This list comes from keeping track of what has been useful and not useful from the past few years of learning iOS on my own. I'm compiling this to be a sort of reference guide for the students in my upcoming class at The Flatiron School.
This is meant to get you up to speed with development from no prior iOS experience. None of this covers the basics of computing/development though. I don't really think of Objective-C/iOS as a beginners language and highly recommend the prework for the Web Development course at The Flatiron School if you're completely new to development.
Students learn in a plethora of ways. If you are an auditory learner there is also a ton of great video content from Stanford and Treehouse but their progression is pretty obvious so I didn't create a guide for that. I HIGHLY recommend the Stanford class.
There is an infinite amount of stuff to learn on iOS. This is a list of what I've found to be the most important for almost every app out there. A secondary goal of this prework is to limit the scope of learning before you get started. There really is nothing better than just writing a ton of code. Hopefully this list of resources can get you to writing code quickly.
This guide is separated out into the different big topics of iOS development. I am including advanced topics here mostly for completeness and for reference down the line.
Flatiron School Students, your job is to go through each section, in order, following just the beginner items. Don't worry about the reference or library items. These are all things we will discuss and use in class. Just the beginner items shouldn't take you more that 40 hours. If you already have prior knowledge feel free to skip sections you feel comfortable with.
The Advanced and Referece/Library sections are for you to use once your feel comfortable with your skills. I really recommend completing all the beginner materials before moving on to the advanced resources though. Once you look into developing apps that require the topics you can return here and find out more information and hopefully some links to start your research with.
Also, each section contains a description of an example app you should be able to make. Feel free to try and make the app with the skills you have. If you have issues with making the app, raise an issue. Hopefully someone will help you out :)
Last, the Learning Objectives are what I expect you to understand after reading the beginner materials. Remember the advanced materials are just for deep dives into topics!
I tried to use as many free resources as possible but ultimately you have to spend some money. You'll need theBig Nerd Ranch iOS Programming book. It's the book I reference throughout the guide and is truly a fantastic book.
###Breadth of Familiarity This list of resources will not make you an expert by any means. The goal for this guide is breadth of knowledge over depth in any one topic. If you are particularly interested in a topic, feel free to check out the advanced resources and reference material.
The best way to learn this stuff is still to just write a ton of code. In addition to checking out the advanced material on a certain topic, coding up the example apps is a great way to get a deeper understanding.
###Minimum Viable Knowledge Learning the topics in the order given allows you to start writing apps as soon as possible. That's the fun stuff, so I didn't want you to have to read for hours before getting your hands dirty. The goal is layers of quality. After the first section you will be able to write simple apps. Every new topic you learn will give you real skills to enhance your app. This means that if you are struggling with one topic it may be prudent to stay in that one topic and learn more. If you find other resources that helped you learn please raise and issue and I'll include it.
If you are confused on a topic, I doubt you're alone.
Thankfully, there are a few resources available to you. The easiest is using the iOS section on StackOverflow. If the question is about a certain resource here, or about this guide in general please please please raise an issue on github. I'll look into it and hopefully give you a solution that everyone can use.
It's pretty simple. Raise a github issue or fork and submit a pull request with your requested changes.
This will get you going to write a super simple app. It's not going to look pretty, but it'll work.
###App Super simple ToDo list app. It should have a table with todos in it.
###Learning Objectives
- Understand how to design interactions with Storyboards
- Building interfaces with Interface Builder
- Declaring and Synthesizing properties
- Understand methods in Objective-C
- Understand basics of ARC and memory management
- Familiarity with debugging - you'll get better at this with practice
- Beginning Storyboard in iOS
5
- Learn how storyborads work. This is a great way to get up and running writing an app super quickly
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 1
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 3
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter pages 91-100
- BNR Chapter 8
Objective-C is the language of iOS and it is most likely pretty different than what you've done before. To get started you just need a bit of knowledge of Objective-C, but to really master iOS development you need to get a solid understanding of the language. The best Rails developers are also the best Ruby developers. The same is true in the Objective-C/iOS world.
###App Try and rewrite your Todo list using objects and encapsulation.
