I want to get started building iOS apps…
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/
