Writing Apps for iPhones

I have been reading J2SE for 4-5 months now and have gained a fair level of understanding. However, i want to try a hand at mobile App development.
I thought of writing applications that could run on iPhones; so i thought of versing myself in J2ME. Google on this subject tells me that J2ME is not supported on iPhones yet and Objective C is used instead.

A few Questions:
1. How easy would the transition be - what does such an undertaking require of me(w.r.t technologies)?
2. is there enough documentation...book, perhaps?

If anyone can share a link which throws some light on iPhones App development and things alike, i will be obliged.

I am not sure if this is the right forum for this topic; please "move" the thread otherwise..(asking questions about iPhones, which doesnt support JAVA, on JavaRanch seems meaningless!!)
[ December 19, 2008: Message edited by: Monu Tripathi ]

Register your account with Apple and start with iPhone SDK

First, note that you need an Intel Mac running OS 10.5 in order to use the iPhone SDK.

iPhone apps are written in Objective-C (an object-oriented version of C) using Apple's Cocoa frameworks for Mac and Touch (iPhone and iPod Touch). Xcode (Apple's free IDE) includes documentation with a lot of tutorials. But if you prefer a textbook approach...

If you do not have experience with C, then I suggest starting with Programming in C (3rd ed) by Stephen Kochan. This will be a quick, easy read coming from a Java background, but there are a lot of critical details covered here.

Next, I suggest Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (3rd ed) by Aaron Hillegass. This also serves as a much-needed guide for learning Xcode. Then for getting into iPhone details, there's The iPhone Developer's Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK by Erica Sadun.

(Moving to the Mac OS forum, where this has come up before.)

I'd imagine C++ as the object oriented version of C..maybe i got confused between extension and version.

Thanks for you replies..

Originally posted by Monu Tripathi:
I'd imagine C++ as the object oriented version of C.

C, C++, and Objective-C are not extensions or versions of each other. They are simply different languages that somewhat resemble each other in their basic syntax.

True, I should not have said "version."

Maybe Wikipedia can offer some clarification...

Objective-C is a very thin layer on top of C. Objective-C is a strict superset of C. That is, it is possible to compile any C program with an Objective-C compiler. Objective-C derives its syntax from both C and Smalltalk.

This is why I found I needed a C foundation before getting into Objective-C. The Hillegass text I mentioned above is very good at introducing the object-oriented (messaging) aspects of Objective-C, but it assumes a C foundation.
[ December 24, 2008: Message edited by: marc weber ]

That fact that so many languages since C have adopted C-style syntax is probably very confusing to many. Look at how often Java is confused with JavaScript (yeah, I know ECMAscript sucks as a name, but couldn't they have picked something other than JavaScript?)

How about "LiveScript"?

LOL. I can see why they dumped "LiveScript" (sounds way too much like buzzy-marketing-spiel jargon), but JavaScript was a poor substitute.