The Definitive List of App Building Tutorials

With over two million apps published in iTunes and Google Play alone, everybody is becoming an app developer. App coding tutorials have popped up left and right. Instead of leaving you to wander the realms of the internet, seeking out reviews on your own, we decided to take on the enormous task of compiling all the good ones for you! Did we succeed? No – probably not. The number of tutorials out there is staggering but we have done out best to get a wide and varied sample. Have a good tutorial we’ve missed? Leave a comment below with a link. If it’s up to scruff, we’ll add it!

Filters

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Environment Difficulty Tutorial Length Introductory

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced Short & Sweet

Safe Middle-Ground

Epically Detailed

→ The New Boston Android

Level: Beginner

Length: Long This excellent set of 200 separate Android tutorials will take you all the way from the very basics through voice recognition, 3D animation, and more. The tutorials get quite technical but for someone looking to really dive into the world of app development, this is an excellent route.

→ Code With Chris iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Long Perfect for anyone with no experience whatsoever, these dozen or so videos take you from setting up your first iOS app environment through to a simple and completed first app.

→ App Development for Web Designers iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Long This great article is designed to give an intro to app development specifically for web designers to help you get a better understanding of design for apps without having to complete a computer science degree along the way.

→ HongKiat iOS Development Guide iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Long A high-level series that doesn’t go as deep into details, but that gives a great overview of the strategy and thought process behing creating an app

Part I | Part II

→ iPhone “Hello World” Application iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Medium A down and dirty tutorial that will take you through the coding of a simple app with a button and an alert message that says “Hello World!”. There are easier ways to go about this, but this tutorial will give you a strong base from which to move forward.

→ Develop a Fortune Cookie App! iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Medium A tutorial to create a fortune cookie app from scratch for iOS. Caution – app not edible.

→ Show an Alert Message in an App iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Short A simple and short tutorial on showing iOS alert messages in an app.

→ Setting Local Notifications in iOS iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short An in-depth tutorial on how to use iOS’ native notifications and set them via an app.

→ iOS NewsStand Tutorial iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Short We know, we know. We hate Newsstand too. But in the off-chance you want to develop a newsstand compatible app, this is the place to start.

→ Custom and Offline Maps Using Overlay Tiles iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Short A great advanced tutorial on how to use the MapKits feature added by Apple in iOS7.

→ Unzipping Files in iOS iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short Get around Apple’s 50MB download cap and increase download speeds using zipped files.

→ Adding GPS to an iOS App iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short A nice overview on adding GPS to your app and using it in a few different ways.

→ Send an Email From Within an App iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short A simple 6-step tutorial on how to send an e-mail from within an iOS app.

→ Build a 1980’s Style Phone App iOS

Level: Beginner

Length: Medium A tutorial on using Photoshop and xCode to custom design a new phone & contacts app.

→ Capture an Image in an iPhone App iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short Capture an image without using the camera in an iPhone app.

→ Create an iOS-style SMS “bubble” in an App iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Medium A neat tutorial on custom-sized SMS bubbles and creating an app similar to the iOS text messaging system.

→ Importing and Exporting Documents in an iOS App. iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Medium An advanced article that will take you through some different methods to import or export documents from an iOS application.

→ Introduction to Swit UIKit iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short A short introductory tutorial on making a game “feel” real using Swift and UIKit. Make a block and then add gravity, collisions, and user interactions.

→ Use UIGestureRecognizer with Swift iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Short A brief tutorial on using UIGestureRecognizer to detect gestures like tap, pinch, rotation, and more.

→ 3D Animation Tutorial with Swift and Metal iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Long Metal is a low-level 3D Graphics API for use only with Apple. This two-part tutorial covers the basics.

Part I | Part II

→ Make a Waiting Game Like FarmVille iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Medium Create a simple kiosk game that requires the user to wait before actions are completed and launches alerts to notify users.

→ Make a Line-Drawing Game Like Flight Control iOS

Level: Intermediate

Length: Medium Create a line-drawing game to guide pigs to their food without letting them collide.

→ Make a Space Invaders Game iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Long Make a space-invaders game wit hthis two part tutorial including a ship, heads-up-display, enemies, AI, and more.

Part I | Part II

→ Build a Word Scramble Game using UIKit iOS

Level: Advanced

Length: Long Create a game to decode anagrams in this three-part, advanced Swift & UIKit tutorial covering advanced game control topics..

Part I | Part II | Part III

→ Sprite Kit Swift Tutorial for Beginners iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Learn the basics of 2D game design with Sprite Kit, iOS’ built in 2D game framework, while creating a ninja to battle monsters. Epic. This tutorial requires basic iOS development knowledge.

→ Sprite Kit Animation & Texture Atlases iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Animate a walking bear using texture atlases or for extra credit, animate a moon-walking bear. This tutorial requires basic knowledge of Sprite Kit.

