iPhone App development step 1: Giving Apple $100

This post is from February, merged from my other (now defunct) blog

Steps -2 and -1 were buying a mac mini and a 16GB 3GI. Accomplished. Worth the money on their own, actually! Step 0 was coming up with an idea for an app. This was hard to do. Most of the good app ideas have already been done. However, considering what kind of apps are succeeding, maybe I’m wrong about what’s a good idea! Nonetheless, I have an idea.

Today was when I made what I consider my first real step towards making my app: paying Apple $100. I signed up at their site, filled out their survey, and maybe they’ll let me try to make them some money. If not, I hear they’ll give my money back. It’s a bit underhanded, if you ask me – them taking my money when I apply and giving it back only when they reject me. It makes me feel like I wasn’t charged, but they get to float the money, and it then motivates them to delay rejections. Hmph.

So, the next steps, not necessarily in this order, are going to be:

• Read up on objective C (begun)
• Read up on the iPhone platform
• Set up a version control system on my fancy new mac

None of them are blocked on Apple accepting me as an iPhone developer. The ones that are AFAIK:

• Convert my iPhone into developer mode
• Set up Apple’s development environment
• Set up a testing environment (TDD FTW!)

I’ll get started on these and resolve which ones are actually blocked by Apple. More posts to follow, as well as reports on how the learning is going.