Andrew Jarvis ⋅ Chicago, IL Twisted Media ⋅ 14 years experience

Are you looking to make mobile apps?

Responsive websites are doing a lot more of the heavy lifting for businesses than having both a website and an app, and the barrier to entry for responsive development is quite low. With just HTML and CSS media queries you can create a responsive site even without JavaScript!

Once you've cut your teeth on regular CSS I would suggest learning SASS which makes writing CSS for responsive design much smoother.

Jon Brunn ⋅ Logan, UT IBM ⋅ 15 years experience

Apple has a developer site with a lot of introductory information for iOS development:
https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action
You can download Apple's developer environment, Xcode, for free, though there are free versions of software development environments for most languages. Much of that site will assume you have some prior programming experience though. A "Hello world" program is a really basic one and is the first you should write in any language, just learning how to print something to a screen to say "Hello World" - be it on your computer, a mobile app or your browser.

I think HTML and Javascript are probably easier to start with than app development personally, and they end up being used in some mobile app development as well. This is a bit dated, but gives some basic intro to HTML if you are starting from square one:
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/
The nice thing about HTML is you can literally start with any text editor on your computer, write the document as text, rename it to .html, double click and you'll see your work in your browser. Chrome and Firefox have developer tools and will let you see what your HTML page would look like on a variety of mobile devices. HTML is also quite transparent - you can see the source for what everyone else is doing on their pages and learn from it.

Mike Lyons ⋅ Yorktown Heights, NY Linkedin ⋅ 20 years experience

Christopher,
Apple makes primary use of C, C++, and objective C for IOS. If I can go a bit beyond the
scope of your question, while I understand your interest in the mobile space, you might benefit from casting your net a bit wider. Depending on the the depth of technical knowledge that you currently possess, I recommend being open to other, let's call them 'foot in the door' IT opportunities. If you'd like to discuss this in greater detail I'd be happy to connect with you.
Mike Lyons
mlyons@Linkedin.com

Komala Valli ⋅ Apo, AE ⋅ 1 years experience

HI Chris
Mobile application development job is one of the best and hot job these days. You are right in starting with C and C++ and then learning Objective C. You may enroll yourself into the apple Developer program where you get to interact with instructors and forum where you can get help to learn IOS. But down the line in your carrier don’t stop yourself with limited mobile platform like Apple. Get yourself equipped with Android app development. This is because you never know when these markets will change, we are in dynamic world. So you creating more chances for yourself and you can demand more salary when you are a multi platform app developer.
All the Best
Regards
Ela

christopher durden ⋅ Fairfax, VA U.S. Navy Reserve, Seaman Recruit ⋅ 1 years served

I have a passion for Apple. All I can really think about. Love it, and pretty much driven to learn whatever I can to become a successful iOS app programmer. Starting from the ground up here, no bad habits yet. :-)

Amit Chaudhary ⋅ San Jose, CA Doordash, Silicon Valley Software Company ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Christopher,

Here is what might be a better\faster path.

Pick a role that you care, Programmer or Designer.

Pick a platform, iOS has more money for developers, Android is more widespread internationally, but more tougher due to more devices, etc. Ignore all other.

You can also pick on what you are liking implementing on or which phone you currently have, motivation will come easier

Then ship a small App(Programmer) or a mockup(Designer) on that platform. Keep it simple, like weight addition & showing on graph

It is Swift & Objective C for iOS and Java for Andriod, anyone will be enough.

Check openings for above & linkedin profiles to target better.

Amit

christopher durden ⋅ Fairfax, VA U.S. Navy Reserve, Seaman Recruit ⋅ 1 years served

I'm looking to develop mobile apps for apple ios. Swift language seems pretty sweet. But I don't have a heavy background in coding. That's why I was seeking to get C++ certified for some knowledge to work with as a corner stone to begin with Objective C. Also, I'm sure it couldn't hurt to have a cert like that on your resume from Microsoft. I'm curious if it opens any doors.