iPhone® Application Development For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3. Enlisting in the Developer Corps

In This Chapter

• Registering as a developer

• Exploring the iPhone Dev Center

• Installing the SDK

• Looking at why and how to join the Developer Program

Personally, I'm not much of a joiner. I like to keep a low profile and just get on with having fun doing what I do.

But if you want to develop software for the iPhone, you do have to get involved with (yet another) major corporation and its policies and procedures. Although Apple's iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) is free, you do have to register as an iPhone developer first. That will give you access to all the documentation and other resources found on the iPhone Developer Web site. This whole ritual transforms you into a Registered iPhone Developer.

Becoming a Registered Developer is free, but there's a catch: If you actually want to run your application on your iPhone, as opposed to only on the Simulator that comes with the SDK, you have to join the developer program. Fortunately, membership only costs $99, but then again, you have no choice if you want your application to see the light of day on the iPhone. This is called joining the iPhone Developer Program.

In this chapter, I lead you through the process of becoming a Registered Developer, signing on to — and then exploring — the iPhone Dev Center Web site, downloading the SDK so you can start using it, and then (finally) joining the developer program.

Note

What you see when you go through this process yourself may be slightly different from ...