This tutorial shows how to create a simple iOS application. It is not intended to give complete coverage of all the features available, but rather to introduce some of the technologies and give you a grounding in the fundamentals of the development process.
You should read this document if you are just starting development for iOS using Cocoa Touch. Although the screenshots show the iPhone-sized simulator, this tutorial is appropriate for any device using iOS—you should use this tutorial to get started even if you intend to develop solely for the iPad.
You should already have some familiarity with the basics of computer programming in general and the Objective-C language in particular. If you haven’t used Objective-C before, read through at least Learning Objective-C: A Primer.
The goal here is not to create a finely polished application, but to illustrate:
How you create and manage a project using Xcode
The fundamental design patterns and techniques that underlie all iOS development
The basics of using Interface Builder
How to make your application respond to user input using standard user interface controls
A secondary goal is to point out other documents that you must also read to fully understand the iOS development tools and techniques.
Important: To follow this tutorial, you must have installed the iPhone SDK and developer tools available from the iOS Dev Center.
This document describes the tools that are available for iPhone SDK v4.0—check that your version of Xcode is at least 3.2.2.
This tutorial does not discuss issues beyond basic application development; in particular, it does not describe how to submit applications to the App Store.
The document is split into the following chapters:
“Tutorial Overview and Design Patterns” provides an overview of the application you’re going to create and the design patterns you’ll use.
“Creating Your Project” shows you how to create the project using Xcode and describes how an application launches.
“Adding a View Controller” shows you how to customize a view controller class and create an instance of it.
“Inspecting the Nib File” introduces you to two important concepts in Interface Builder: outlets, and the File’s Owner proxy object
“Configuring the View” shows you how to add and configure the button and text fields.
“Implementing the View Controller” walks you through implementing the view controller, including memory management, the changeGreeting: method, and ensuring that the keyboard is dismissed when the user taps Done
“Troubleshooting” describes some approaches to solving common problems that you may encounter.
“Where to Next?” offers suggestions as to what directions you should take next in learning about iOS development.
Last updated: 2010-07-01