Learning to develop OSX apps

Barks

Barks

Barks

Soldato
Joined
20 Jul 2008
Posts
4,467
Hi guys

Can anyone advise how long it would take me to learn how to develop simple apps for OSX?

I don't work in IT and studied Economics at Uni but as a youngster I learnt Visual/QBasic to quite an advanced level and at present have a reasonable understanding of PHP. No, I'm not a programming expert but I do have some grass roots experience of coding.

I couldn't sleep last night and was thinking about this because there are quite a few Apps I would love to see developed on my phone and if a couple of hours over the next few months is enough to get me at a stage where I can code them then this would be fantastic.

Feel free to kill the dream if realistically it would take me months and months of 8-12 hours a day type stuff to master :D

Cheers
 
I assume that you mean iOS rather than OSX? iPhones and iPads run iOS, Macs run OSX.

Starting from scratch isn't easy but there's so much help available online. Just Google something like 'beginning iOS development' and you'll find lots of great resources.

You'll need to have a basic understanding of Objective-C and general object orientated programming first. It's an odd language but at least it's consistently odd.

As long as you've got a Mac, there's no harm in having a go. Give the tutorials a whirl, ask questions on StackOverflow when you get stuck and be prepared to spend a decent chunk of time on it.
 
I think what Barks is saying is that he wants to learn to develops apps for iOS, using a Mac which runs OS X.

Which is exactly what I've been thinking of doing for the last few days. There's a simple app I want for my iPhone which doesn't currently exist and I'm considering signing up for the developer program at $99 and seeing if I can do it.
 
Barks said:
Hi guys

Can anyone advise how long it would take me to learn how to develop simple apps for OSX?
Click to expand...

As far as programming languages go Objective-C isn't especially difficult, it's just that many things really aren't that well documented; bindings still cause me to regularly scratch my head. But there are plenty of books/tutorials that will teach you the basics.

Feek said:
I think what Barks is saying is that he wants to learn to develops apps for iOS, using a Mac which runs OS X.

Which is exactly what I've been thinking of doing for the last few days.
Click to expand...

You don't need to sign up for the developer program to create apps, you just need a copy of Xcode. You can run the apps in the simulator and join the developer program if/when you decide your ready and need to sign your device and later upload to the App Store.
 
Feek said:
I think what Barks is saying is that he wants to learn to develops apps for iOS, using a Mac which runs OS X.

Which is exactly what I've been thinking of doing for the last few days. There's a simple app I want for my iPhone which doesn't currently exist and I'm considering signing up for the developer program at $99 and seeing if I can do it.
Click to expand...

You can code without a developer program though so you could develop your app then keep running it in the emulator until you are happy.

The one thing that the developer program does help with is the guides and assistance you can get from the developers forum.
 
Sorry guys I wasn't thinking clearly, I meant IOS Apps.

Thanks for the response once I've sorted this ghastly problem I'm dealing with (see my thread in Hardware) I'll have a gander.

Cheers
 
Developing apps for iOS might seem like a good idea, but there a lot of pitfalls for an inexperienced programmer. I do rate Xcode over Android Studio or any of the other Android IDEs, though Java is easier to get into than Objective C at first until you understand all the weird idioms and syntax it has.
 
The app I have in mind is a simple conversion thing. Punch in one number, it does some calculations in the background and gives a result, either in metres or feet.

Nothing fancy so I'm hoping it will be simple to do.
 
It depends how much experience you have developing, and if you understand basic concepts like object oriented development, MVC, and a few other simple development concepts. If you do then I would recommend start with watching the Stanford university course on iOS development, I have recently started watching it (I'm a web dev but branching out) and it is amazing, they have one built around iOS7 which is even better as you get to pick up on the latest things.

The course has you making a simple app to match cards at first which can be great. It is free and found on iTunes-U.
 
I have Xcode now, freshly downloaded from the app store. I see a steep learning curve ahead.
 
I've been teaching a friend with no prior development experience since late november last year. It's one of those things that takes a bit of time, there is no magic or fairy dust involved, just a bit of hard graft and determination.

You should check out the new video's on the Ray Wenderlich tutorial site, they are very well put together and when you are finished with those you can go though the 300 other tutorials he has on the site http://www.raywenderlich.com/videos
 
Fallen god said:
Check out iTunes U Stanford iOS7 development course, it goes through everything and the lecturer is pretty good.
Click to expand...

I'm half way through the first lecture.

I'm not sure if down the line I'm going to get stuck though as he makes a point about the prerequisites. I've got basic experience with MVC when I tried to build a CMS last year.
 
Fallen god said:
Check out iTunes U Stanford iOS7 development course, it goes through everything and the lecturer is pretty good.
Click to expand...

Went through these courses last year (or the similar course for IOS) and they are very well laid out. There is also a course on there just for Objective C in general that will come in handy as it then focuses more on mac applications rather than IOS although the core of objective C is the same.
 
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