Hour 1. Overview of the Developer Program

One of the primary purposes of Objective-C was to prove that it was not difficult to add object-oriented programming capabilities to the C programming language. Objective-C was envisioned as a lightweight superset of C, and that is what was implemented.

This cursory summary of 30 years of Objective-C brings you up to date on some of the key points in the evolution of Objective-C. Looking at Objective-C today, some of the high points (and, at the time, often much-debated and contentious issues) are not relevant to many people. Rather than looking back, you (and this book) can focus on the present and the future.

Writing apps for OS X or iOS is the reason to learn Objective-C, but Objective-C is not all you need. You also need the Xcode development tool. If you want to test on iOS devices or submit apps to the Mac App Store or the App Store, you need to register as a developer with Apple. With those items, you are ready to get started developing for OS X or iOS.

For a personal account, the entire process is automated so you can be enrolled in a matter of minutes as long as you have a credit card handy to pay the basic program fee of $99 per year for a Mac OS or iOS membership.

Mac—The basic membership is $99 per year.

iOS—The basic membership is $99 per year.

Safari—This program is free.

The basic membership adds access to beta software, developer discussion boards, and an invitation to purchase tickets for developer events such as Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). In the last several years, basic members have also been able to access videos of most of the WWDC sessions without an additional charge through iTunes.

The Mac OS and iOS programs include the ability to submit apps to the relevant App Store. With the iOS program, it also includes the ability to use the software simulator for iPhone or iPad apps. In addition, two technical support incidents are provided in the annual membership; you can buy more for $50 each. This support is provided by Apple engineers from the Developer Technical Support (DTS) team. They can help you over a technical hurdle as well as give you assistance in finding your way through the vast array of resources on developer.apple.com.

Personal—This is the category most people use. It registers you as a person. As noted, you must be over the age of majority in the country where you live. You are able to build apps and submit them to the appropriate App Store. You also get the resources that let you test your app on iOS devices rather than just on the software simulator that runs on your Mac. To install your test app on an iOS device with a personal membership, that device’s identification must be entered into your Xcode environment.

Business—A business membership enables you to add other registered developers to your team so that they can install test apps through their own accounts. This solves the problem of working with someone who is far away when you both are working on the same iOS app. Note that the teams you set up are for each app you work on; you give access to other developers only to the app you want them to use. The cost is $99 per year. You can convert a personal membership to a business membership if you are eligible. This requires additional documentation and review by Apple as described on developer.apple.com.

University Team (iOS only)—This program allows an instructor at a university to set up a team for up to 200 students. It is available to degree-granting institutions of higher learning. The program is free.

Enterprise Program (iOS only)—This program enables you to develop and distribute apps within your organization without going through the App Store. The cost is $299 per year.

Your development environment includes Xcode and its Objective-C language. It also includes frameworks such as Cocoa (on OS X) and Cocoa Touch (on iOS). This book focuses specifically on Objective-C, so although examples often use the various frameworks, they are not described in any detail except for their use in Objective-C code.

If you need to manage your source code, Xcode has a subset of Git and Subversion commands integrated into its interface. You cannot do every detailed task that Git or Subversion provides with the Xcode commands, but you can certainly do the important source version control tasks. In fact, many people do not even know what is not implemented in the Xcode interface to Git because they simply do not use commands beyond the basics.

Xcode comes with a variety of project templates for iOS and Mac OS. These are built in and are separate from the examples you can download from developer.apple.com. Whereas the examples downloadable from developer.apple.com are fully implemented projects you can use as models, the built-in templates are starting points. Many of them work without any further effort on your part, but what they do is provide a starting place for you to build on. For example, the Cocoa Application template for OS X puts up an empty window and a menu bar with basic commands.

Deployment target—This is the earliest version of the SDK for which the project is targeted.

Configurations—Most projects have at least a debug and release configuration from the start. You can add or delete others.

Localizations—You can use localization to translate your project into various languages. Localization is built into the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks.

For iOS projects, you can specify the device (or universal to build for both iPad and iPhone). On OS X as well as iOS, you specify the user interface for the target.

An increasingly common use of targets is to create an Xcode project with one target for iOS and another for OS X. Both targets can share some common code so that you can easily maintain a project with apps for both platforms.

