How hard is programming, honestly?

Not really.

These were recently restricted I think. Cookie-cutter apps were becoming a problem, so they got banned.

Not really, at least not if you want to get your program on the iP*. If you wanted to just "mess around" there are languages with less-picky syntax than others and are somewhat easier to "jump into" ...

The iPhone/iPad SDK only runs on Macs, so.... yes.

 

There are many books available, probably on Amazon, that teach you the basics of programming. I'm studying Computing at A - Level, and it's not that hard. Definitely easy as you can always find people on forums for help.

 

Learning a programming language and learning how to program are two very different things. Learning the language is the easy bit.

 

Look at the hundreds, if not thousands, of very basic questions asked on these forums. Then ask yourself "if all these reasonably intelligent people are having to ask ultra-basic questions how hard is it?".

 

The biggest problem with learning to program for iPhone OS i have found is that there is no command line interface. Usually when you learn a language, you start with the basics and work up. A graphical user interface (GUI) is not basic and although interface builder does the hard bits for you you still need to understand how to link your code to the GUI and be able to appreciate what Interface Builder is doing for you. With GUI comes Object Orientation, again a concept that is hard to grasp at the beginning. I personally feel that if you want to learn to program for iPhone OS you are best starting else where, I started with Pascal and went onto Java. I wish i hadn't bothered with Pascal but i would always recommend Java as a starting point. The hardest thing will be getting the first language under your belt. The skills you will learn there are highly transferable to other languages.

 

Most people tend to practice by writing command line apps in Objective-C on the Mac before moving onto the iPhone if they are new to the language. I can understand why you would want to jump straight into iPhone programming though.

 

There are plenty of programming for dummies type applications and web sites for the Mac (usually on sites meant for K-12 education). So start on a Mac, not with the iPhone.

Programming itself? It's easy for some kids. However, for some adults, it's so hard they drop out of a university CS program after year(s) of failed time, effort and tuition fees.

So YMMV.

Big time.

Get some programming books/apps for kids, spend at least 100 hours at it, and see where you end up on the bell curve.