###Learning Objectives
- Message passing with Objective-C
- Comfort with the syntax of Objective-C
- Understanding basic Objects. Instance variabales, Methods, The
superkeyword, etc.
- Objective C
Primer
- Apple's awesome intro into the Objective-C language
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 2
- Programming in Objective-C (5th Edition)
- Yup it's an entire book on Objective-C. It's a great reference book and will make you an expert in Objective-C.
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 27
- Programming With Objective-C
The iOS ecosystem relies heavily on a few Object Orientated principles. The beginner items covers the stuff that is somewhat unique to iOS. Going further you will see these patterns everywhere.
###App This is mostly a theory section. Just make sure you fully understand the concepts.
###Learning Objectives
- Understand the Delegate pattern
- Understand the protocol pattern
- [iOS Design Patterns:
Delegation](http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/ios-design-patterns-delegation-part-2-2
- Learn the Delegation Pattern. This is used all over the place in iOS. For example Core Location, TableViews, MapKit, etc. "iOS Design Patters: Delegations")
- Intro to
Protocols
- Learn Protocols. These are the things in between the < and > >. Yet again, they are everywhere
- Intro to Object Oriented Programming
- OOP with Objective-C
- Using Categories With Core Data
- Cocoa Design Fundementals
Core Data is a persistent data store. It is not a database. This is seriously one of the most confusing technologies in the iOS ecosystem, but it is something you must learn. In the integrating with APIs section you'll learn even more about Core Data and how to save both locally and sync up to the cloud. Think about all of the apps you use. Most of them can be boiled to down to displaying some data that is synced to a service.
###App Try and save your ToDos locally using CoreData.
###Learning Objectives
- Understand how read and write data from the NSManagedObjectContext
- Persistant CoreData to the device using sqlite3
- Work with CoreData with TableViews
- Autogenerate, and extend CoreData Model files
- Generally wrap your head around the moving parts in CoreData. BNR Chapter 16 is great for this.
- BNR Chapter 16
- Core Data Tutorial for iOS: Getting
Started
- Practical example on how make a Core Data app. Make sure you read all three parts. The NSFetchedResultsController part is super important and how you connect Core Data to UITableViews.
- Pro Core Data for
iOS
- Told you it was a big topic.
- MagicalRecord
- Library that automates a lot of the common CoreData stuff and implements some best practices.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. Apps are expected to share effortlessly and backup to the cloud. The beginner section has some of the super simple stuff and is all you really need to get started. The Helios tutorial shows you how to create a super simple server side backend for your iOS app. This is really the absolute simlpest possible solution to syncing your app with the internet
I'm purposefully exposing you to the native iOS SDK networking stack before AFNetworking and the other libraries. It's very hard to debug problems with the libraries if you don't understand the underlying technologies.
Also this has an intermediate section just because this topic is so massive. Still stick to the beginner information at first though.
###App Add server side syncing to your ToDo list app. Also try and share todos on Twitter/facebook
###Learning Objectives
- Ability to set up and use Helios
- Understand SLComposeViewController
- Mattt Thompson: Build an iOS App in 20 Minutes with Rails and
AFIncrementalStore
- Video from a recent conference where Mattt Thompson walks you through developing a simple ToDo app with a server side backedn
- Integrate Twitter and Facebook Sharing in Your
App
- These are built in to iOS. This tutorial allows you to share your content really quickly to Facebook and Twitter
- Subclassing UIActivity
- Building an iOS app with AFIncrementalStore and Core Data Buildpack - This is the howto for Helios
- BNR Chapter 25
- BNR Chapter 28 (skip everything on designing an rss parser)
- Getting Started with the Facebook SDK
- Sharing Providers for UIActivity]
- BNR Chapter 29
- Developing RESTful Apps with RestKit
- Networking made easy with AFNetworking
- AFNetworking and Caching
One of the biggest reasons mobile is such an interesting platform is the ability to use location information. Think how much worse your phone would be without Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, etc. Integrating Core Location is actually quite easy.
