There are a ton of options out there for programming iPhone (and by extension mobile Apps). If we just focus on the iPhone, you will have to start with making a choice between programming a Native App or a Web App. In the past, the big determining factor used to be whether or not you wanted to sell your app on the iTunes’ store. In recent years, PhoneGap and other web wrappers have come about that allow a web developer to wrap their App in Objective-C, thereby allowing you to sell your creation on Apple Store.

With the Apple Store out of the way, choosing between Native and Web Apps becomes a more realistic choice. There is no question that today, Native Apps perform smoother and set the bar that Web Apps are trying to achieve. However, the learning curve is steep and Objective-C is very different then any web programmer probably has experienced. A shortcut to creating Apps is to use HTML, Javascript, and CSS to create your App, and then wrap it in PhoneGap to submit to the store. PhoneGap also makes plugins that allow you to slowly learn some Objective-C.

A real good way to start is to pickup this book titled Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: Making App Store Apps Without Objective-C or Cocoa (Sheesh!). It’s the same one that I purchased a few months ago, and I still reference it today, although admittedly not as much as when I first purchased it. This book walks you through all of the steps from creating a simple webpage, adding animations and javascript (more specifically jQuery), and then wrapping it in PhoneGap (now named Cordova) for the iTunes store. I strongly recommend this book as your starting spot! And hey, if you purchase it by clicking on the links in this blog, I make a sweet 4% from Amazon. So thanks in advance!

About the Author: Sprawl

Stephen Russell is a Mobile App developer and all around IT geek that spends his days running data centers and his nights coding. This site is the go to place for all of zSprawl's work and the infamous development blog. In his free time, he enjoys tinkering with web code, playing video games, and otherwise plotting to take over the Internets.