External Resources - JGL/DiplomaInAppleDevelopment-2024-2025 GitHub Wiki

Apple Textbooks

In the Coding units, we'll begin by working through the official Apple textbook "Develop in Swift Fundamentals", which is part of the Apple Develop in Swift Curriculum.

In addition, you should download the projects files for both the Student and Teacher Guides - with the Teacher Guide Keynote files for lectures:

Later we will be continuing our work through the Apple Develop in Swift Curriculum, by working on the final book in the series of three, "Develop in Swift Data Collections"

As before, you should download the projects files for both the Student and Teacher Guides - with the Teacher Guide Keynote files for lectures:

Apps for your MacBook or iPhone or iPad

Xcode. Xcode is the macOS app that allows you to make other apps for all the Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and watchOS. This is where you'll be spending most of your time this year!

Swift Playgrounds is an official Apple app available for macOS and iPadOS that is great for learning Swift and SwiftUI.

The Apple Developer macOS app an easy way of downloading tutorials and videos from World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC, Apple's annual developer conference, also known as dubdubs).

The Apple Developer iOS app - same as above, but for your iPhone. Great for downloading videos from WWDC to watch while you are commuting to college and back (hint hint!).

SF Symbols a free macOS app from Apple with thousands of beautiful icons for use in your apps and prototypes and presentations.

Documentation

The best place to start is "A Swift Tour" from the official swift.org site - A great introduction to the programming language that we are going to be using all year, Swift. Swift.org has just had a new Getting Started section added that has several tutorials and articles.

A complete language reference is also available: The Swift Programming Language (TSPL) book is available in multiple languages.

Apple have launched the Pathways section of the Apple Developer site. It has a series of sections on different resources, all are worth visiting and reading in detail:

The Apple Developer Video homepage - over a decade of videos from Apple's annual WorldWide Developer's Conference (WWDC or dubdubs). So many brilliant videos and tutorials here.

A complete list of all the technologies that Apple support - aka all the different official libraries of code that you can use to make software for any of the Apple platforms.

A page of free machine learning models to use with Core ML. All the Machine Learning Resources on Apple Developer.

The Swift Package index is a great resource for finding pre-packaged Swift code libraries - open source code that you can use in your projects from developers outside of Apple itself.

The Awesome-Swift topic from GitHub, a list of lists of open source resources for Swift, SwiftUI and other useful Apple development tools and content.

Design

Learning to code is only half the challenge, designing is the other half.

The Apple Developer resources site - loads of templates for designing apps in Keynote, XD, Sketch and other software. Use this to prototype apps before you've written any code, then watch these three videos to find out how Apple prototypes without code:

The App Design Workbook is an Apple Keynote file, created by Apple designed to take you through the process of designing and prototyping an app for iOS.

The Apple Developer Design site - central place for all of Apple's Design documentation and content.

The Human Interface Guidelines aka HIG are Apple's official guidelines for designing apps for any of the Apple platforms. Not just guidelines, but amazing best practice for design in general.

The Apple Design Awards are given every year at WWDC to "honor(sic) excellence in innovation, ingenuity, and technical achievement in app and game design". A great place to visit for app inspiration.

Miscellaneous

Apple Official Education pricing you can get large discounts on Apple hardware and software by taking advantage of their Apple Education pricing program.

Apple Developer Membership comparison - you can develop apps using Xcode using just your (free) AppleID (the same ID you use for the iOS or macOS App Store or Apple Music or Apple TV) but you can also pay £99 a year to be able to release apps on the various app stores. I'm currently investigating getting discounts on the £99 fee.

Daring Fireball - the original and most popular Apple blog.

Online and offline books