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What resources would you recommend to a web developer wanting to learn native iOS development?

Omar White on January 30, 2020

I already know how to code. I use JavaScript and react daily for my job. I’m looking for something to learn from that won’t assume I need to be taught what a variable or an array is.

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Jen • Edited

Hey Omar, I did a similar thing a couple years ago. You should still have a quick rundown of the language docs.swift.org/swift-book/Language.... There are things you can do in js which you can't/shouldn't in Swift and of course things you can do in Swift but not js.

Like Filip mentioned hackingwithswift.com is great. If you like more video style learning, try out Lets Build That App.

Also - there are some great resources on developer.apple.com. They usually put a bunch up every WWDC showing off new features seminar/follow along style, and will have downloads of the projects. I believe you need to be an apple developer (£70ish/$99USD annual fee) to access them. Or the company you work for might be able to provide you one/already paying for a program.

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Omar White

Did you mess around would react native at all and would you recommend maybe starting there? Or just diving right into native iOS.

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Jen

Straight into iOS. I don't think it will benefit you too much if you're planning on learning native iOS, it's still js after all. Do you already know react? react native wont be hard to pick up if so, if you decide swift is not for you but still want to do mobile dev.

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Omar White

I’m very familiar with react so I’ve thought react native would be a quicker way to actually be able to build something. But I’m not sure if react native will be able to do what I want.

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Jen

It will be faster for you to build a react native app for sure since you don't have to learn a new language (and the things that come with it like design patterns, libraries etc). I assume you can just code in swift/obj-c to fill the missing features? Although I don't know how hard/easy it is to mix the two, so it might start causing you some headaches.

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Filip Němeček

For me hackingwithswift.com was invaluable when learning iOS, even though I knew programming concepts from C# and other languages I worked with.

You can do the #100DaysOfSwift challenge which will teach you lot about iOS its layout, frameworks etc. The first days are Swift basics so you can do those in single day :-)