Learning to build apps and web apps on the iPhone

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

May 6, 2009 [5119 views]

This session will explore some of the current and future opportunities offered by the iPhone and encourage you to start developing for mobile platforms.

Reasons why you should explore the iPhone

1. It has become the defacto starting point for mobile applications on many platforms including Android http://www.android.com/ and Palm Pre http://developer.palm.com/
2. It brings together many of the tools and approaches that you will need for all future systems development: Ajax, CSS, Javascript as well as Objective C
3. It will encourage you to think about mashups and Open Source particularly to reuse Javascript libraries (such as iUi and QuickConnect)
4. In particular it allows you to explore the emerging Rich Internet Application (RIA) paradigm that is replacing the document or web page view of the web
5. It allows you to experiment with future browser technologies such as native animation and TinySQL
6. It allows you to explore key interface technologies such as touch and motion which are great for games development
7. There is a proven business model in which you can earn 70% of what you charge for your app; Apple takes 30%
8. Between 1-2% of web users are now accessing some sites from their mobiles (visible in the logs) with some sites reporting over 60% of these users are on the iPhone
9. It is predicted that eventually more people will access the web on the phone than from PCs
10. It is fun and simpler than it looks (once you have passed a certain pain threshold)

How do you get started?

1. Start with web design and consider how a website should be redesigned to meet the needs of the platform. Download a simple emulator for the Mac such as iPhoney. My iPhone experiments with Shopify
2. Polish your CSS and Javascript and try designing sites specially for the iPhone
3. Sign up to Apple’s Developer Program if you have a Mac and want to use the SDK including a proper simulator and tools such as xCode, Dashcode and Interface Builder. This alone is a good reason to buy a Mac. http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/
4. Understand the spectrum of “applications” that can be developed: websites that look ok on the iPhone, web sites optimised for mobile iPhone users, web applications and widgets, native applications and games.
5. Design a series of tasks for yourself to grow your skills
6. Move on to Apps (and Objective C) once you have mastered web sites and web apps

The steps I have used to learn Dashcode

1. Experiment with the built-in examples
2. Rebuild the examples using my own data
3. Start to combine the examples into a single application
4. Search the web for help and sample code

Web resources that I have found useful or interesting for the future

http://dotnetperls.com/Content/iPhone-Web-App.aspx
http://www.iphonemicrosites.com/tutorials/
http://remysharp.com/2007/09/16/introduction-to-using-dashcode/
http://thedashcode.blogspot.com/2008/03/generic-ajax-widget.html
http://quickconnect.pbworks.com/QuickConnectiPhone
http://tetontech.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/a-quick-reference-for-how-to-create-quickconnectiphone-applications/
http://phonegap.pbworks.com/
http://tlrobinson.net/blog/2008/07/11/multitouch-javascript-virtual-light-table-on-iphone-v20/

I'll add more as I find them...

http://help.brightcove.com/developer/samples/iPhone/iPhone-portal.cfm

What do you think?

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