How to Make an iPhone App
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Anthony saw my call for screencasters, and stepped up to the plate. He has created an amazing tutorial for all of you would-be iPhone devs out there! In this screencast, he will show you how to get started, and walk you through creating a simple iPhone App of your very own! It’s not too late for you to submit a screencast to be uploaded to our channels. Click on the link at the beginning of this description for more information.
First, you’ll need to head over to Apple’s Dev Center and download the SDK. This includes the Xcode IDE, iPhone simulator, and a suite of additional tools for developing applications for iPhone and iPod touch. You do not need to buy a developer account – you can use a free one to start with. If you are interested in submitting something to the App Store at some point, you can then look at the membership options.
To create a new iPhone application, you start by creating a new project in Xcode. A project manages all of the information associated with your application, including the source files, build settings, and rules needed to put all of the pieces together. The Groups and Files list is where you manage the files in your project, including your source files and the build targets that are created from those source files. The toolbar gives you access to commonly used tools and commands while the details pane provides a configurable space for working on your project.
The Interface Builder is the next component you will need. It’s the tool that you’ll use to make your App user interface. Using this tool, you’ll assemble your App’s window by dragging and dropping preconfigured components into it. These include standard things like switches, text fields and buttons. Once you put them on the window’s surface, you can move them around, configure them and establish how these interact with your code.
The iPhone Simulator is used to test your App, so that you don’t have to use an actual iPhone. This will save you a load of time, and is very easy to use.
It’s not as difficult to create an iPhone App as you may have thought. With patience and time, anyone can learn how to do these. Once you create something unique that others may want to have, you’ll be able to start earning money on the App Store.
Thanks to Anthony for the excellent tutorial… and good luck to all of you budding iPhone developers!
- iPhone SDK Development (The Pragmatic Programmers)
- iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual
- iPhone SDK 3 Programming: Advanced Mobile Development for Apple iPhone and iPod touch (Wiley)
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3 Comments
Charles Thompson
November 20th, 2009
at 11:54pm
Wow! I’ve wanted to build one for a while… this make so much sense!
Essay Beats
November 21st, 2009
at 12:38am
This was a good ScreenCast. For future reference, it’s best to show right away before explaining what the app is that you are gonna show…
So that when you explain, it’s easier to understand while you explaining what you’re referencing to.
Because i was un-sure what the app was intended to do, while you were showing how to write it, it would have been alot easier to understand (and you did a great job at teaching, this is just a helpful tip to make it even better), if you had showed what the app does, then you can refference back to what the user saw to understand what the code is leading to.
Just a suggestion.
-Essay
Sebastien Temmerman
November 22nd, 2009
at 6:35am
Wow this is a great tutorial. You got your 5 stars from me :D and I subscribed immediately to your channel.
Keep up the good work!