Kick start your iOS development

How many times I've got this question: "What do you need to get started in iOS apps development?". Well, this blog post will try to give a broad answer in a "point form" style.

First, these requirement categories are:

• Personal DNA
• Personal skills
• Hardware
• Apple tools and services
• Training
• Software tools
• Services
• Other tips

Personal DNA

• Eager to learn
• Willing to sacrifice
• Not afraid to fail
• Passionate

Personal skills

• Being familiar with a programming language is a big plus.
• Knowledge of computer data structures is also a big plus.
• Knowledge of web services could be a plus depending of your ideas and projects.
• Design awareness is a must. If you don't care about user interface design and beautiful software, here is a tip: go develop for Android. And I'm not joking. 
• Healthy network of people (you'll need some help at some point, or beta testers and those who will help you get the word out about your fantastic application.)
• Experience with graphic design tools (like Pixelmator, Photoshop) could help you create mockups or user interface graphical elements.
• Know the competition, spend a lot of time surfing the App Store to get a feeling of the trends, your competition, etc.

Hardware

• Any Intel-based Mac (beware if you buy a used one, make sure it is powered buy an Intel processor) with at least 3 gigs of ram, lot of disk space. Could be a Mac mini by the way. Very nice machine for dev. 
• A big screen (Xcode love to spread itself), specially Xcode 4. 
• At least one development device like an iPhone or iPod touch.

Apple's tools and services

• Get into Apple's Developer Program for iOS (if you want to publish on the App Store this is mandatory, otherwise, just to play with iOS development, it isn't). 
• Submit your banking information to Apple for electronic payments.
• Download Xcode and install on your machine it is free if you are a registered developer. If you want to try it out without being a registered developer, you can get it on the Mac App Store for 4.99$.

Training

• Look for Jeff Lamarche's books with Google and buy them all.
• Look for podcasts on iTunes, quite a few are very well done and educating. If you are a registered developer, you can download past Apple's WWDC conference videos from iTunes U. 
• Look for StandFord University's courseware on iTunes U. (iTunes U link)

Software tools

• To Do list manager like Remember The Milk on the web (also includes iPhone app). Very good idea to have a tool like this to keep track of things to do. 
• Prototyping tools like Apple's Keynote or iMockups HD for iPad, a great prototyping tool but another one is Blueprint for iPad from www.groosoft.com, THE best prototyping tool for iOS apps.
• LittleSnapper from RealMacSoftware to get snap shots of your app.
• ScreenFlow from Telestream.net to build nice video screencast of your app.
• Pixelmator from www.pixelmator.com to build graphical elements of the app user interface.
• Sketch can also be used to build UI elements if you like to work in vector-based mode.
• Look on the Mac App Store for software like iConify or iOS Icons (to build versions of required icons for all resolution), Status Barred (to remove status bar from screen shot of your app as required by Apple). 

iPhone Apps

Here are my iOS apps that I'm using on the go that helps me as an iOS developer. 

• Apple's iTunes Connect Mobile: to get access to sales report from Apple's iTunes connect. Not very well done if you ask me. You must be a member of the iOS Developer Program in order to download this app. You won't find it on the public App Store.
• Remember The Milk: manage your tasks on the go. Sync with the web service is a paid service at www.rememberthemilk.com.
• Ego: provides a quick look at statistics on twitter followers, RSS feed subscribers.
• Analytics: complete access to Google's Analytics services that you can link to an application's promotion web site.
• Analytix: kind of the same as Analytics but with a different twist, provides a yesterday /  today comparison of visitors count, page views count.
• Statistics: provides access on the go to any WordPress's web site analytics. 
• Stat Fever: great access to a FeedBurner's analytics.
• MailChimp: if you use this service to send mail to your users, provides analytics access on campaigns. 
• TestFlight (webclip): get access from your device to a new build of beta software from other devs or your own adhoc builds. A complete review of this service: Building iPhone Apps: TestFlightApp: a complete review
• Swish: if you design yourself your apps, spend some times on Dribbble web site to have a look of graphic designers best work. You'll get inspiration there. Why not do that on the go!
• appTrends: the only mobile client to the very complete sales analytics www.appfigures.com
• PositionApp: get a feel of how your apps are doing in iTunes' ranking. Not always accurate as this service lag quite a long time behind actual ranking (AppFigures is better at this!).

Services
Once your apps are ready for sale on the App Store, some other tools and services you'll need. 

• To promote your app, you need a web presence and for that you need a domain name hosting service like www.godaddy.com
• To actually build a web presence, you need a web hosting service like www.fatcow.com.
• If you don't use a web publishing platform like WordPress, then go with basic web editing tool like Apple's iWeb or RapidWeaver.
• You may use the hosting company's email service to get email addresses for your user community to get in touch with you or simply go with gmail.com.
• File hosting for some of blog posts containing files to download: some on MobileMe's iDisk or www.dropbox.com
• Apple's Keynote for user interface prototyping and many user interface elements.
• Google Analytics for my blog statistics.
• Google Feedsburner to manage the blog's RSS feed and stats.
• To get a beautiful view of a web site analytics, try www.gosquared.com.
• Dribbble graphic designers community. Wow. This is incredible the quality of designs that you can find there.
• www.appfigures.com will take care of processing iTunes Connect sales reports and provide nice graphics on sales and comment management. See my review of this service here: Building iPhone Apps: Comparing appFigures and AppAnnie - Updated
• www.mailchimp.com is a great service to help create email campaign for marketing purposes. Very well done service.
• www.observerapp.com for a better looking view of a web site using Google Analytics.
• www.testflightapp.com to beta test your applications with a lot of people. You can read my complete review of this great service: TestFlightApp: a complete review and also Conclusions on my first open beta under TestFlightService.

Other tips

• Get inspiration from Pttrns: http://pttrns.com/, a very useful site about current trend is various areas of application functionality like login screen, list views, etc. You don't want to miss this. 
• Get inspiration from Mobile UI Patterns, similar to Pttrns.
• Another interesting blog post on the same matter: What Do I Need To Start Making iPhone, iPad or Mac Apps?
• Another great tool to learn merging graphic design and programming is Design then code web site create by Mike Rundle. You won't be disappointed.

If you know about great resources for starters, please share with others in the comment section. 

Comments

[iPhone Application Developers in India Blog]

Your post is very informative and more interesting. I like it very much and it is more useful for me to develop the applications.