Learning to code can give you so much freedom to create things. Things that millions of people can use. Swift is Apple’s programming language for creating software for its platforms such as iOS, Mac, Watch OS, Vision OS and TV OS. Learn Swift for iOS, and you will have the ability to create applications that can target over a billion users! In this article we will look at ways to learn swift and how you can apply it to creating mobile applications.
Use cases for Swift
Swift is a programming language created in 2010 and shipped for use by developers in 2014. Created by Apple, it allowed them to have an even tighter control over how their platforms worked and how developers created software for them.
One huge benefit to Swift is the fact that developers can utilise one code base to target multiple platforms and devices. With Swift you can make applications for TV boxes, phones, tablets, VR headsets, Watches and anything new Apple releases. Using SwiftUI you can even use the same UI elements across devices and platforms allowing for a more streamlined codebase. As iPhones are Apple’s most popular product we will be looking at how to learn Swift for iOS.
Swift Programming Courses
For visual learners you should take a look at courses on Swift. There are many out there on platforms such as YouTube, Udemy and many more. I would personally recommend taking a look at YouTube first to see if this method of learning is the best for you before investing in a course. Here are some YouTube videos you can get started with:
- Swift in 100 Seconds – https://youtu.be/nAchMctX4YA?si=5EMtswREZ2msF55d
- Swift Programming Tutorial – https://youtu.be/8Xg7E9shq0U?si=pr-OQl-9lzlzNzHl
Once you think this is the best for of learning for you, you can take a look at these Udemy courses that will help you get a deeper understanding of the programming language:
- https://www.udemy.com/course/ios-13-app-development-bootcamp/?couponCode=NEWYEARCAREER
- https://www.udemy.com/course/deep-dive-ios-16-swiftui-programming/?couponCode=NEWYEARCAREER
Apple Developer Website
The Apple developer website is one of the best resource out there for learning Swift. The developer website contains documentation about classes and methods. Updates to the platform and XCode. It also has rich tutorials and examples to help you learn Swift and other Apple technologies. For starting with Swift I would recommend taking a look at the Swift path created by Apple – https://developer.apple.com/swift/pathway/
Once you have taken a look at the Swift pathway you can move onto the SwiftUI pathway – https://developer.apple.com/pathways/swiftui/ .
Finally I would recommend bookmarking this website and reading anything new that comes out on it when a new version of Swift or iOS comes out. It is also a great place to start when researching new APIs and capabilities of iOS.
Swift Programming Books
The final method for learning Swift is to use Books. Here again Apple has created some great free resources in Apple Books. To avoid linking to old material as new books come out, I won’t be providing direct links to the books. I would however recommend heading to Apple Books on any Apple device and typing “Swift” in the search bar. This will give you a list of all available Swift programming books by Apple. Make sure to get the one for the latest version of Swift and iOS.
These books can start of quite basic if you are not new to programming but they give you a lot of hands on experience by building an application whilst going through the chapters. For beginners developers these books are a great choice.
In conclusion there are many resources for learning how to code. If you want to learn Swift for iOS I would strongly suggest sticking to the Apple free resources, at least in the beginning whilst you get a better understanding of the basics. Once you have a firm grasp, you can move on to more advanced topics and try a course on platforms such as Udemy or Pluralsight.