8 Best Swift & iOS App Development Courses [in 2023]

Do you want to become the next top-notch iOS developer and write epic apps?

Look no further! In this post, you will find the best iOS app development and Swift courses.

Whether you’re just getting started or already have some background in Swift, there’s definitely something for you on this list!

Let’s jump into it!

8 Best Swift Courses

Here’s a quick overview of the best courses on Swift and iOS development.

  1. iOS & Swift – The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp
  2. The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course – and SwiftUI!
  3. iOS & Swift: Become An App Developer
  4. iOS 12 & Swift 5 – App Design, UI/UX plus Development
  5. SwiftUI Masterclass 2022 – iOS 15 App Development & Swift 5
  6. The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course – and SwiftUI!
  7. Twitter iOS Clone | Swift 5 / Firebase | No Storyboards | MVVM
  8. SwiftUI – Declarative Interfaces for any Apple Device

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1. iOS & Swift – The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp — [Udemy]

iOS & Swift – The Complete iOS App Development Bootcamp is the go-to course for a beginner iOS developer.

This is a bestseller on Udemy.

The course comes with a 55-hour lecture set and 114 useful Swift and iOS development-related articles.

This is a zero-to-hero course where you start from scratch and end up becoming a proficient iOS developer.

The course is up to date with the latest Swift version, that is Swift 5. The main goal of the course is to teach you how to build beautiful mobile apps for iOS 13+ devices.

After completing the course, you are fluent in Swift programming. At this point, you can start building your own apps, apply for a job, or become a freelancer!

One of the main benefits of this course is you can add 15 amazing app projects to your portfolio. You can then show these to your future recruiters or potential co-founders.

Rating4.8
Students Enrolled285,986 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content59.5 hours of video, 114 articles, 12 exercises
InstructorDr. Angela Yu
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This course teaches you a lot of useful skills every iOS developer should know. These include at least the following:

  • Building your own iOS apps
  • Starting your own mobile app business
  • Become a freelancer iOS developer
  • Creating your app portfolio for recruiters
  • Using Apple’s latest UI framework
    • Augmented Reality
    • Machine Learning
  • Basics of programming, such as
    • Variables and constants
    • Arrays and dictionaries
    • If-else statements and control flow
    • Concepts of OOP
    • MVC design patterns
    • Asynchronous network calls
    • Writing clean and readable code
  • App design basics
    • Wireframing
    • Mockups
    • Prototyping
  • Marketing your iOS app

That is a lot for a course that lasts less than 100 hours. Make sure to go through the material slowly and understand everything you do. Feel free to experiment with the examples and tweak the code as you like.

Course Prerequisites

This Swift course has absolutely no prerequisites.

However, this assumes you have a PC that runs macOS or a macOS device. The same applies to all the courses on the list.

The software you build apps with is free, so given you have macOS, you don’t need to pay for anything else than the course itself. At the beginning of the course, the instructor goes through the installation of Xcode step by step.

Who Is This Course For?

This course suits best someone who is:

  • Interested in iOS development
  • Beginner at coding
  • Switching from Objective-C to Swift
  • An iOS developer looking to refresh their arsenal with Apple’s latest tech.

2. The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course – and SwiftUI! — [Udemy]

The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course is also a high-rated and highly participated course on Udemy.

This course teaches you the basics of Swift and iOS development. The course is an updated successor of the popular The Complete iOS 12 & Swift Developer Course.

It is a comprehensive zero-to-hero course taught using the latest iOS and Swift technologies.

Choosing between this course and the previous course is just a matter of taste. Both courses offer a great way to get started as an iOS developer.

In this course, you will work with practical real-life app projects, games, and clones of popular apps.

Rating4.7
Students Enrolled8,810 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content40.5 hours of video, 42 articles
InstructorRob Percival, Atil Samancioglu
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

Example topics of this course include:

  • Swift 5 Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced techniques
  • Firebase backend
  • Layout
  • Notifications
  • Apple’s popular frameworks
    • Maps
    • Core Data
    • JSON and APIs
    • Machine Learning
    • Augmented Reality
    • SpriteKit for Games
  • Mobile App Architecture:
    • MVVM pattern
    • VIPER pattern
  • SwiftUI Crash Course
  • Mobile App Design with Adobe XD

The projects in this course make a great addition to your portfolio. You can then show these projects to your future recruiters and potential co-founders.

Prerequisites

Similar to the previous course, this one has no prerequisites other than having access to macOS.

Other than that, it is fine if you have never even heard about coding before. This course teaches everything from the ground up.

You can complete this course on:

  • A Mac Laptop
  • iMac
  • Windows PC running OSX

Who Is This Course For?

