much and you can also find free videos.
A Better Way to Learn Swift
Learn everything there is about Swift – from the basic syntax and variables to closures, classes, initializers, functional programming concepts, and more.
With this course, you can become an advanced Swift programmer very fast. This tutorial site evolves and changes as the language is changing, so you don’t have to worry about updates.
Cocoa Dev Central
A little outdated site, but you can still find some useful tips about Objective-C. They have some great tutorials, but check the publishing date as Objective-C is evolving.
iOS Dev Weekly
Receive hot news, development tutorials, tools, design, marketing articles and more about iOS development on a weekly basis in your inbox. Just subscribe to the iOS Dev Weekly newsletter and find information that every iOS programmer needs.
ManiacDev
The base of iOS App dev libraries, controls, tutorials, examples, and tools. The site is a popular source for the iOS developers’ community, it’s updated regularly and offers high-quality content.
Tuts+
This site is a great place to learn iOS SDK development from scratch. It provides how-to tutorials, e-books and articles about iOS development basics – creating the first app, first steps into Foundation and UIKit, how to test your app on an iOS device, and much more.
Udemy
Find a course that fits you the best. Whether you are a beginner or on an advanced level, you will probably find something for you. You can choose between different levels, topics, teachers or length of a course.
Tutorials Point
This tutorial requires basic understanding of any of the programming languages, especially Objective C but it will help you to quickly learn the concepts of iOS programming.
Tutorials Point is great for those who want to dive deeper into programming because the tutorials are broken into single, specific categories, so you can easily find a topic you need.
ASCIIwwdc
This site is a huge timesaver. It will help you learn the language, choose the tools, and frameworks to build interactive apps on the iOS platform. Simply screen text transcriptions and find topics you are interested in.
Apple’s official starting guide
Here you will find all information on how to set up Xcode, about structuring your app, implementing, and finally submitting to the App store.
CocoaPods
The dependency manager for Objective-C and Swift projects with thousands of libraries to help you scale your project.
Take a look at blogs about iOS
Ray Wenderlich’s Tutorials
A great learning blog with many high-quality tutorials on programming. It covers various topics, but you can learn a lot about Objective-C and Swift.
Coding Explorer
This great blog can guide you through the basics and help you stay up to date. The author of the site can perhaps be your role model. He started the blog in 2013 and started to learn iOS at the same time.
Needless to say that he’s an expert today, so you too can learn quickly when you have a good teacher.
Natasha The Robot
Natasha is the robot programmed to love Swift, so you can learn from her. Subscribe to the newsletter or read the blog because you can receive a weekly list of the best Swift resources for you.
iOS-Blog
On this site, you can watch tutorials, ask questions, and read about interesting topics. It covers many subjects, tips, tricks, so you can check it out.
Use Your Loaf
The blog run by an iOS, Mac, and Ruby on Rails developer who can guide you through many different topics. For example, how to write effective Objective-C 2.0, create a CocoaPod, or how to read QR codes, and more.
The categories will help you find the topic you are interested in, and practical examples will help you understand it.
NSCookbook
This interesting site provides information about iOS development in recipe form. If you need to solve some specific problems quickly, NSCookbook is a place for you.
NSHipster
An entertaining weekly journal that documents useful yet overlooked APIs and Objective-C features.
StackOverflow
It’s always good to connect with people through a programmer community and the technical Q&A site.
Why should you combine learning styles?
Whether you are new to programming or iOS development or not, the best for you to learn is to combine learning experiences.
Everyone learns differently and have their learning style.
However, when it comes to programming, learning the same material by reading, talking and discussing with others, watching videos, coding or making assignments is a good way to learn.
What experience do you have with learning iOS development?
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