After many long months of decision making and cash saving, I have finally decided to dive head first into the wonderfully complicated world of iPhone application development. It is something that I’ve had in the back of my mind since I first got my iPhone almost a year ago, but at the time with my wedding and everything I wasn’t in the market to get myself started.
The first step on this journey involved me purchasing my first Mac ever, the 13″ Aluminum MacBook. I was tempted to go with the Mac Mini instead, however for the money the MacBook just offered too many advantages.
I have to admit, after giving it an honest shot, I’m really starting to like how OS X does things. It definitely isn’t perfect but it is a refreshing change for somebody who has been looking at a Windows desktop for the last couple years. The mental workflow took some getting used to, though I’m now feeling nearly as comfortable on my Mac as I do on my Windows machine, with only a couple of exceptions that I don’t need to get into during this post. Maybe some other time.
So far I have really liked the Xcode development environment as well, like everything else on the Mac, it just takes some getting used to. Before you know it everything just makes sense. Even though I’m sure there’s a ton of stuff included in Xcode, it all sort of hides in the background instead of being right in my face and adding to the confusion. I was able to build and execute a simple iPhone simulator app very quickly without having to resort to a tutorial. I’ll admit that was a pretty exciting moment for me!
I still have an absolute TON of things that I need to learn before I start releasing stuff on the iTunes App store, but I’m going to do my best to document what I learn as I go. I’ll also try to point out any useful resources that I find along the way. I’m sure there will be plenty of surprises, it’s all very exciting!
Wish me luck! Hopefully I don’t suck at this…