This Swift course is designed for someone who is:

  • Looking to build the next bestseller mobile app.
  • Seeking a career as an iOS mobile app developer.
  • Interested in learning how to code in general.

3. iOS & Swift: Become An App Developer — [Udemy]

IOS & Swift: Become An App Developer is a beginner-level Swift course.

This course teaches you the basics of Swift, mobile app design, frameworks, and much more.

If you are looking to build iOS apps as a job or as a hobby, this is the right course for you.

In addition to learning how to write Swift code, you learn a bunch of useful skills that every iOS developer should have.

For instance, submitting an app to the App Store is a lengthy process. Optimizing the screenshots, descriptions, and overall review process is hard. This course teaches you how to submit your app to the App Store step by step.

The only downside to this great course is it hasn’t been updated since late 2020. Of course, most of the information is still accurate, but some updates have also taken place.

Rating4.3
Students Enrolled8,514 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content90 hours of video, 1 article, 146 downloadable resources
InstructorDevslopes by Mark Wahlbeck
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This is a comprehensive Swift and iOS development course. In addition to the basics in Swift, you learn other iOS development essentials. These include:

  • How to submit an app to the App Store (trust me, this is more difficult than you thought)
  • Apply for iOS developer jobs
  • How to do iOS development as a freelancer
  • Basics of mobile app design
  • Apple’s popular frameworks
    • ARKit for Augmented Reality Apps
    • CoreML to employ Machine Learning in your applications

Prerequisites

To get started with the course, all you need is a computer that runs macOS.

You don’t need previous knowledge in programming or iOS development.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is for someone who is looking for a career as an iOS engineer.

You can take this course if you are:

  • Someone who wants to build iOS apps
  • New to programming
  • An existing programmer looking to learn iOS development
  • Students
  • Teens
  • Startup owners or Business owners

4. iOS 12 & Swift 5 – App Design, UI/UX plus Development — [Udemy]

iOS 12 & Swift 5 – App Design, UI/UX plus Development is a Swift course that teaches you how to both design and code iOS apps.

Thus far, the courses in this list have mainly focused on Swift programming.

This course takes it to the next level. In addition to teaching how to code, you also learn about mobile app design.

App design often gets overlooked by iOS developers. To become a proficient iOS developer, it is not a problem not to know design. However, if you are looking to launch an app as a solopreneur or build apps as a freelancer, knowing UI/UX design is a must.

You can easily tell if an app has been designed by someone with or without design experience. Those apps tend not to perform well.

To build apps at scale, you or someone in your team has to know how to design apps.

This is a great course that prepares you for the challenges in Swift programming and UI/UX design.

Rating4.3
Students Enrolled5,634 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content80 hours of video, 9 articles, 67 downloadable resources
InstructorGwinyai Nyatsoka
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This is a design-focused course. It will teach you important essentials of mobile app design, such as how to:

  • Do wireframing, mockups, and prototyping
  • Design icons, logos, and other types of assets for your app
  • Design apps that stand out from the masses
  • Become an iOS developer and a UI/UX designer
  • Think like an experienced UI/UX expert
  • Build custom components instead of using generic pre-built components

Prerequisites

This course requires no previous knowledge of programming or design.

The only requirements are:

  • Download Sketch or Figma (free)
  • An Apple MacBook or iMac

Who Is This Course For?

This course is for someone who is looking to learn both how to develop and design apps.

You can benefit from this course if you are someone who:

  • Has no previous knowledge of design
  • Has no previous knowledge of programming
  • Knows how to code but want to expand their knowledge to build beautiful designs.
  • Graphic designers who want to turn their designs into code.

5. SwiftUI Masterclass 2022 – iOS 15 App Development & Swift 5 — [Udemy]

SwiftUI Masterclass 2022 – iOS 15 App Development & Swift 5 is a Swift and SwiftUI course for beginners.

Unlike the previous courses in this list, this course also focuses on the SwiftUI framework.

Before teaching you how to build staggering UIs with SwiftUI, you will learn the basics of Swift programming and mobile app design. As discussed earlier, SwiftUI is a prominent UI framework released by Apple. This framework streamlines the process of building outstanding UI.

SwiftUI is a new framework from 2019. There are not many great resources on learning SwiftUI. This course helps you master this promising UI framework in addition to teaching how to code and design apps.

This course is a great choice to learn iOS development, design, and SwiftUI.

Rating4.5
Students Enrolled20,031 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content30.5 hours of video, 17 articles, 28 downloadable resources
InstructorRobert Petras
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This course is a Swift masterclass that focuses on the iOS app development language Swift and the prominent UI framework SwiftUI.

