Developing for iPhone

I see a lot of people asking this question.

The simple answer is you can’t. Not at the moment anyway, and there aren’t any signs on the horizon either. You wouldn’t expect Microsoft to allow Mac users to develop XNA games on the Mac would you? Of course, it would be nice. As a primary Windows user myself, I would rather be creating developing iPhone applications in the familiar Windows environment, but it’s just one of those things.

However, don’t be put off by the price of a Mac. The Mac Mini may not be as powerful the iMac or Mac Pro, but its cheap and you dont need much power if you are developing iPhone applications. A Mac Mini has more than enough horse-power for that. On top of that the iPhone SDK (software development kit) is absolutely free!

Ah yes, the moment you have been waiting for. Time to write an iPhone application. If you have not completed the previous tutorials, I suggest you do that now.
Follow these steps to get started:

1. In XCode, click File > New Project
2. In the left pane of the new window, click Application under the iPhone OS heading
3. In the right pane, click View Based Application and then click the Choose button
4. Name the project “HelloiPhone” and click Save

You will notice that there are a few folders set up for you in the left pane of the project window. For now you don’t need to know what all the files in each folder do.
Click Build and Go. A new application will open called iPhone Simulator, and in it comes a nice shiny iPhone for you to play with. This is where you can test your applications. As soon as it loads, it will boot up the application that you just created. You haven’t done anything to it yet so it is just a gray screen. Press the home button (the square symbol at the bottom) to exit the application. Go ahead and play around with it – use it just like a real iphone but use your mouse to control it instead. Try clicking Hardware > Rotate Left or Right to flip the iPhone on it’s side.

There are some things that the iPhone simulator can’t do. It doesn’t include things like GPS to find it’s location or an accelerometer to detect movement or tilting. You also cant use multi-touch as you only have one mouse. For these things you will need to test on a real iPhone. However, you are only allowed to use a real iPhone if you have paid for and been accepted to Apple’s Standard Developer Program or higher. But for learning the basics, the simulator is fine.

Quit the simulator when you are done and return to XCode.

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