How to Beat the Hardest Part of Mastering a New Technology

First off – the hardest part of becoming a software developer or learning a new development skill is simply getting motivated enough to get started. There are plenty of reasons for this: the task may seem more daunting than it really is, you may not mentally committed to the process yet or you may just not know where to start.

To beat this roadblock the best thing you can do is to get started (but for real). And by that I mean you really need to set aside time each day to work on developing your iOS skills. Block an hour off your calendar at work each day if you have too. Make it real and spend that hour working on iOS in some respect.

Set aside 1 hour each day

What You Should Spend Your Time On First

Ok, so you have an hour to spend each day but what do you do with that time? First off, you want to make sure that you have the basic environment set up. Don’t bother reading blogs, or books or doing anything else until you know that you have the basic tools in place to actually make apps.

What you need is a newer Mac and the latest version of XCode that you can buy from the Mac App Store for five bucks. Once you have that set up make sure that you can create a new XCode iOS project and run a blank app in the iOS simulator. This process should only take few minutes.

Make sure your tools work

Make sure you have the basic skills in place

It’s tempting to try to dive right in and start trying to make your iOS app immediately (I admit that’s exactly what I did with my first app Wine Pad). However, you really do need some basics in place first..

Basic programming is the process of giving a computer, or iPhone, instructions. This is how apps are made with long lists of instructions. If you’ve never written a software program before then you need to work on this. Pick up a book on C programming, take a community college class and expect to put some time into learning this skill.

Once you have the gist of programming you want to make sure that understand Object-Oriented Programming in particular. This is a the modern approach to writing computer programs. You may already know these things if you ever used JavaScript on your website or work with a programming language like C# or Java.

Get up to speed with basic and OOP programming

Start to Explore the iOS SDK

The real fun starts when you feel comfortable experimenting with the iOS SDK. This is the toolset you use to make apps and each day you work on this you unlock new powers in your app making arsenal.

Because the iOS SDK is no powerful, it can seem overwhelming at first. The trick is to take it one step at a time and savor the small accomplishments. As you learn more things you will feel more confident.

Have fun with the iOS SDK

Get Help

For me it took four months to learn iOS SDK but 80% of what I learned took place in only 1 week’s time. How did that work? Basically, I struggled and struggled with iOS SDK until I flew out to the West Coast to attend WWDC and learn from the experts. That one week of training helped me more that three months of studying on my own.

To accelerate your progress get help by:

• Reading books and blogs
• Attending meetups and confernces
• Meet a mentor
• Attend focused training
• Get coaching

Leverage others to accelerate your development

PS: Do you want to accelerate your own process of becoming an iOS app developer?

Then you should check out this Fall’s iOS Code Camp session. I’ve opened 30 spots for this three week intensive iOS development training and coaching program where I personally guide you in this process. You will get presentations, live Q&A, lab exercises and I’ll even video tape me debugging your apps in lab!

Click here to find out more about this Fall’s iOS Code Camp:

http://institute.mobileappmastery.com/join/ioscodecamp