You will learn a bunch of essential skills of a successful iOS engineer. These include:

  • How to use the latest iOS development technologies to develop iOS 15 apps
  • Swift 5 basics
  • Mobile app design and prototyping basics
  • How to build outstanding UIs with Apple’s own SwiftUI framework
  • Basic iOS frameworks
  • The process of publishing iOS apps to the App Store

Prerequisites

This course does not assume any previous coding or design knowledge. All you need is:

  • macOS Monterey from Apple
  • Install Xcode 13 Developer Tools from App Store (free)
  • Willingness to learn how to build outstanding apps both visually and code-wise

Who Is This Course For?

This course is awesome for coding/design novices. But you can also jump in as an experienced developer who is looking to learn the SwiftUI framework!

All in all, this course is for someone who is looking to:

  • Start iOS development and mobile app design from scratch
  • Become a job-ready iOS developer
  • Become a freelance iOS developer or hobbyist developer and get your apps on the App Store
  • Learn the SwiftUI framework and has previous knowledge in iOS development and design

6. The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course – and SwiftUI! — [Udemy]

The Complete iOS 15 / iOS 14 Developer Course – and SwiftUI! is a comprehensive beginner-friendly iOS course.

This course teaches you the basics of iOS development using Swift 5. You will learn the process of building an iOS app from wireframes to the App Store.

This course also uses the new SwiftUI framework to build outstanding UI/UX for your apps.

To become a competent and job-ready iOS developer, it is not enough to learn how to code. You will also need some design skills to bring your app to life.

If you want to get a job as an iOS engineer, you won’t benefit from design skills that much. But if you are a soon-to-be startup founder or a solopreneur, you need to have all the skills when getting started.

This course prepares you for a journey as a versatile iOS developer. The projects in this course make a great addition to your online portfolio.

Rating4.7
Students Enrolled8,809 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content40.5 hours of video, 42 articles
InstructorRob Percival, Alt Samancioglu
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This course turns you from zero to hero when it comes to iOS development.

In addition to taking a full tour of Swift 5 programming, you essential iOS developer skills, such as how to:

  • Design iOS apps
  • Use the SwiftUI framework to build staggering UIs
  • Publish your apps in the App Store
  • Create mobile games with SpriteKit
  • Employ Machine Learning in your apps
  • Create Augmented Reality apps

And much more.

Prerequisites

No knowledge of design or programming is needed!

To complete the course, all you need is MacBook and Internet connection.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is a beginner-friendly course designed for someone who wants to:

  • Learn how to create iOS apps
  • Learn how to design iOS apps
  • Wants to learn the basics of programming
  • Become a job-ready iOS developer

7. Twitter iOS Clone | Swift 5 / Firebase | No Storyboards | MVVM

Twitter iOS Clone is a great course for someone looking to build a full-on social media app.

What better way to start learning how to code than starting with a meaningful project?

Everyone knows Twitter. It is one of the most successful social media apps ever created. In this course, you work with one big project and that is building a clone of Twitter.

But why take a course like this?

By re-creating Twitter you learn a lot of useful aspects when it comes to developing social media apps. These include how to:

  • Handle user sign-ups and sign-ins
  • Implement posts
  • Implement tags and mentions

And more. Also, you learn how to build an app that is intuitive and easy to use. Last but not least, building a big app like Twitter requires being able to handle a big codebase at scale. This skill is useful in any bigger project.

After completing this course, you have the tools to build a fully functional social media app. You also have a great project to showcase to recruiters and potential co-founders.

Rating4.8
Students Enrolled1,957 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content20.5 hours of video, 2 downloadable resources
InstructorStephan Dowless
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This course teaches how to build the most important features of Twitter from Scratch. These include:

  • Building a versatile social network
  • Implementing hashtags and mentions
  • User authentication

Behind the scenes, this means learning how to:

  • Use Firebase as a backend to store data
  • Build intuitive and interactive UI/UX
  • Deal with UITableView and UICollectionView objects
  • Use MVVM architecture
  • Create advanced architectural patterns and Swift techniques

Notice that this course does not use a storyboard. Instead, the app is put together programmatically! To develop apps at scale in a team of developers, building programmatic apps is easier to manage.

Prerequisites

Unlike other courses in this list, you should have some Swift and Xcode experience.

Also, needless to mention you should possess a macOS device to develop apps.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is for iOS developers who want to learn:

  • How to build a full-on social media app
  • How to manage bigger projects
  • How to build programmatic UIs without storyboards

8. SwiftUI – Declarative Interfaces for any Apple Device

SwiftUI – Declarative Interfaces for any Apple Device is a Swift course that focuses on UI design.

