iOS How to get into the "iPhone programming" state of mind.

[RobertD63]

So I know you guys get a lot of questions like this but. I'm almost done with Steve Kochan's book on Obj-c. When I go through iPhone examples on the developer site I still look at these things like "huh?!?!" even though I understand getters and setters etc. Its just the framework calls that confuses me. I dont know where to get what for something I need. For example:

A copy of your application acting as a server initializes the session by calling initWithSessionID:displayName:sessionMode: with a session mode of either GKSessionModeServer or GKSessionModePeer. After the application configures the session, it advertises the service by setting the session’s isAvailable property to YES.

What?..
So my question is how did you learn how to get into that iPhone state of mind?

 

[Raima]

In order to create apps for the iPhone, you must THINK like an iPhone. And to THINK like an iPhone, you must BE an iPhone.

 

[MrCrispy]

My advice: start with a simple stupid utility application to do some pointless routine (egg timer ftw!). You'd be surprised how much ground that covers (multiple views, app delegates and settings storage/access). From there the sky is the limit. Don't start off with something really difficult. Just make sure you challenge yourself with each new app you write.

(side note: save SOAP calls and core data stuff until farther down the road. You will go insane otherwise.)

Admittedly, I've written 3 apps now and I still don't quite understand the delegate thing but I'm sure it'll pop with me at some point.

 

[MACloop]

Hi,
the sample apps from Apple have helped me a lot to understand thestructure of an iphone app.My advice is to open up some app in Xcode and really try to understand what the different parts of the app are doing. I did that and if there was something I did not understand I looked it up in the documentation and read that part more carfully once again. That helped me to get some kind of idea of how the iphone app is structured.

Good Luck!
MACloop

 

[SixSidedStudio]

Beginning iPhone 3 Development Book

I just went through this same process 2 months ago. I came from xhtml/cakephp development with zero Objective-c and cocoa experience to developing on the iphone. I started out reading the Programming Objective C 2.0 book that you are reading and then I read "Beginning iPhone 3 Development" by Jeff LaMarche and Dave Mark. That book helped me out tremendously. If you are serious by programming on the iPhone and want to learn the basics fast without pulling your hair out trying to do simple things, this book will be a tremendous asset. I've since developed 4 apps, and now working on an iPad app all in the past 2 months from reading these 2 books. I still find myself going back to both books because of the vast amount of information. However, I can say now that when I go to Apples documentation I can start to finally understand and digest the information on my own more often. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[flyingturtle]

I agree with previous poster, get a good iPhone beginner book. The one mentioned is good. I also really enjoyed iPhone SDK Development by Dudney and Anderson, which i perhaps give a slight edge too.

The book that was recommended to me time and time again was the Cocoa(R) Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition) book by Hillgrass. That is great book on Mac programming on the Cocoa framework, while not the iPhone specifically, it helped me to understand the Cocoa framework and now I can do Mac programming too. It also helped me go through the iPhone-specific books, which is about Cocoa Touch, a lot quicker since I had a good grounding in Cocoa and OOP design philosophies specific to Mac programming with Cocoa (ie. composition rather than inheritance which is usually done in Java, etc). I read it after Kochan's Programming in Objective-C 2.0 book.