How much time does it take to learn iPhone App development

It is a common question that I come across in my line of work. How long does it take to learn iPhone app development? Unfortunately for citizen developers, the process of iPhone app development is more like a Masters course than a diploma program. Citizens need to get a deep understanding of the Swift programming language. Swift and Objective-C are the two programming languages that developers use to create iPhone applications.

The first Apple iPhone was launched in 2007. And since, the Swift language has seen innumerable changes that have made the language a very complicated one. It is rather difficult for one programmer to become an all-rounder in iPhone app development. This is one of the reasons iOS app designers are in short supply and why hiring them is very expensive and a tough process.

Programming from scratch may take more than a year if your programmers are highly skilled. The number of highly-skilled programmers may vary but I estimate you would need at least 4 to do the job in less than 2 years. If you alone want to create an app. Thinks a couple of years of hard training, a couple of more years of experience to hone in the skills in every department of the iPhone app development process, and a couple of more years to develop the app yourself.
To be an all-rounder at iPhone app development, you need to be highly experienced in the fields understanding business requirements and workflow, UI/UX design and actual hand-coding skills. Inclusively, you will have to invest in a Mac, which is quite expensive in comparison to other options. Your initial struggle will be with NSArray, where sub-classing will take you at least 3-4 months of training.

For a brilliant app, the minimum you will need is the most recent Xcode to code the app. Any less of version will create an app that will be obsolete in the eyes of the Apple App Store submission guidelines. However, if you are hell-bent on iPhone app development yourself, I suggest starting with the Stanford CS193P iPhone programming class on iTunes University. The courses are free but there are 49 chapters.
Or you could invest in WWDC sessions (video). However, the real stuff is pretty expensive.

On the topic of UI/UX design, I would suggest not to start a layout of .xib without studying at least 20-30 iPhone apps from an iPhone app development process as suggested by Apple. The major reason is that if the app doesn’t conform to the Human Interface Guidelines, expect the app to be disallowed by the App Store.

There are a lot of issues that will prop up if you want to create a business app by yourself. Instead, I suggest you partner with iPhone app development companies like HokuApps that create apps with reusable code to create custom on-demand business modules.

This way you can create an app at 10x speed, thus, saving time and costs. Plus, iPhone app development companies take care of the submission of the app to the App Store themselves. Post-deployment, HokuApps, iPhone application development service will also take care of any debugging issues, upgrades and maintenance with periodic over-the-air patches.