iPhone - Getting Started [closed]

Question

I have found the "Getting Started" documents for developing apps on iPhone.

1. I wanted the community's opinion on what I should know/learn (in terms of languages or concepts)?

2. How long would it take for a moderate programmer to learn and build an app that manages a list, connects to certain websites, etc?

3. How to get an app I made onto the iPhone? Just ZIP then install with .ipa file?

Answer 1

I wanted the community's opinion on what I should know/learn (in terms of languages or concepts)?

You will be using Objective-C and Cocoa. These are fairly strange concepts to crasp if you have not done MAC programming before, but after a short while you will probably fall in love with them. The most important concept to remember with iPhone development is memory management as the device has no concept of garbage collection.

How long would it take for a moderate programmer to learn and build an app that manages a list, connects to certain websites, etc?

Not too long. There are a multitude of example applications on the internet, and many helpful folk on stackoverflow.com

How to get an app I made onto the iPhone? Just ZIP then install with .ipa file?

You will need to download the SDK, create an app using xcode on the mac (or similar environment for windows if there is one) - you can test with simulator without giving apple anything, but in order to legitimately test on device you need to become an apple developer.

However If you jailbreak your device, you will be able to follow one of several methods to get your application on the iphone bypassing apples restrictions.