Development Companies

An alternate option would be to hire an app development agency that will be in charge of managing the entire project. In this scenario, your role would be limited to just the review and approval of the app. By using the sketching advice drawn up earlier, compose a specification document to describe what your app is going to do and for whom. Again, getting the facts straight is going to be important, so make sure that both you and the agency are on the same page when it comes to what it is you require, the desired delivery date, and don’t forget to include the estimate.

Note: Hiring an app development agency should only be considered if you have a large budget. It is important to realize that app design is usually broken down to four levels: information architecture, visual and interaction design. While finding one person who has all these skills is possible, all four of these distinct deliverables should be considered before you start hiring.

DIY

They say that ignorance is bliss, but if you are ignorant, you would ignore the bliss around you. Right? So, if you want to take a lick at it yourself, read this. Apple provides a number of tools which enable developers to build iOS apps. Downloading the SDK or software development kit from the Mac app store will give you access to three main tools for developing your app. The download, which only costs a few quid will give you access to Xcode, Interface Builder, Cocoa Frameworks and tools for testing the app as you go along with many others that will help you on your quest

Xcode

Xcode is an Integrated Development Environment or IDE, which is used by iOS and Mac developers to build apps. The best thing about Xcode is that it’s not only a code editor but also has a other useful goodies baked in, such as, static coed analysis, that sniffs out bugs in your code, auto-complete support and a variety of other debugging and performance enhancing tools. There is the option of using BBEdit and TextMate before using command line tools. It is quite easy to do all the development, including the final compilation easily by using Xcode.

When you open Xcode you will come to a screen which looks like this. Click the button that says “Create a new Xcode project”.

In the column on the left hand side, find the OS X section, click on Application and select Command Line Tool.
Product name, organization name (this can be left blank), company identifier, type (type in foundation), and tick mark the “Automatic Reference Counting” dialog box. And begin designing your app!

Interface Builder

Interface Builder is an application which enables you to build an interface visually. You can do that by simply dragging the built-in tab bars, buttons, labels and sliders onto the app’s interface. You can then tweak the built-in objects by configuring the palettes and panels on the screen. The Interface Builder can also be used to connect actions and targets, for instance, what happens when a user handles a certain element in the interface.


In my particular workflow, I like to use the Interface Builder mostly because it allows me to work on a custom interface. For all those who are new iPhone development, using the Interface Developer is highly recommended. That being said, also try to learn the UIKit code that it generates while you are in the development process.

Frameworks

Frameworks are, by far, the most important piece of the puzzle, because without a framework you cannot easily create an app that will run on Mac iOS or OS X. Apple provides numerous frameworks which allow new app developers to encrypt important information, draw graphics on the screen, play audio and video, create user interfaces, take pictures, write networking code, display web pages and so on.

These rich set of commands allows the developer to easily design their app without having to reinvent the wheel all over again. And thanks to the Cocoa framework, even the most incredibly complex commands are accomplished with a few lines of code. Making the entire structural development of the app, a one liner!