Alternatives to Programming iOS apps in Cocoa?

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in learning how to create iOS apps. My programming background is limited to years of HTML and CSS knowledge and just a little bit of PHP. From the research I've done I can tell I have a lot of work ahead of me.

As I understand it I'll need to learn C, then Objective-C, and then finally Cocoa. My question is if there is an alternative to using Cocoa to develop iOS applications. For instance, I'm under the impression that I can develop an application in another programming language and then use something Appcelerator (http://www.appcelerator.com/) to turn it into a compatible iOS application.

My apologies if my post reeks of ignorance. I'm trying to find the best way to tackle this new direction I'm trying to take. Just looking for all of the options I have to consider.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for the reply and the info! It's good to know that C isn't an absolute pre-req.

One last question, is there much of a difference between developing traditional applications versus developing games? Should I steer towards a different programming language for games versus regular apps?