Because the Xcode workspace window can be configured in many different ways, the first step to understanding the tool that you will be working with is to look at the workspace window components. This section begins with an introduction to those components and then continues with a Try It Yourself activity for you to experiment with.

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Note: Working with Figures

Note that the sequence of figures in this section is designed to introduce you to the workspace window. If you launch Xcode, you are greeted by a splash screen (probably—it’s an option) and by a project window that will likely look similar to one of the later figures in this sequence. But to get started, look at Figure 1.1, which shows you an editing window that might be familiar to you from other editing environments.

FIGURE 1.1 Edit your source code.

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Almost everything in this window is configurable—the fonts, the colors, and the presence of absence of line numbers. At the top left, the right-pointing arrow builds and runs your code; the square stops it. Status updates such as “Finished running Demo on iPhone Retina (3.5-inch)” appear in the center of the window. At the top right are two trios of buttons. The rightmost set controls the optional panes of the window that you can show and hide. (Don’t worry: The rest of the interface is explained later on in this hour.) The button on the left of this trio controls the navigator. Use it to show and hide the navigator at the left of the window, as shown in Figure 1.2.

FIGURE 1.2 Show the navigator area.

You can hide the navigator with another click of the mouse. Click on the rightmost of those buttons to show the utilities area, as shown in Figure 1.3.

FIGURE 1.3 Show the utilities area.

The utilities area has two configurable panes. Drag the top of the library pane up from the bottom to show both utilities and the library, as shown in Figure 1.4.

FIGURE 1.4 Show the library.

You can resize the window, as shown in Figure 1.5.

FIGURE 1.5 Resize the window.

If your code listing is short, there will be blank space at the bottom. Click the central button of the trio to bring up the debug pane, as shown in Figure 1.6. You’ll notice that the navigator has changed. That’s because Figure 1.6 shows the workspace window as it typically is when you are running your app (using the right-pointing triangle in the top left of the window).

FIGURE 1.6 Show the debug pane.

You now have an overview that should let you create your first project.

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Try it Yourself: Create Your First Project

Here is a high-level introduction to the Xcode workspace where you work. Unlike most other tasks in this book, the steps in this task can be done in any order as you explore. Also, note that much of the behavior can be modified with preferences, so your results might look a bit different.

1. Create a new project from one of the built-in templates. You might see a splash screen with the option to do that as soon as you launch Xcode. That splash screen also lets you turn it off in the future, which is why you might not see it. In any case, you can use File, New, New Project to open the sheet shown in Figure 1.7.

FIGURE 1.7 Create a new project.

In these steps, the template used is the iOS Master-Detail Application template from the iOS section. You are asked to name the project and choose the folder where it will be created. Don’t bother with any of the other sections.

2. The workspace window opens.

3. Explore your project. Show and hide the parts of the workspace window.

4. Use the right-pointing triangle at the top of the window to run your project. Just to the right of the right-pointing triangle and the square, you’ll find buttons that let you choose how to run it: Choose one of the simulators (it doesn’t matter which one).

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You have also seen the basics of Xcode—the tool you’ll use to build your code, your interface, and even set your app’s icons and launch images.

A. You have two routes available to you. If you attend a school that is eligible for the University Developer Program, you might be able to join through them. Otherwise, you can browse developer.apple.com and read the documentation. Go to the Mac App Store and buy Xcode so you can start writing code. (Even though Xcode is free, the store transactions always use the word buy.) You are neither able to place your apps in either the Mac App Store or the original App Store for iOS apps nor test on iOS devices, but you can hone your skills and develop apps that can be used to showcase your skills.

Q. What are the best settings for Xcode preferences?

A. Use whatever is most comfortable for you. As you are getting used to Xcode, one strategy is to create a new user account in System Preferences. Remember that Xcode is installed so that all users on a computer can use it. This enables you to use your test account to explore the preferences. When you find some preferences that you like, move them to your main account. You can even delete the test account at that time. However, most people who use Xcode a lot constantly adjust the workspace depending on what project they are doing and what part of the project they are working on.

2. How do you control the workspace window?

2. Control the workspace window with buttons in the toolbar, menu commands, and preferences.