Getting Started

To create the iOS app in this tutorial, you need Xcode 4.3 or later. Xcode is Apple’s integrated development environment (or IDE) for both iOS and Mac OS X development. When you install Xcode on your Mac, you also get the iOS SDK, which includes the programming interfaces of the iOS platform.

Create and Test a New Project

To get started developing your app, you create a new Xcode project.

To create a new project

Take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the workspace window that Xcode opens for you. You’ll use the buttons and areas identified in the window below throughout the rest of this tutorial.

If the utilities area in your workspace window is already open (as it is in the window shown above), you can close it for now because you won’t need it until later in the tutorial. The rightmost View button controls the utilities area; when the utilities area is visible, the button looks like this:

If necessary, click the rightmost View button to close the utilities area.

Even though you haven’t yet written any code, you can build your app and run it in the Simulator app that is included in Xcode. As its name implies, Simulator allows you to get an idea of how your app would look and behave if it were running on an iOS-based device.