Equipping yourself with the best iOS programming knowledge gives you leverage when negotiating for an app development project. It also allows you to expand your repertoire and your overall mobile development skills. One place that can guarantee you this knowledge is the net. The internet has plenty of useful resources to help you improve your iOS development skills. In this article, we are going to explore different iOS resources that feature engaging materials and articles.
Ry's Objective-C Tutorial
For any beginner wishing to break out from your comfort zone and become a professional iOS programmer in Objective-C or any other program, then this is the best resource for you.
Although they focus on Objective-C, other programs are also included in their tutorials. Nearly all Objective-C basics are covered by this resource which allows iOS developers to write code. As much as Swift is coming up fast and is going to be the future programming language for the iOS platform, Objective-C is much alive and kicking and can’t be ignored in any iOS development.
You can start from this well-organized tutorial for beginners before moving to another one.
Apple's Swift Language Guide
Another great resource for iOS development is the Swift language guide from Apple. It is not a matter of choice but a necessity that any ambitious iOS programmer should learn Swift programming language.
The best resource to run to will be Apple’s docs. You won’t lack anything concerning the Swift language on this guide including, syntax, control flow, collections, classes, and syntactic sugars. Besides all these, you also get some awesome features that are not supported by the aged Objective-C programming language.
Other exclusive benefits of Swift include generics, tuples or closures. I suggest that you shouldn’t ignore Objective-C but mastering Swift is mandatory if you want to thrive in their development.
AppCoda
If you are fluent in both Objective-C and Swift, another useful programming language that you need to be conversant with the Cocoa framework.
The best resource to help you with your iOS development journey is AppCoda. The beauty of this article is that it allows diving deep by offering you practical ways of going things as well as well-written tutorials that are perfect for beginners.
A good example iOS Hello World app, which introduces you to creating TableViews, Storyboards, and Auto Layout, using a device camera, and sending emails. You are missing on a lot of good things if you haven’t subscribed to this site. My advice to you as a developer is that you don’t learn everything if you don’t necessarily need to in your current project. If you are not going to use iPhone images, you don’t need to learn how to take photos with an iPhone.
However, it is important to know where to get the information when the need arises.
Ray Wenderlich Tutorials
Based on the same concept as AppCoda, Ray’s tutorials are engaging step-by-step illustrated tutorials for beginners. That is not all as Ray also offers intermediate to advanced topics like iOS networking, iCloud and Core Data integration, WatchKit, Core Graphics, and Core Image. You will get the whole year’s knowledge and skills and their bonus include video tutorials (instead of text) and many are free and don’t need subscriptions.
NSHipster
If you are looking for a site that provides you with great resources on specific topics then what you need is NSHipster. This is another great iOS resource blog that offers developers all the necessary skills to create powerful iOS apps and you will know everything from @IBDESIGNABLE? to the difference between nil / Nil / NULL / NSNull, or what the instance type is? This is one of the many resources that I have consulted with when I wanted to discover new skills concerning iOS development. It is not enough to just visit their site to see what they are offering you also have to subscribe to their service to benefit from all their offerings.
objc.co
Another great article that will give you all the necessary skills and knowledge concerning iOS programming in monthly pullouts is Objc.io. The site offers you all the best practices and advanced techniques for developing iOS and OS X. In every pullout, they cover specific Cocoa topics including optimizing view controllers, security, Android(!), iOS architecture or the iPhone camera. For your information, this is not a great choice for learning language syntax or frameworks; it is a perfect choice if you want to improve on your overall iOS development.
NSScreencast
Sometimes you need to get away from resources that involve texts and look for other sites that offer video tutorials and practical guides if grasping this knowledge. That is where NSScreencast comes in. If you are wondering what they are all about or what they offer, NSScreencast is a great video-library resource covering tons of iOS programming topics. It caters to every iOS visual guide and engaging tutorials; both basic and advanced. As an iOS programmer, you will get various learning materials about open source libraries like AFNetworking or RubyMotion, language, and system frameworks. All this is available for $9 per month.
Stack Overflow
This site doesn’t offer tutorials but rather Q&A. It is a popular site that is known to increase your mobile development knowledge by providing answers to frequent questions asked. However, it is not only meant for iOS developers alone but other platforms as well. For example if there is a bug in your code and you haven’t the slightest clue how to get rid of it, just head over to Google and type “[yourbugconsole_output] stack overflow” and you will get an answer since chances are that someone else has asked the same question before on Stack Overflow and received an answer.
Netguru Blog
Lastly, let’s talk about this new entry called Netguru. This is an awesome team of iOS developers that is growing rapidly. Although there is nothing much to say about them, they seem to cater to iOS-specific topics about programming and frameworks.
GitHub
If you want to contribute your coding knowledge or just looking on knowledge about code then GitHub is a place to share. It allows you to collaborate with others, create your repositories (public or private), and get access to great open-source frameworks. If you ask me, I will tell you that this is the best place to expand your knowledge and experience. You also get to pass your experience to other upcoming developers.
Conclusion
iOS has come a long way as a mobile platform for Apple who was the pioneer of smartphones and you can count on them to provide you with the best mobile products like apps and operating systems. This is because they follow strict industry-standard guidelines and therefore if you want to be the best iOS developer, look for the best resources to help you thrive in your mobile development career.
