Question

I have decided to start programming some apps for the iPhone that eventually will get submitted to App Store. So I have to use a language the Apple supports.

However, from what I understand, there are some variety of languages I can choose from.

Ansi C

Objective C

C

C++

I started learning C++ in school back in 2001, so maybe I should use that. However, I would like to use the language that is most supported API and community wize. Which one is that?

Answer 1

Here’s the low-down:

All iPhone SDK APIs are either Objective-C or pure (ANSI) C. The pure C APIs tend to be the lower-level APIs, so you could use just Objective-C.
However Objective-C is a strict superset of C, so you’ll need a reasonable grounding in C in order to write Objective-C.

C++ is fully supported, but is not required (there are no C++ APIs). You can even mix Objective-C and C++ in the same source using Objective-C++. If you do this it’s best to use C++ for pure computational components, pure Objective-C for the front-end, and Objective-C++ for the “glue” layer in the middle.

In summary: you’ll need C and Objective-C. Use C++ for some parts if you particularly need it.