Building your own iPhone/iPad Applications And Games: The Basics
Ever since the iPhone came out in 2007, there has been more demand for iPhone applications and games to suit different individuals and professions. When Apple opened its App Store along with the iPhone 3G in the summer of 2008, the number of purchases increased to an average of 12,500 purchases per application. As the physical components of the iPhone are being improved so is the need for more applications to suit different entertainment, medical, informational or navigational requirements (among others), and also to improve the way to build these apps.
Today, the App Store has up to 20 categories (Games, Entertainment, Utilities, Social Networking, Music, Productivity, Reference, Travel, Navigation, Health and Fitness, Photography, Business, Education, Weather, Books, Lifestyle, Sports, Finance, News) and available applications now range from simple games to more sophisticated business and medical applications, but it is the users, you and I that determine their success or failure. This makes it much easier for the average computer user to build and sell apps or games in the app store.
The first thing you need would be a computer, ideally an apple Mac running the right OS. You can build iPhone applications and games on the Windows platform but you really want to check out ebay or special offers from apple to obtain a Mac first before considering a Windows PC which is discussed in my other article.
You also want to set some time aside to well absorb the fulfilling experience of building, publishing and selling your own game or app. It can be first or last thing of the day, it could at break times or just the weekend, ideally you want to spend around 15-20 hours a week although some people might do well with one hour every day.
When you now have your Apple computer running the mac operating system version 10.5.3 or higher (see this article for windows options), you should get an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch if you can afford it, iPhone SDK which includes Xcode (the programming platform), Interface builder (graphical program to see what you are creating), and iPhone simulator (to test your application).
Lastly you would need a good iPhone application development guide that talks you through obtaining and installing the required software and simple ways to use it, the available frameworks and Libraries within it, difference in building an app or a game, and in building an app for the iPhone and iPad.
