The iPhone development 'emergency guide'

Blogger and Mac developer Matt Gemmell recently offered an "emergency guide" to professional programmers new to the Mac and iPhone. Its a bare-bones, short-form explanation of what's what for those getting started developing for the Apple platform. Gemmell says that the iPhone Development Emergency Guide is aimed at "competent developers who haven’t written code for the iPhone platform before, and just want to get started right now. "Competent" here doesn't mean programming newbies, rather, programmers who are "confident of your ability to read documentation, do your research, and apply your existing skills to a new language, IDE, SDK and platform without the need for a preface, introduction and lecture on guiding principles." As I mentioned in June, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference saw the arrival of many iPhone-centric programers to the community. Some noted a hint of backlash from longtime Mac developers, so Gemmell's post offers another example of how the community is welcoming the newcomers. Here are a couple of interesting observations: Gemmell warned about over-reliance on the performance of the iPhone Simulator environment on the Mac. There's no substitute for real-world testing on the mobile hardware.

•It is NOT cycle-accurate. Not even remotely. Your animations will be much faster in the Simulator than on the device, so don’t ever judge performance from the Simulator. •It doesn’t have all the apps/facilities of an actual iPhone. For example, it doesn’t simulate things like the accelerometer. •Don’t try to submit apps to the App Store that you haven’t tested on actual devices.

He also had some practical steps for getting the software into the App Store. Some developers may not be aware of the length of time the process can take, he appeared to suggest:

•Apple has to approve your app before it goes onto the App Store. This can take any amount of time; right now it’s somewhere around 1-2 weeks. You can’t speed this process up; you just need to wait. This is an inherently and unavoidably flexible part of your deadline, so don’t over-promise. •This approval process happens even when you submit an update to an existing app, every time. •Your app will be run by an actual human.