It’s day two of #6DaysOfiOS, a celebration of the launch of our new Beginning iOS App Development Nanodegree program. We’re giving away six Apple devices: two iPhone 6s, an Apple TV, an Apple Watch Sport, an iPad, and a Macbook Air, and if you enroll in a free trial of the Beginning iOS App Development Nanodegree program between October 13th at 12pm ET and October 26th at 12pm ET you’ll be entered in a random drawing to win!
We’ve just launched our brand-new Beginning iOS App Development Nanodegree program, and we’re marshaling all our energies to support anyone who wishes to pursue iOS development, or learn more about Swift, Apple’s custom programming language designed specifically for building iOS and OS X apps.
So get ready to start bookmarking, because we’ve assembled a list of 14 essential Swift resources just for you! Whether you have little to no programming experience, and only just enrolled in the Beginning iOS App Development Nanodegree program, or are in the final stages of our career-track iOS Developer Nanodegree program, this is a list you’re going to come back to again and again!
Getting Started
1. Swift Fundamentals – An introductory lesson on the basics of the Swift language.
2. Swifty App – This app teaches you how to program in Swift on your iPhone or iPad. You can try the first chapter for free, and unlock all chapters for $2.99.
3. Apple Developer Resources – A collection of Swift articles, tutorials, and videos, cultivated by Apple.
General iOS Resources
4. Udacity’s iOS Developer Resources List – Our collection of the best Swift and iOS resources to follow.
5. Apple’s Swift Blog – Apple’s official Swift blog keeps you up-to-date on language updates, as well as shares tips and techniques for making the most of the language.
Tutorials
6. Building Your First Swift App – This six minute video from Apple will show you how to create your own image filter app in Swift.
7. A Better Way to Learn Swift – Thinkful has collected resources from all over the web, from Apple’s ebook The Swift Programming Language to articles on NSHipster, designed to help you learn Swift with the best tutorials for each concept.
8. Swift Programming from Scratch in 100 Exercises – Designed for people with no programming experience, these text-based tutorials take you from zero to hero when it comes to coding in Swift.
Communities
9. Quora – Quora is a great place to ask questions as well as share your own knowledge and experiences.
10. Apple Developer Forums – Open only to Apple Developers, these free forums are a great place to ask questions and find answers to your Swift questions.
11. StackOverflow – Many Swift developers visit Stackoverflow to ask & answer questions.
Code tricks & examples
12. Shortcuts in Xcode – Code more efficiently with these Xcode shortcuts.
13.Think Like a Designer – As developers, we often only think about the code we’re writing. But iOS development also requires a good design. This site will help you start thinking like a designer.
Cheatsheets
14. Swift Cheatsheet and Quick Reference – This (pdf) cheatsheet from Ray Wenderlich contains the most important Swift syntactical elements.
If reading that list didn’t get you excited about learning Swift, consider this: roughly half the adults on earth own a smartphone; by 2020, 80% will. American smartphone users on average spend nearly three hours a day on their device. That is a lot of opportunity for both individuals and companies who hope to impact people’s lives on a daily basis, and on a global scale. The smart device market is growing exponentially, and there is no doubt that iOS developers are going to very in-demand for a very long time.
