To the OP, if you're there: Are you using XCode 3 or XCode 4? You referenced the TBNR guide book, but from what I read, it doesn't handle the new changes for Xcode. Did that cause any difficulties? (I was on the fence about buying the book last night because it's the older version, but after the OP's recommendation, I just bought it on Amazon).
I'm doing the same thing as the OP, starting around the same time, except I quit my job to take a break. And admittedly I'm spreading myself out pretty thin because I'm also trying to learn and get pretty knowledgable in Javascript and Python.
I have to say that learning iOS programming is very hard for me, mainly because I have almost no GUI experience. I did a bit of Win32 MFC programming about 15 years ago, so some of the concepts aren't completely foreign, but they might as well should be in some cases.
XCode is a terrible IDE and the error messages I've encountered are amongst the worst I've come across. I figure it will take time to internalize this stuff, but I can tell you it is fairly painful at the beginning stages!
I am happy to talk / vent about iOS programming with you. I know it's frustrating, but please stay with it.
I think they key is to use the book as inspiration but not as Gospel. I found that some of the interface things in the book didn't mesh with the new XCode. I had to play around until I figured it out.
I am happy to chat with you anytime about it, providing you catch me on Skype. My skye id: is kent.fenwick
Also, message me on Twitter and we can arrange a time to talk about it. I don't have all the answers, but I feel your pain and think I can give you some good pointers.
Haha, I also set learning iOS as one of my 2012 resolutions AND I also bought TBNR after reading good reviews in Amazon. The 2nd edition covers Xcode 4 and iOS 4 (a bit outdated, but my target market is iOS 4+ anyway).
The shameful thing is, I haven't read the book yet, and instead go with Titanium since I'm more familiar with JavaScript (not really, but better than zero experience with Objective-C). It's been a couple of days, and things are doing good (but debugging sucks).
I eventually will learn iOS/Objective-C, but since I come from Java, and I don't like Xcode (I've played around a bit) I will most likely use AppCode from JetBrains.
I really think you should stick it out and learn XCode. I am not a huge fan wither, would rather use TextMate or BBEdit, but once you stick with it, you will get there.
If we do the things we have to do long enough, the day will come when we will get to do the things we want to do.
I started learning ios development around 2 week ago. Initially it looked very alien to me. I already know C, C++, C# and Java but not objective-c. The language itself is easy to learn but learning the framework took some time. Now I am much confident and just started my first app. Probably I will be able to finish my first app in a week.
BTW, I am also new to MAC platform and sometime finding using the MAC itself is tedious. I use windows at work and was using Linux at home. Now using mac at home.
I'm doing the same thing as the OP, starting around the same time, except I quit my job to take a break. And admittedly I'm spreading myself out pretty thin because I'm also trying to learn and get pretty knowledgable in Javascript and Python.
I have to say that learning iOS programming is very hard for me, mainly because I have almost no GUI experience. I did a bit of Win32 MFC programming about 15 years ago, so some of the concepts aren't completely foreign, but they might as well should be in some cases.
XCode is a terrible IDE and the error messages I've encountered are amongst the worst I've come across. I figure it will take time to internalize this stuff, but I can tell you it is fairly painful at the beginning stages!