→ Build a Game Like Mega Jump iOS

Level: Long

Length: Intermediate Use Sprite Kit to create a game like Mega Jump in this two-part tutorial. Work through Sprite Kit’s physics, accelerometer, collision detection, and more.

Part I | Part II

→ Inverse Kinematics Tutorial iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Add flexibility to character animations using inverse kinematics.

→ Create a Multiplayer Bluetooth Card Game iOS

Level: Long

Length: Intermediate This old and very long tutorial covers a lot of great material, teaching you to build a simple multiplayer card game playable over bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

→ Create a Simple Ninja Game with Cocos 2D 3.0 iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Use Cocos2D to create a simple game and go through the basics of this platform.

→ Create a Tower Defense Game with Cocos2D iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Create a basic tower defense game.

→ Create a Custom Progress Bar iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Use PaintCode – a design program which saves app-ready graphics – to create a custom progress bar.

→ Create custom Glossy Buttons in Core Graphics iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner A simple tutorial on creating glossy buttons that covers the basics of the Core Graphics system.

→ Create a Leather Navigation Bar iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner A short Photoshop-based tutorial on creating a custom navigation bar and importing it into Xcode.

→ Port an iPhone app to iPad iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner A good beginner’s tutorial on taking an iPhone app and making it work on iPad.

→ Build a “Hello World” App Android

Level: Medium

Length: Introductory A first-step tutorial to create a functioning Android app which displays quotes by none other than Steve Jobs.

Part I | Part II

→ Make a Tower of Hanoi Game Android

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Use AndEngine to create a simple Tower of Hanoi game.

→ Create A Simple Table-Based App iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Introductory Use UITableView and StoryBoard to create a simple table-based app which displays a list of recipes.

→ Create a Facebook-Style Slide-Out Menu iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner The title gives it all away

→ Build a Cloud Backend iOS

Level: Long

Length: Beginner Save data to iCloud using the Parse framework to add more functionality to your apps.

Part I | Part II

→ Basic WebKit Framework Tutorial iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Beginner Learn to use the WebKit framework to build the functionality to view a webpage into an app.

Part I | Part II

→ Creating Animated Segues iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Learn how to create custom animated transitions, known as segues, between different screens of your app.

→ Use iBeacons to Enhance an App iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Advanced Create two apps which interact via iBeacons and BlueTooth and learn how to seriously enhance app functionality.

→ How to Scan QR Codes iOS

Level: Short

Length: Intermediate Create an app which scans and activates QR Codes using AVFramework.

→ Create a WiFi / Bluetooth Chat App iOS

Level: Long

Length: Intermediate Create a three-tab chat application which allows you to find users in the same WiFi network or connect via Bluetooth and send messages or share files.

Part I | Part II

→ JSON & XML Parsing in iOS iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Advanced iOS has built-in frameworks for handling JSON and XML Data. Learn about them here.

→ Use SQLite to Manage App Data iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Work on saving data to external databases in SQLite.

→ Connect to Facebook Manually iOS

Level: Short

Length: Intermediate While there are much easier ways to do this, this tutorial explains how to connect to Facebook without any automated solution, offering insight into how the process really works.

→ Localize Your App in Multiple Languages iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Learn to localize the strings of your app to have an app that works in as many languages as you need.

→ Test your App with TestFlight Beta iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Test an app with family and friends before launching it to the App Store using Test Flight.

→ Create a User-Continuous App with Handoff iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Use iOS 8’s “Handoff” functionality to allow a user to work on a document across multiple devices. The follow-up tutorial goes into more advanced use cases.

Part I | Part II

→ Using iOS8 Photo Editor Extensions iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Use extensions of iOS8 to create an app which detects and pixelates faces in images on the fly. Very cool.

→ Build a text-to-speech app using AVSpeecSynthesizer iOS

Level: Medium

Length: Intermediate Use the AVSpeechSyntheziser class to create an iOS8 text-to-speech app which allows users to have texts read at different speeds, volumes, pitches, and accents.

→ Create Circular Profile Images iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner 2014 started a trend of “rounding” profile images in apps. Learn how to do this on the fly in an app when users upload normal pictures.

→ Create “Swipeable” Entries in Tables to Display More Data iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Add the ability to “swipe” cells in a table to the side to display more options like “delete,” “like,” “mail,” etc.

→ Implement A Pull Down To Refresh Functionality In An App iOS

Level: Short

Length: Beginner Most communication-based apps today feature a “pull-down-to-refresh” functionality. Learn how to implement this feature.

→ Udemy Course: Learn by Building 15 Real World Apps (75% off) iOS

Level: Introductory

Length: Long A $50 course taking you through 15 different applications. Because you’re clicking through us, it’s $50 instead of $200 – you’re welcome :).