Mac, iPhone and... part1

It's been a while since I wrote anything in here, and for some reason I feel like writing again.

I've decided that I want to share my experiences of coding an application to the iPhone.

So if one wants to code something for the iPhone, then one would need a Hackintosh, which is a PC running a Mac OS X, or buy some sort of Mac Computer solution (iMac/Mac Mini/MacBook etc).

I didn't like the first option because I didn't have a spare computer to cripple, so I bought a Mac Mini to help me with my coding quest.

I never owned a Mac Computer before(Though I do own an iPhone), but I did have a few encounters with a Linux based OS, so a lot of things are familiar. (The console, packages) It seems that a Mac is basically Linux wrapped with an amazing intuitive and friendly GUI. A lot of things were familiar from the iPhone like the mail, calendar and even iChat, which has the same sounds and GUI from the iPhone's Messages application.

So to get started with the coding, I had to register to Apple's iOS developer center, and from there, download the developer's package which includes Xcode(The IDE) + the latest iPhone SDK(essential for creating an app).

After a quick brief in their website, I found out that in order to test any application, you need a developer license key, which costs 100$. But until you have one, you could code for free all you want and test your apps with the iPhone simulator, which is a great utility.

The iPhone applications are coded in a language called Objective-C, which is some sort of C permutation that Apple seems to like and use even for Mac OS X programming frameworks. All developers must use the iPhone SDK to code their iPhone applications, or else Apple won't approve them in the AppStore.

That's it for now, next time I'll continue to write about my iPhone coding adventure..