What It Takes to Become a Skilled iOS Developer

iOS development is both complex to learn on one hand and fun and interesting on the other hand but developing an iOS is definitely a rewarding experience. This is important for career growth as well as personal satisfaction. Reputed companies are always looking for skilled iOS developers. You could try to get a lucrative job in an eminent organization with an iPhone developer certification course. People have some wrong notions that, with a high profile development, the iOS app designed would become obsolete. This is not correct as the basics of programming and computer science was same for decades and would be the same in the years to come.

The Technicalities Involved In iOS Development Are:

An Apple computer is required for iOS development, such as, MacBook, iMac or Mac Mini. If it is not available, then the option is to run the Mac OS X on the Linux or Windows machine, but it is difficult, though not impossible.

The integrated development environment (IDE), is Xcode, which is required to develop the iOS apps. The latest version of the Mac OS X is needed as the iOS development evolves with time and some latest features are supported by the latest version of the Xcode. iOS devices such as iDevice, iPad, iPod or iPhone should be bought, so that you can benchmark on many of the Apple platforms while testing the apps you have developed. In order to get a high paid job in an eminent organization, you can do a mobile application development certification program.

Swift or Object-C Should Be Learnt First For iOS Development?

Objective-C should be learnt first for iOS development as the existing frameworks are all written in this language and knowing Object-C would enable you learn Swift as well. It is the language iOS apps are created with.

The Different Aspects Involved For Becoming a Highly Skilled iOS Developer Are:

#1. Knowing Programming Well:

Programming is an essential part of iOS development. For the beginners, programming should be learnt separately from iOS programming as learning both at the same time becomes really difficult. There are different layers of knowledge you need to have, to become a good programmer.

• Basics of Programming: The first layer is that of the programming basics, which includes the constructs of the language along with the basic syntax, like the collections, flow control, functions, loops, classes etc. These are just the tools and what is essential now is to know how to reason with problems and with the help of the tools, solve them.

• Object Oriented Programming: This layer is a programming paradigm that enables in organizing the code. Here, the concepts of composition, polymorphism, encapsulation, inheritance etc are important to understand along with the design patterns, which are the general solutions that can be reused, for the commonly occurring problems, to make the codes better.

• Algorithms and Data Structures: These would make you a truly skilled programmer. Here, concepts like basic algorithms, such as binary search and sorting, recursion and basic data structures like queues, linked lists, graphs, hash tables and trees should be understood, along with the underlying algorithms to manage these structures.

#2. Knowing the Foundations Of iOS:

The next step is to know the foundations of iOS very well. It is a big platform and is incorporated with a variety of technologies to gain different things. For instance, if the app you are developing, does not do any image processing, there is no need to know Core Image. If your app does not require maps or geo-location, you need not know how to obtain the data from the GPS sensor. Following is the list of where to start studying the iOS foundations from:

• Xcode and Interface Builder: These are the necessary tools to be used to make iOS apps.

• Model-View-Controller Pattern: The MVC pattern is the centre of iOS development.

• View Hierarchy: The view hierarchy includes everything on the screen that the user sees and interacts with.

• Auto Layout: Nowadays the interfaces are laid out through the Auto Layout and so an understanding of that is also very important.

• Containers and Storyboards: Containers make the flow of interfaces from one screen to the next happen, and storyboards are a way to create and organize the flow.

#3. Knowing The Related Aspects Of iOS Development:

This knowledge is more of generic computer science and here you need to know about some lower level networking concepts like the TCP/IP stack, the DNS system, what are routers or servers and so on.

Thus, mobile application development is a specialized information technology skill and you can command a salary as high as $70,000 to $80,000 as an iPhone Certified Developer.