iOS Code Camp is starting on March 12th (which is less than one month away). Since I made some big changes this time a few people have become confused about what this season’s schedule will be. Basically, the overall content is remaining the same I’m simply relaxing the pace a little bit. New iOS Code Campers will get the same 15 modules of content as everyone else (with some tweaks and updates of course).
However, this time iOS Code Camp will go over 6 weeks instead of 3 so you get twice as much time to get one on one help from me.
Also, we are going to have weekly group coaching sessions now and these will take place each Wednesday. These are primarily a Q&A time but I will have some more things to say about the content covered in the week in which the coaching call takes place.
Keep in mind that the content itself is self-directed so you can go at your own pace and the schedule I’m about to show you is more of a suggestion. Considering work and family, this is what I think most people can really do well in the time period.
Ok, here is the schedule:
iOS Code Camp Schedule
Each week you will go over two or three modules at your own pace. Throughout the week I will answer any questions that you have through on a Base Camp site set up just for iOS Code Camp. If the question involves code from the labs I’ll upload a video showing you how to fix your errors or otherwise get the lab complete.
For all six weeks we will also have a webinar scheduled for each Wednesday at 2:30=3:30 Eastern Time. Here we will have a general Q&A session, coaching and expand on the material that is covered for that week.
Here is the list of modules that we will cover each week:
WEEK ONE
1.1 – Mobile Apps, XCode 4, Interface Builder, Hello World
This is the introductory session where you will find out the low-down on the current mobile development universe. You will also be exposed to the iOS SDK for the first time with two Hello World examples using XCode, Interface Builder and even code.
1.2 – Objective-C Object Oriented Programming
Here will be go over the syntax of Objective-C which is the programming language that you will use with iOS SDK. We will also cover some advanced topics like blocks in addition to more traditional object-oriented concepts like classes, properties and methods.
1.3 – View Controllers, Singleton Model Classes, MVC
In the section on view controls, singleton and MVC you’ll explore the major design patterns behind UIKit. You will also see how to implement view controllers that work well with simple model classes as well as more complex Singleton classes.
WEEK TWO
1.4 – User Controls #1: Target-Action
The first section on user controls introduces the topic of user controls and who to work with them in Interface Builder. You will also learn the fundamental target-action design pattern that is used with many user controls like buttons and sliders.
1.5 – User Controls #2: Delegation
The last section in week one ends with one of the most important design patterns in iOS SDK called Delegation. Delegation is needed for user controls like the date picker but Delegation is used throughout iOS SDK in Foundation classes like NSXMLParser as well.
2.1 – Navigation and Tab Bar Multipage Apps
Apps that need more than one page for the users to see have special view controllers that give you powerful multipage features. In this section we will go over the two UIKit components that give your app multipage functionality.
WEEK THREE
2.2 – Table Views
Table views are the UIKit component that gives you the ability to list out tables of data one screen at a time. These common UIKit components are an integral part of most iOS apps. You will learn how to present information in table views and to use advanced features of table views in this section.
2.3 – Toolbars and In-App Email
Rounding out our discussion of UIKit are toolbars. Toolbars are powerful UIKit components that help us organize sets of functions and present them to the users. In the lab, you will wrote your own iOS app that helps email with a data attachment.
WEEK FOUR
2.4 – Core Data I Introduction
Core Data is the native database solution for iOS and it’s a huge topic. In this section, you see how to include Core Data into your projects and add Core Data functionality to your model.
2.5 – Core Data II Advanced Features with Universal Apps
Here we go over advanced Core Data features. Part of this section includes pointers on how to incorporate Core Data and UIKit into the iPhone portion of a universal app. This is where you see how it all comes together and you will see how to share your model between your iPhone and your iPad app.
WEEK FIVE
3.1 – Cloud Computing & Web Services
Connecting to the cloud is becoming increasingly essential these days. We’ll talk about the built in features that iOS has to work with the cloud (Internet web services). Also, we’ll go over some open source and other third party frameworks that are available to make it easy to use the cloud in your app.
3.2 – Making Magical and Responsive Apps with Threading
Here we go over some design considerations that should be taken into account when polishing your app. Part of this is making sure your app is responsive and so we go over how to use multi-threading to do this.
3.3 – Split View, Popovers and iPad Apps
Here is where we go over the iPad-specific features of iOS. We will use the app from 2.5 and add the iPad features to the universal app that we already started.
WEEK SIX
3.4 – Core Location and MapKit
iOS apps are uniquely able to get location information from their surroundings and many cool app ideas use this feature. We are going to go over Core Location which locates an iOS device in the world and also MapKit which is the embedded Google map feature developers can add to their apps.
3.5 – Mastering iOS App Development
Learning iOS SDK is only one step in the process of being an app developer. This could be the beginning of a lifelong obsession, passion or journey. In this module, we talk about what you need to do to become a master iOS developer.
[box]NOTE iOS Code Camp is a six week, intensive coaching program where you can turn your software skills into app development skills. You get 60 hours of content including video tutorials, hands-on labs and more. During iOS Code Camp you get one on one coaching and lab code debugging from me (Matt) via my BaseCamp project collaboration site. Also, you may attend weekly coaching calls via GoToMeeting where the entire iOS Code Camp group discusses the development topics we’re all working on that week. Click here if you want to find out how to register for iOS Code Camp.[/box]