After you learn how to use CoreLocation you need to learn how to present that data with MapKit. MapKit allows integrated maps into your app. The advanced section gives you some resources to use Google Maps instead of Apple Maps for your integrated map views. Google Maps has some interesting features such as Street View support, but it's very much icing on the cake. Nobody will complain if you just use the standard MapKit.
###App Add the ability to tag a todo with where it should be completed. Like Buy groceries at the grocery store.
###Learning Objectives
- Use the delegate pattern to receive updates from Core Location
- Drop pins on a MapKit View
- Basic MapKit customizatiosn such as switching between satellite and map view.
- Handle the different events of Core Location such as major change, best accuracy change, etc.
- Big Nerd Ranch 88-92
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 5
###Google Maps SDK
- Official Google Maps Documentation
- Google Maps API for iOS with Interface Builder
- Google Maps CocoaPod
Different screen size and interactions require different thoughts on design. Below are two fantastic resources, but there is always more.
###App Do some mockups with paper and pencil on how you cauld enhance the interface. In the next section you'll actually code them.
###Learning Objectives
- Familiarity with the "Apple way" of designing mobile apps.
- Differences between web design and mobile design Beginner
- Apple Human Interface
Guidelines
- Apple posts thei guidelines on good mobile design. You should follow these somewhat closely as it provides a consistant UI from app to app
- Starter's Guide to iOS
Design
- Absolutely incredible guide on how to think about mobile design.
AutoLayout is the new way of defining how your layouts work based on different rotations and screen sizes. You are lucky because you will learn AutoLayout from the very beginning but sadly The Big Nerd Ranch book doesn't include information on AutoLayout because it's an iOS 5 book. I've included supplementary AutoLayout tutorials because of the lack of information in the Big Nerd Ranch book.
Learning how to customize your app's UI is what separates the good apps from the great. Think about all of the apps you use. Do any of them use the standard UI elements? Nope. I bet you barely know what the standard iOS controls look like. If you're interested open up the settings or contacts app.
This is a huge topic and much of what you'll do has been done by others and answered on StackOverflow. After you've read this information and have specific questions search on StackOverflow for answers. Very rarely are you doing something completely unique.
###App Implement your ideas from the design section. You may have to pare down your ideas a bit.
###Learning Objectives
- Be able to style the color/size of major UITableView,UINavigationView and UITabBar
- Understand how Views interact with View Controllers
- Understand the View lifecycle
- Beginning Auto
Layout
- Auto Layout is how you can lay out UI elements with differing screen sizes. This guide walks you through that.
- Customizing
UIKit
- Some common UIKit customziations and how to do them.
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 24
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 6
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 7
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 9
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 10
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 11
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 19
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 20
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 26
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 13
- Big Nerd Ranch Chapter 15
The iPhone/iPad have a pretty cool set of hardware. Let your creativity flow with the different hardware features. This is completely different then what you've done on a computer.
###App Add the ability to add pictures to your app.
###Learning Objectives
- Use the camera
- Change hardware behavior based on hardware availability
- Use the accelerometer and gyro
- BNR Chapter 12
- Using Core Motion to Access Gyro and Accelerometer
Core Animation allows you to access to graphics card to some awesome animations and transformations without sacrificing speed. The graphics card was designed to do this and it does a great job. With that great power comes great responsibility though. iPhone and iPad users expect fluid animations. Thankfully, many standard animations you are used to seeing are actually built into the iOS SDK and are super easy to integrate.
###App Add in some custom animations. Maybe have a cool strike out animation when you mark a task as done.
###Learning Objectives
- Understand how the contexts and layers of core animation work
- Know when to use the correct transitions for different interactions.
- UIView Transition
Effects
- Learn the different ways you can transition form view to view and the reasons why you choose those transitions.
- BNR Chapter 22
- BNR Chapter 23
Xcode is what you develop iOS apps in. A craftsman knows his/her tools. Make sure you know yours. This is mostly for reference. No learning objectives or app progression here, just some great tips!
- 14 Essential Xcode Tips and
Tricks
- After you've used Xcode for a while, here are some extra tips I find useful
- XVim
- I use vim on the command line. If you're like me, this will make your life so. much. better