Developing for the iphone

[abigsmurf]

I'm semi-interested in finding out if I've got what it takes to make aps for the iphone.

What are the options for coding for it? I dislike C (null pointer exceptions... *shudder*) but I'll use it if there's no other option. Would much rather use a higher level language. I know the iphone can do some HTML5, can you still access the camera and other phone functions using that? Any other more scripting orientated languages that are any good for it?

*edit*

Seems objective C only... How hard is this to pick up for someone who knows basic C?

[kryss]

If you don't have a mac you'll need a jailbroken iPhone for testing, that's what I'm told at least.

[Brad]

Objective-C is a fantastic programming language. I wish I could program using it for my day job. I've been doing c++ for 20 years and it's very powerful and also the probably the best tool for the job for what I do but Obj-C is fab.

You'll need a mac to program for the iPhone officially and also need to get a developer license form Apple (£99 a year) if you want to test on your actual iPhone. I should warn you there are a bunch of hurdles just to get "hello world" onto the iPhone initially.

Ultimately I decided that I didn't like Apple walled garden approach so decided not to dev for iPhone. I might do somethign for Android in the future. Let us know how you get on dude.

P.S. Obj-C is like a cross between Smalltalk and C. Very OO.

Good luck!

[abigsmurf]

hmm...

Seems there are a few too many barriers to developing which sucks. I've no intention of buying a mac just to tinker and the process for doing any development on windows is far too drawn out. Bleh.

Maybe Android or WinMo7 would be more straight forward.

[Brad]

The standard Android development environment is available for free on Windows, Mac and Linux. Default programming language is Java although it might be possible to use something else (Java is nice though).

[abigsmurf]

Java is so much nicer than C to work with.

Does it use full java or java me?

[kryss]

I love threads like this. I immediately went off and installed everything I need to develop Android stuff.

Now I just need to learn Java...lol

[abigsmurf]

Java is a brilliant language to learn OOP in. You can just worry about core algorithms without getting bogged down in messy pointers, garbage collection and incredibly hard to read code.

[briareos_kerensky]

Now I just need to learn Java...lol

Or you can skip the boring learning part and use this: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/