“I wrote this blog in Turkish about 1.5 years ago and it attracted a lot of attention. I wanted to share the English version with you again.”
Last week, I posted a tweet to share my happiness, receiving more attention than expected, reaching 70,000+ people. Many people who have gone through similar paths or who want to start this journey have reached out to me and the questions were quite similar. So, I wanted to sum up this journey and questions in a single blog post to make it more useful and lasting for the community. Here is Zero to One — Becoming an iOS Developer!
Before iOS Development
From my first years of university, I was interested in artificial intelligence, and machine learning, which are one of the most popular fields today, but after a while, I started to think that maybe this is not the right field for me while working in this field. Additionally, I should also mention that I had a brief encounter with Flutter, a cross-platform language, in 2019. Maybe my adventure with mobile was going to continue with Flutter, but because of the popularity of artificial intelligence in the industry, I took a break from Flutter.
As I decided that artificial intelligence is not suitable for me and I was in the process of looking for something new, I made a radical decision to switch from Gaming Notebook to Macbook Pro. I will explain in detail why I made such a transition in the question and answer section at the bottom of the blog.
The Beginning of The Journey!
I was aware that one of the biggest benefits of my new MBP was iOS development. Although I had a certain foundation in Flutter, I decided to pursue iOS development, taking into account the advice of experienced developers in the industry, who always say “native never dies.” When starting, I needed a roadmap, so I began searching for a beginner’s course on Udemy and similar platforms. Three different contents were recommended and generally well-liked.
- The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp — Angela Yu
- Hackingwithswift.com — Paul Hudson
- Raywenderlich.com
I bought Angela Yu’s course first and returned it after 10 days, so why? While working on this course, Angela Yu prepared the steps for creating the project from scratch, adding an icon to the application, and similar steps and a scenario was prepared that we wrote on by cloning the repo directly. Although the steps to create a project are easy for people who have spent a certain amount of time with iOS development, I think that it is permanent for beginners like me to repeat these steps every time. I also think most of the Udemy courses are rote-based, just type what you see in the video into the IDE and see the output. (I hope I don’t get lynched. 😶) In this context, this option has been eliminated.
To be honest, I don’t have much experience with Raywenderlich, so I ruled out this option because most of their content is paid. As far as I heard from the environment, it is a platform with quality content.
Finally, let’s come to hackingwithswift.com, which is the option I chose and recommend. There are two different challenges for beginners on this site. One is UIKit and the other is SwiftUI. I chose 100DaysOfSwiftUI because it is Apple’s most up-to-date framework, but I think it was a bit of a wrong start, I will explain this in detail in the question and answer section.
It seems to me that many features make 100DaysOfSwiftUI content different and efficient. To mention a few of them, the separation of the content into daily plans and creating a 100-day roadmap for you. At the same time, watching videos to learn something may not be the most suitable option for everyone, at this point, you can access the text of the videos. In addition, all the stories are progressing through the project and the last parts of the project include “challenge day”. During the Challenge days, you are expected to add something to the project with your efforts, and if you need, tiny tips are shared without “sharing any code”.
My Github Graph
Of course, these challenging days are not always completed successfully. At this point, your research on Stackoverflow and similar platforms also increase your research skills.
As I progressed through the 100 Days of SwiftUI program, I started to share what I learned daily on my social media accounts and at the same time commit to my GitHub account to keep my motivation. Remember, this process is a long marathon, not a sprint, so it’s much more important to keep your motivation calm and confident than to start with a sudden hype and stop after 1 month.
My advice is to adopt a single golden rule during this process. Even on your busiest days, spend at least one hour on any video, article, blog, or writing code related to Swift or iOS development. Even a conversation with a friend about iOS development can be included in this.
Getting Started with Interviews
When I got to 3/4 of the Challenge, I realized that I felt more comfortable and could at least write something. Since I am still a senior university student, I started to apply for internships and part-time postings. Since I don’t have any iOS-related experience in my CV, I tried to highlight the 100DaysOfSwiftUI repo in my GitHub profile. In this process, although I did not meet the requirements in most of the postings, I still did not hesitate to apply and tried my luck.
