How to become an iOS developer?
In today’s world, the need for web and mobile applications is following an increasing trend. Not only new businesses are starting online, but also traditional businesses are trying to establish a presence in digital markets. With the realities that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought these digitalization attempts are ever-increasing.
Considering that a major portion of users prefer mobile experiences over desktop ones, starting a career in mobile development could be insightful. There are two major platform mobile applications run on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. In this article, I will try to give a guide, a roadmap for becoming an iOS developer. Let’s get started!
To develop iOS applications the first thing you should learn is the platform’s programming language. The development language for iOS applications is Swift. Let’s take a look at Apple’s definition of Swift:
“Swift is a powerful and intuitive programming language for macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and beyond. Writing Swift code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and Swift includes modern features developers love.”
If you have prior programming experience in other programming languages, you will be able to get started with Swift in no time. If you have no experience in programming, no worries, Swift is a great choice for the first-comers, and it is incredibly easy to learn. There is a great community that produces quality content on Swift. You can get started with Swift in 60 seconds which is a collection of tutorials that exposes syntax and features of Swift.
Despite being a Data Scientist myself, I could learn Swift in a relatively short period of time. All you need is practice and motivation to create. The first thing you have to do is learn the syntax of Swift. This requires a very small time if you programmed in any other language.
Swift highly resembles C, as it descended from C-based languages. The “father” of Swift is Objective-C, which was used to develop native iOS applications for a long time. Despite being similar, it is much more user-friendly and easier to learn.
The major step in learning any language is developing applications in that language. So, if you wish to learn Swift and become an iOS developer, you should start building projects. These could be small ones, like a calculator, a basic game, or an app about you. This is how I learned the basic stuff required for bigger projects.
One of the best resources available is an online course offered by Brian Voong. There are actually a bunch of projects he implements in his tutorials and shows the important concepts behind iOS development. If you wish to learn more, visit his website: LetsBuildThatApp. Even though the courses are paid, they provide great value for the money you give. He also has free videos on Youtube, which you can watch to decide whether you want to enroll or no.
Overall, if you have the motivation to build and deploy cool iOS apps, you can definitely do it! All you need is practice! Hope this article was useful for you ;)
