

Possible to learn iPhone Dev in 4 weeks with no experience?  - jasonwilk

http://www.udemy.com/ios-development/<p>This is the link a friend sent me. It claims 4 weeks to learn iPhone Development without prior experience. Any recommendations as to whether this works or something else that does?
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rdouble
You can get up to speed in 4 weeks if you put in 6-8 hours a day. Five days a
week x 8 over 4 weeks is 160 hours which is more time than you would get in a
college course.

For $150 I'd suggest the Hillegass book and a membership to the dev center.
The downside to most learning materials out now is that they are all using
XCode3, so the illustrated examples can be confusing to a beginner. There is a
lot of new stuff in iOS5, so the dev membership is essential for the WWDC
videos alone.

Not sure this video is worthwhile. You can watch the latest Stanford iOS class
on iTunes U for free.

That said, the idea behind the video you linked to is not a bad one. The
problem with iTunes U courses like the one I mentioned is that they are not
optimized for web viewing. 40-60% of each video is useless because it's class
administration or the instructor is a poor speaker. The stuff on the
whiteboard is usually unreadable. The lighting is bad, nobody cares about
seeing the instructor up there talking. A video with the same content but with
professional voice over, no time wasted, four dozen "ums" edited out, crisp
information on the screen and up to date walkthroughs of stuff in IB and
XCode4 would be worth a lot more than $150. However, $150 is a lot to pay for
content you don't really know anything about.

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MaysonL
Interesting: the current price shown for me is $250...

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jasonwilk
It's $150 on AppSumo

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aonic
Do you have a link? I cant seem to find it on AppSumo

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jasonwilk
<http://appsumo.com/bess-ho-ios-evergreen/>

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namank
Well, I don't know about that site but I can vouch for a two week learning
curve - considering you have previous web/desktop experience.

I started helping a friend two weeks ago. Goal was to develop an app that
supports push notifications, audio analysis through FFTs, GPS tracking +
plotting, and very basic peer to peer stuff through Bonjour.

Step one was to download XCode 4 (VERY impressive piece of software btw). Then
I read and implemented <http://bit.ly/hrB2Ku>. I've gone back and read that
doc about 20 times now - Apple terms delegates weirdly (I came from C#; where
delegate drive events, not inheritance)

Then I checked out <http://bit.ly/o4DTTs> and was yet again very impressed!
Apple provides a basic hello world to each one of its frameworks (Now I
finally understood the big deal with iOS-BlackBerry dev tools).

Biggest roadblock with me was Objective C syntax and its dynamic nature, but
that I picked up through PDFs at <http://bit.ly/gLYZUV> \- didn't have
patience for long videos.

Although Google is a huge help (duh!), most of the stuff there is for older
SDKs. I'm learning iOS4 stuff mostly through Apple Docs and Sample Code.
Articles at <http://bit.ly/mBa1zT> are also excellent in terms of quality.

Finally - WOW! iOS is a pleasure to develop for. The hardest part is app
design, SDK literally takes care of all implementation ! I'm not even
completely finished my current project and I already have some ideas for my
next app!

All that said, iOS coding still isn't intuitive to me. That should come with
practice - another 2 months I would think.

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matt_s
I signed up for this course and took it since I haven't done any iOS dev ever.
I have a CompSci degree as well as have done Enterprise Java stuff, so I know
my way around a compiler, build, etc. Haven't actively programmed in 5+ years
(e.g. 4-8 hours/day is 'active' to me).

If you have any programming experience at all, this is not worth it. It does
Hello World, then walks you through several examples that are a nice
introduction to iOS development. It does as advertised though - you can
develop iOS apps in 4 weeks - they don't do much though. The final app has a
clown fish that moves on the screen and changes direction when tapped - I
think.

Once you get over the Objective-C and Cocoa nuances/syntax, then it is just
another programming language. Learning about all of the libraries is what you
need to do if you want to produce an application. I searched the net for
reviews of books and found an iPhone dev cookbook to be more helpful (Erica
Sadun I think - don't have it with me). It is a little dated because XCode4 is
now out, but the libraries it references are core to building any app that
does something.

Setting aside time and having the right resources are key. I suggest a book or
two. I breezed through the linked course content in a few nights.

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curt
It took me a week to make my first app, with no prior objective-C experience.
Though I did know how to program in C beforehand and the app was really simple
(it was a bar game to measure reflexes).

The apple guides are really good and there are so many free examples. Also
Standford has a great series I used after I got started, if you have any prior
programming experience it will get you up to speed fast.

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nhangen
I tried that course and I was not impressed. The video quality was poor, and
while the course was rather comprehensive, it wasn't thorough and even the
final projects were less about building your own app than building pieces of
apps.

That said, buying books didn't really work for me. The way I learned was
buying work from developers, and then hacking it to pieces with the help of
online guides, books, and videos from Think Vitamin and PeepCode.

Another trick I used was paying freelancers to build apps, and then as part of
the job requirement, asking them to record a video of them writing certain
pieces of code, and explaining how I can change things on my own. Worked well.

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allenbrunson
This sounds to me very much like a "get rich quick" scheme, and pretty much
the antithesis of the ideals we hold dear on this site. Your credentials as
listed in your "about" box indicate that you are more steeped in the
traditions of this place than most of us. The fact that you are even
considering such a thing seems weird to me.

Surely you know the "hacker ethic" as much as the rest of us, but the very
fact that you posted this indicates that you might need a refresher course.
Here goes: Sure you can learn iPhone programming. Just sit down in front of
Xcode and figure it out. But in four weeks, on somebody else's schedule?
Highly unlikely.

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jasonwilk
Yes, haven't been doing any development for a long time. I became the
'business' guy in all the startups I have been involved in. Someone's gotta do
it : )

Thanks for the tip Allen

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matthewphiong
I suggest you give the Stanford iPhone Application Development a try and it's
free.

Link: <http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/>.

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amstrad464
I recommend the videos at <http://ideveloper.tv>. They are high quality and
the conversational style really helps.

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dpio
no prior experience in 4 weeks. nothing is impossible. having said that,
'maybe' leaning heavily towards 'no'.

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jasonwilk
so, a complete waste of $150?

