Developing applications for iPhone, iPad (and other iOS devices)

An introduction to iPhone development for beginners or those who are casually interested and want a leg up the learning curve ...

Wednesday 9th March , 6:30 pm.

Speaker: Pete Goodliffe.

Room 4.31 (fourth floor), University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB - map (click on Informatics Forum in the list of buildings).

Synopsis

The iPhone, iPad and their iOS relatives are becoming an increasingly popular and important platform. More and more developers are looking into what the platform can offer and how to harness its power for their products.

In this presentation, an experienced iOS developer provides a boot-strap in iPhone development. The talk is an overview of how to get started as an iPhone developer. You will gain an understanding of the platform, the tools, and the core technologies, including:

The main languages: Objective C/C++
Using the Xcode IDE, and various deployment/testing tools
Common iPhone/Mac OS design patterns, idioms, and practices
Becoming a native: how to "think in iPhone"
An overview of the libraries and facilities that exist
Limitations of the development environment.

We'll see the pros and cons of iPhone development. You will leave with an understanding of how to deploy your applications on the device, and whether it is the right platform for you to target.

About the speaker

Pete Goodliffe is a software developer, columnist, speaker, and author who never stays at the same place in the software food chain; he's worked in numerous languages on diverse projects. He also has extensive experience in teaching and mentoring programmers, and writes the regular "Professionalism in Programming" column for ACCU's C Vu magazine (www.accu.org). Pete's popular book, Code Craft, is a practical and entertaining investigation of the entire programming persuit. In about 600 pages. No mean feat! Pete enjoys writing excellent, bug-free code, so he can spend more time having fun with his kids. He has a passion for curry and doesn't wear shoes.