The study case created by many companies for juniors is similar to each other. In general, they expect you to create mobile applications that ask you to pull data from the API and reflect it to the list, and then navigate to the detail page. With what I learned in this process, I started to create similar projects, of course, at that time I was unaware of “design patterns”, “third-party libraries” and similar topics.
In addition to creating a working application, what companies expect from you is details such as creating the application with a design pattern such as MVVM and fetching images using “Alamofire” or a similar library. In addition, being aware of the codes you write is one of the important details. As you can imagine, none of these things I mentioned were present in the first applications I wrote. At this point, I took a break from the 100-day challenge and started researching the concepts I wanted to learn specifically.
I have been rejected multiple times during job interviews but I was aware that every time I made a project it was better than the previous one. Another advantage of interviews is that you can quickly research topics that you have not encountered or learned about when working on your own. Therefore, I believe that even if you fail an interview, it is still very beneficial for your development.
Additionally, during this process, I had the opportunity to meet with the leader of the mobile team of one of Turkey’s leading brands and our conversations increased my vision of mobile development. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him.
As a result of all these processes, my interview process with Appcent was completed positively and I took a “small step for mankind, a big step for me” in my iOS journey 6 months ago.
Furthermore, the welcome I received from the Appcent team from the moment I joined was amazing, I am very happy to be a part of such a team!
F.A.Q.
These are the most frequently asked questions me on Twitter and Superpeer, although the answers are not correct, I would like to add that I am just stating my opinion.
General Questions
I want to develop iOS but I don’t have a Mac, is it possible?
It may be possible with Hackintosh, but in the long run, you will need hardware with a MacOS operating system.
Should I start with SwiftUI or UIKit?
In my opinion, you should start with UIKit. Although many things have become easier with SwiftUI, it is still very difficult for a developer who does not know UIKit to find a place in the industry.
I want to be an iOS developer too, how should I go about it?
There are many roadmaps on the internet, you can source one of them and proceed. Also, 100 days of Swift content is a good roadmap for the first 100 days.
I want to buy a Macbook, which one should I get?
It’s a matter of your budget. All currently sold Macs (M1 and above) are quite suitable for iOS development, if your budget allows, upgrading the RAM to 16GB can be a good investment. It can also be used in old intel macs, of course, but it is useful to research in detail before purchasing.
I’m applying for the postings, but I’m not getting accepted, what can I do?
If you are rejected at the first stage, you can diversify the projects you have done on GitHub and highlight these projects in the CV. If you get rejected at the study case stage, as I mentioned in the article, you can learn the design pattern, cocoa pods, and similar details and improve your code.
Personal Questions
Did you have any background?
Of course, I had some background as I studied computer engineering. I was somewhat familiar with the OOP structure as I was interested in java, dart, and python languages before, but that doesn’t mean that I became this way thanks to this foundation. Whatever your department is, I think you will succeed if you put enough effort into it.
Why did you sell Gaming Notebook and buy a Macbook?
When I had a Gaming Notebook computer, I spent most of my time playing games. Although I had nothing to do with iOS development at the time, I can say that I banned myself from playing games by buying a Macbook. In this way, I made the time I spent playing games more productive.
Were there times when you lost your motivation?
Of course, it happened, I reduced my working times from time to time in this process, but the biggest reason for me to stay motivated in general was the daily commit and Instagram stories I posted. I would also recommend finding a study buddy for yourself, this marathon is not filmed alone. :)
I have more questions!
You can ask your questions on my Twitter or Superpeer account, I’ll be answering as soon as possible!
Conclusion
I tried to tell you about my whole adventure that started 6 months ago. I hope what is written here inspires someone. Do not forget that this journey is a marathon, it is a long but enjoyable marathon. In addition, all of the articles written here were written by a 4th-year university student, a junior iOS developer, of course, there may be details that I misunderstood, but my aim is only to convey the experiences of this journey to other people. I hope you enjoyed reading it. :)