vinnycoyne.com

If you’ve never coded before, have a look first at Visual Basic, then C++ or C#. You can get Microsoft’s tools online for free. Just do a Google for Visual Studio. There are loads of tutorials online for VB and C# - I’d recommend trying out the latter as it’s probably more relevant (C# can be used for Windows Phone programming). This also lets you try your hand at programming without having to buy a Mac.

Once you have a bit of coding under your belt, you’ll be ready to move on to Objective-C, which is the iOS & Mac programming language. As you can guess, it’s an enhanced version of C, but it looks quite different. You’ll need a Mac for this, but you might as well go ahead and buy one - you’ll thank me later :)

Apple supply a huge amount of sample apps with the iOS SDK. All you need to do is fire up Xcode, click on Help and then on Documentation and API. There should be a link to Sample code somewhere on the main page of the docs. Xcode is available on the Mac App Store for free.

Apple also offer video tutorials on iTunes U. Check out the Stanford iOS course on iTunes U while you’re there. Jeff Lamarche’s blog is a great resource also.

To be honest, you could read and read, but the best way to learn is to download the Apple samples and tinker with them until you get a feel for how they work. Try out code, break your code, and learn how to fix it… Unfortunately it all takes a bit of time, but it’s worth it once you get your first app running on-device.

Some books:

Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X

Cocoa/Mac focused, but a great entry-level book)

http://www.amazon.com/Cocoa-Programming-Mac-OS-3rd/dp/0321503619

Beginning iPhone Development

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-iPhone-Development-Exploring-SDK/dp/1430216263/

If you haven’t yet heard about my new app, Muud.io, here’s a little bit about it:

Muud.io is a music app for iPhone & iPod touch that can recommend playlists, based on a given mood.

Simply pick a mood, and we’ll build a playlist for you, using the music you love.

You can view a demo video (desktop-only for now) and screenshots over at the Muud.io site.

Muud.io is available on the App Store (and is currently on sale at half-price for a limited time).

I found these Muud.io prototype screenshots while migrating to my new MacBook Air.

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Prior to releasing EirText for Mac v2.0 on the Mac App Store, the app was sold via Paypal on my website. So far, the app has only been on sale for a week, but using the App Store as the sole method of distribution* has been the right decision in this particular case.

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Some useful tools & tips for debugging iOS apps which connect to web services:

Debugging in the iPhone Simulator

• Wireshark - free, open source app.
• Charles Web Debugging Proxy - paid app, with free trial. Supports SSL connections.

Debugging On-Device

• Paros Proxy - free, open source app. In Paros, go to Tools -> Options… select the Local Proxy option. Enter your Mac’s IP address and leave the port at 8080. On your iOS device, go to Settings -> Wi-Fi, select the same network as your Mac and tap the blue button. Set HTTP Proxy to Manual and enter your Mac’s IP address under Server and 8080 for the Port.

Seeing as Apple have finally enabled worldwide use of App Store Promo Codes, I figured that it was high time I put together an OS X app that generated clickable links from those codes.

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For those of you who are following me on Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard me bitching and moaning about the App Store’s “broken” reviews system.

I’m going to file a bug report on this and if you have a developer account, I would suggest that you do the same. I’ll post the radar number here once I’ve done so.

[UPDATE: radar numbers are listed next to the problem names below]

To sum up my Twitter rantings, I have two main gripes with how user-feedback is implemented on the store:

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