Start Developing iOS Apps (Swift)

Jump Right In

Start Developing iOS Apps (Swift) is the perfect starting point for learning to create apps that run on iPhone and iPad. View this set of incremental lessons as a guided introduction to building your first app—including the tools, major concepts, and best practices that will ease your path.

Each lesson contains a tutorial and the conceptual information you need to complete it. The lessons build on each other, walking you through a step-by-step process of creating a simple, real-world iOS app.

As you make your way through the lessons and build the app, you’ll learn about concepts in iOS app development, gain a deeper understanding of the Swift programming language, and familiarize yourself with the many valuable features of Xcode, Apple’s integrated development environment (IDE).

Prerequisites

In these lessons, it is assumed that you are familiar with the Swift programming language. You do not need to be a Swift master to complete the lessons, but you will get more out of the lessons if you can comfortably read and understand Swift code.

If you are not yet comfortable with Swift, complete the Learn to Code exercises in the Swift Playgrounds app. Alternatively, you can work through A Swift Tour from The Swift Programming Language (Swift 4). Both give you a solid foundation in the Swift programming language.

About the Lessons

In these lessons, you’ll be building a simple meal-tracking app called FoodTracker. This app shows a list of meals, including a meal name, rating, and photo. A user can add, remove, or edit a meal. To add a new meal or edit an existing one, users navigate to a different screen where they can specify a name, rating, and photo for a particular meal.

The lessons are each accompanied by an Xcode project file that shows an example of how your code and interface should look at the end of the lesson. After you go through a lesson, you can download the project and check your work against it.

If you need to refer to the concepts you’ve learned throughout the lessons, use the glossary to refresh your memory. Glossary terms are linked throughout the lessons.

Get the Tools

To develop iOS apps using the latest technologies described in these lessons, you need a Mac computer (macOS 10.11.5 or later) running the latest version of Xcode. Xcode includes all the features you need to design, develop, and debug an app. Xcode also contains the iOS SDK, which extends Xcode to include the tools, compilers, and frameworks you need specifically for iOS development.

Download the latest version of Xcode on your Mac free from the App Store.

To download the latest version of Xcode

1. Open the App Store app on your Mac (by default it’s in the Dock).
2. In the search field in the top-right corner, type Xcode and press the Return key.
   The Xcode app shows up as the first search result.
3. Click Get and then click Install App.
4. Enter your Apple ID and password when prompted.
   Xcode is downloaded into your /Applications directory.