iPhone Developer FAQ

[firewood]

The iPhone Developer will need a sticky FAQ or else the same questions will get asked a gazillion times. Items should include:

Pointers to Apples iPhone developer introduction:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/program/

Apples's iPhone SDK page:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action

The iPhone SDK Agreement (3rd item under Downloads on the iPhone SDK page) almost very likely includes several limitations on use of the SDK, and an NDA, which one has to agree to when registering to download the iPhone SDK. There may be several requirements regarding any application which one is allowed to develop using the SDK. Read Section 3.3 carefully before asking if an app can be developed to do this and such.

The SDK is only officially supported on an Intel Mac running OS 10.5. It cannot run under Windows, as it is based on all the Mac OS X frameworks, libraries and XCode Developer Tools.

The difference between a registered and an enrolled developer:
Registered: register at Apple, agree to the SDK license, and use the SDK with the included iPhone simulator only.
Enrolled: Pay $99 and be allowed to provision actual iPhone and iPod Touch devices to test your software.
Commercial License: more legal forms to fill out after you are enrolled but before you are allowed to sell your app to others. Requires banking information.

After you register, you will find that the iPhone Dev Center has tons of tutorial videos, getting-started documentation, guides, How-To's, a Reference Library and lots of Sample Code and example applications. See:

iPhone Dev Center: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action

Pointers to Apples Software Development 101 forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=728
and public Developer forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=727

You can Google "site:discussions.apple.com <subject>" to see if your questions have already been answered there.

Apple also runs a closed iPhone Developer forum into which you can login through the paid developer portal.

Stanford University now has an online course on iPhone/Cocoa programming:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p

Other (non-Apple) SDK developer support forums:
at the iphonedevsdk website:
http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/ip...k-development/
at the ipodtouchfans web site:
http://www.ipodtouchfans.com/forums/...splay.php?f=98

XCode, which is the IDE for the SDK, has tons of built-in documentation:
Xcode > Help > Documentation

Pointers to Cocoa tutorials, Objective C tutorials, video tutorials, iPhone tutorials, etc.
http://cocoadevcentral.com/
http://www.iphonedevcentral.org/
http://iappdevs.com/

etc.

[Doctor Q]

Good suggestion, firewood. We'll use your post as the starting point. You and others are invited to post other authoritative information here. This thread is NOT for discussion, just for reference information.

[firewood]

Everybody, if you are accepted as an enrolled developer, please read all the instruction on the Developer Portal, which you can only see after you are enrolled into the ($99 or enterprise) program, and then log in to http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action

There are 20 web pages full of instructions on the Portal and dozens of steps required to load your app. Get just one of the steps wrong and you won't be able to load your app on your device.

Reports are that some developers were stuck for days because they missed one step.

[firewood]

There's one here on the Apple Developer Support Forum:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....03312&tstart=0

iDeveloper writes:
1. Decide you want to program for the iPhone
2. Sign up for iPhone Dev access (Free for online)
3. Download/Install SDK Final and have a good play with the simulator/Read the guides etc
4. Register interest in the iPhone Dev Program.
5. Wait for the enrollment email - accept T's & C's and request activation code
6. Pay £60 to get a developers license
7. Wait for activation code email and follow the steps to get into iPhone Dev Manager
8. From the main page, follow the many steps to link the iPhone to their Servers. This includes getting certificates, installing them, linking iPhones to their servers with ID's and configuring xcode etc.

9. Assuming you have iPhone OS 2.0 final and have configured xcode OK - Compile to iPhone.

iDeveloper also writes:
go through the processes outlined here:

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/ma...w/index.action

which include:

1. Setting up your iPhone Development Team (if applicable)
2. Obtaining your iPhone Development Certificate
3. Creating your App ID
4. Assigning Apple devices for testing
5. Installing iPhone OS
6. Creating and downloading provisioning profiles
7. Running your development application on a provisioned device
8. Distributing your application

[Luke Redpath]

Small tip: make sure you subscribe to documentation in XCode to ensure it's kept up-to-date!

[mccannmarc]

The iPhone SDK (including Xcode, iPhone simulator etc) is ONLY available on Mac OS X Leopard running on Intel processors. This means that you can only release official apps on the App Store if you have one of these machines and the official SDK.

If you want to develop on Windows, Linux, BSD etc etc the only route you can take is to target your apps for jailbroken iPhones as the toolchain is available and works on most OS's and hardware configurations. Apple has not and is extremely unlikely to release the developer tools on any other systems.

Hope this has cleared it up for a few people as the same question gets asked way too often....

[firewood]

There's another short but good iPhone Development FAQ here:

http://plaidworld.com/iphonefaq.txt

[jnic]

There's a rather good primer on Objective-C memory management here:

http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Technical/HoldMe.html

[firewood]

Provisioning problems seem to be an FAQ. A developer has to get around a hundred steps exactly correct or else they are toast. It's almost an IQ test to see if one can hunt down all the clues required from multiple places in Apple's documentation. Here's one, better than average, description of the steps required:

http://www.talentgrouplabs.com/blog/...xe8000001.aspx

.

[cessna2526]

When i pay the $100 to become a dev how long is the membership for?

[Jeremy1026]

Originally Posted by cessna2526

When i pay the $100 to become a dev how long is the membership for?

1 year from date of payment.

[NickK1066]

Some olde-worlde paper recommendations:

Programming Objective-C 2.0, Kochan, Developer's Library, Addison Wesley.
A base building book for all things Objective-C in terms of the language, which means 90% of Apple development. It covers the syntax, concepts etc within the Objective-C language.
Note- this does not cover the iPhone SDK or Cocoa specifically.

Beginning iPhone Development, Mark & LaMarche, Apress.
A great easy entry into iPhone development, however you'll find yourself wanting more later but to get you started it's a good book. Things such as NSTimer etc which aren't specifically iPhone but would add some food for thought later. There is, oddly, coverage of a small amount of OpenGL ES which I wouldn't say is probably more intermediate/advanced (as you'd be purchasing the OpenGL Red and Orange books to make any real progress).
Definitely a beginner book.

The iPhone Developer's Cookbook, Sadun, Developer's Library, Addison Wesley.
More of a brain dump if ideas and discussions. The structure is difficult if you're a beginner but there's some ideas for intermediates.
The example exists by building (or throwing away) the Xcode project from the chapter before which can make following the examples confusing