First off you need a mac. Also making a game (even a simple one is not that easy and is time consuming. I prefer using straight code as it is easier for me but here are some of the more popular programs used to help make idevice games Torque http://www.torquepowered.com/products/consoles Cocos2d (out of what I have used this is my personal favorite) http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/ Unity (costly but good for 3d games) http://unity3d.com/unity/features/iphone-publishing.html
Your best bet is to start by reading the docs at http://developer.apple.com/iphone. That should probably answer 95% of your questions of whats required to get started...
Yep. You should first check out what are the prerequisites. Then write your own "Hello iPhone", go through a lot of tutorials, learn about software *and* game development, design patterns, etc. Once you are through these you should start developing your first game. Have fun and be patient - it might take some time!
This is only because Apple owns the iPhone and Mac and they can use the iPhone to sell a few Macs. After looking around to see if you really needed a Mac to program, it seems like you don't; you only need a Mac to program an app to submit to the app store (and you have to pay $99(?)) in order to be considered an official app developer by Apple. If you want to learn how to program using the iPhone SDK it seems that there are open source alternatives (although they all seem to require a jailbroken iPhone). You won't make any money that way, but you'll learn and that might be more valuable. Hope that helps!
I can see a seasoned developer getting by programming on a PC, but I imagine it would be pretty difficult to learn how to program without an iPhone emulator, or without native iPhone support, no?
This is true; GPL alternatives are rarely as user friendly as the official medium, doubly so in the case of Apple. It just seemed to me that, until you determine whether or not you like programming, you may not want to invest a significant amount of money on equipment. Hm, maybe the local university has macs with the iPhone SDK loaded on it for their CS students. I'm a mathematician not a programmer however, so I guess you should take what I say with a grain of salt.
You would also have to pay $99 a year. As well as the initial 99$ to get your apps into the store (one time thing for developer)
You don't need to pay anything if you're just using the SDK to develop on. It does cost $99 per year (not month) to begin uploading apps to the app store though.
