So you want to become an iOS developer, but you don’t know how? No problem, in this post we will discuss how to do it.
Step 1:Make sure you are passionate about iOS development
I think this is the most important aspect. You cannot become great in an area without being passionate about it.
Of course it’s also possible to become an iOS developer without any passion for it. But it will be very difficult and there will not be a lot of fun. Some things are just very difficult and hard to learn because mobile development is a very difficult area of software engineering. People tend to think that app development is not a big deal, but that’s not true. Mobile apps have to run in a very difficult environment. Compared to normal computers all resources are very limited: CPU performance, memory, internet connectivity and battery life. But on the other hand users expect apps to be very fancy and powerful. So it is indeed very hard to become an iOS developer – and even harder if you don’t have enough of passion for it.
Oh and since you are very passionate about that topic you have of course a Mac – without a Mac you are not able to develop native iOS apps.
Step 2: Learn The Basics
So now it’s time to learn the basics. There are a lot of different ways to learn the basics and everyone will tell you a different way. My favourite way is the following:
First, read a beginner book about iOS development. A very good book is iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. It assumes that you have some programming experience though. If you don’t, you should probably start with Swift Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.
By the way: It is completely okay to focus on Swift only at the beginning! Later you should also learn Objective-C because a lot of existing apps, libraries and resources are written in Objective-C and you should be able to understand all of that stuff. But the main language for an iOS developer should be Swift.
After this you should have already a very good understanding about the basics of iOS development. One warning: There will be a lot of things that you will not understand immediately. That’s completely normal and don’t get depressed because of that! It is absolutely ok to skip certain things at the beginning. You can get back to these things later on.
Step 3: Practice
Well, all those things in Step 2 are just theory. And of course theory is very important. But it’s just one step in the learning process. The most important step in the learning process is practice. So it’s not enough to read a book and to watch a video course. You have to sit in front of your Mac and try it out for yourself! After every chapter of the book and after every lecture of the video course you have to open Xcode and do it for yourself. If you are not doing this, the time is just wasted.
