VERY Junior developer help

So i'm 13(just turned 13 1 week ago) and was wondering if I could gain some insight on becoming a developer for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform.

First of all how many teenager,kid developers do you know? I've heard of a 12 year old make an app called Moo Cow Fury. The game is okay for a TWELVE year old in fact i'm really impressed that he can develop at such an age, but does he reach a medium that other 20+ developers can attain? Sure he can develop and learn to code, i've never heard of other teenagers that can develop but if its just a small app it doesn't make a difference in the AppStore. Another developer i've heard of is Lim Ding Wen,again very impressive but still not "denting" the AppStore. 4,000 downloads? That doesn't make it "popular" but it is worth a download. A very sucessful developer is Jonah Grant, a twelve year old who made the classic game Pong better with features such as open feint and social networking. Definitely worth a mention as a good Pong port. But the point of this is to see if I can contribute to a medium that they havent obtained yet (getting featured on the top 50)

Do I have enough resources?
I have an iPhone 3G running 3.0
A VERY old PowerBook G4 (Doesnt have intel so it wont with the SDK but there's a hack I can use to get it to work on it)
I havent paid the 100$ for the developers program...yet
Java coding experience and some C++ coding knowledge.
So I need to buy a new laptop and pay the 100$ fee? Or is this unnecessary?

Is there anything important I need to know? Like if I need to fund small advertising if I release an app? Because its hard to get your app noticed if nobody knows about it.

Thx.

I think you certainly can't go wrong in trying to develop. I started programming at a very young age (younger than you actually) and it's led me to a great career.

You will need a better laptop probably. You can get away with not paying the $100 fee until you're really ready to test on your phone.

The Java and C++ experience will help you out. You have a headstart, so take advantage of it. Even if you don't make it in the iPhone world, you will learn a lot that will really help you in the future.

I'm 14, and I develop iPhone apps. I knew c++ and actionscript, before I started learning objective-c. It's very different though.

Any advice on starting out from concept to reality? Like any beginner tips?

Write down what you want your app to do and all the features you'd like. Organize them into a priority list.. what do you want for 1.0? What do you want to build out for the future?

After I do that, I write down the order that I want to program everything. This helps because it gives you a roadmap of where you should be.

After that, program

So I was reading and researching and I came across this thing where you can get the iphone to talk to 3rd party hardware acessories. How does this work I heard the APIs or whatever weren't released, what is this and how do I use it?

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Last edited by 5ku112; 07-29-2009 at 07:50 PM. Reason: Grammer Police!

If you have some knowledge in c/c++ and want to make a 3d game you should check out sio2 iteractive which is a free 3d engine for the iphone(http://www.sio2interactive.com/HOME/HOME.html). It's written in pure c so it's very easy to understand and it have lots of great tutorials(http://www.sio2interactive.com/TECHNOLOGY.html).

I don't think age is a problem if u are eager to learn and there are lots to learn. Let's say u are building a game and doing every thing, other then coding u will need graphic skill, 3d modelling for 3d, sound, marketting, building ur own web etc. Of cos u may sub out some task for professional.

It's good to start young! Start something u enjoy.

I started programming when I was younger than you. I did my own graphics, coding, and marketing. It is tough to learn, but believe me, you will have a TON of fun!

I'm sure I can make something good and push it onto the AppStore I just have to pay the 100$ and get a MacBook. Any suggestions for what kind of MacBook I should get?