This course is also for someone who already has at least some iOS development background.

The main focus of this course is to teach how to use the prominent SwiftUI framework to build UIs like no other.

Rating4.7
Students Enrolled8,428 students
CertificationYes
PaidYes
Content26 hours of video, 8 articles, 89 downloadable resources
InstructorMohammad Azam
Refund30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

What You Learn

This course teaches how to use SwiftUI to build cross-device user interfaces in a clean and intuitive way.

In this course, you will learn the essentials of SwiftUI for iOS 14 / iOS 15, such as how to:

  • Create and combine views
  • Build navigation
  • Build grid layouts
  • Apply MVVP design pattern
  • Integrate SwiftUI with UIKit-based apps
  • SwiftUI animations
  • Consume web APIs and handle JSON responses

In addition, you learn with great real-life example projects, such as weather apps.

Prerequisites

To take this course, you should have some experience with Swift and Xcode. You should also know the basics of iOS architecture.

Naturally, you should also have an access to a macOS device to build apps.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is for someone looking to expand their knowledge of building iOS apps with SwiftUI.

Udemy Alternatives

Thus far we have merely focused on Swift courses on Udemy. At this point, you may wonder if there are other great platforms.

Yes, there are!

Let me briefly introduce you to great Udemy alternatives.

9. Swift Courses in Coursera

Coursera is one of the best online learning platforms.

Unlike Udemy courses, the Coursera content is free to get started with.

After completing the course, you can optionally purchase a certificate for completion. Also, you can purchase the full materials for each course separately.

This way you can get started quite easily. However, to get the most out of it, you will have to spend a buck on the courses.

The courses are built around in-demand programming skills, such as:

  • Data Science
  • iOS development
  • Android development

That being said, you should familiarize yourself with the Coursera iOS development and Swift courses.

10. Swift Courses in CodeAcademy

Codeacademy is among the most popular programming course platforms to date. It comes with a big selection of free courses and resources you can use to become a self-taught iOS developer.

Similar to Coursera, you can try Codeacademy courses for free. If you find them useful, you can sign up for a paid plan to unlock more premium content. To maximize learning, this is what you will most likely do.

11. Swift Courses in Udacity

Udacity is another popular e-learning platform. The main goal of Udacity is to prepare students for the programming careers of the future.

In Udactiy, some of the beginner-level courses are free. This is a great chance to get your hands on great resources without spending a buck.

The Udacity consists of learning programs called Nanodegrees. A nanodegree is like a small degree you get for each skill you learn. This is a certificate you can share in your CV or portfolio.

Udacity offers 200+ courses on a variety of skills for the future. This involves a bunch of useful Swift courses for iOS development. The courses are put together by the industry leaders such as AWS, Google, IBM, and Facebook. Udacity courses come with:

  • Video lectures
  • Exercises and quizzes
  • Projects
  • Assignments

Udacity is a great place to find more quality iOS and Swift courses. I highly recommend checking their courses out!

FAQ

What Is iOS Development and Swift?

IOS App Development is the process of building mobile apps for iOS devices.

As you probably know, iOS development involves rigorous programming skills.

An iOS developer is a programmer that writes program code and runs it on an iOS device.

To become an iOS developer, your main focus should be on learning how to code.

But keep in mind iOS App Development means much more than just writing code. Roughly speaking, iOS development involves at least:

  1. Identifying a business problem that an app can solve.
  2. Doing competitive research.
  3. Planning the features of the app.
  4. Building mockups.
  5. Implementing a professional design.
  6. Creating a marketing plan.
  7. Programming the app.
  8. Marketing the app as if it was the last day.
  9. Indefinitely improving the app with user feedback.

These are the phases of building iOS apps in scale.

As you can see, programming is just one step in this big process. But it is an important one! As an iOS developer, your main task is to write code to maintain and update the app.

The iOS apps are commonly written in Swift programming language. Swift is Apple’s own programming language mainly used for building apps.

The first step to becoming an iOS developer is to learn the Swift programming language.

Also, if you are planning to become a solopreneur or freelancer, you need to possess some mobile app design skills too.

In this list, there are courses that:

  • Solely focus on Swift programming
  • Focus also on mobile app design in addition to Swift

Some of the design-oriented courses teach you how to use the SwiftUI framework which you may have heard of. Before showing you the list of courses, let’s briefly discuss SwiftUI.

Swift vs SwiftUI: Which One Should I Learn?

In Addition to Swift, you may have heard about SwiftUI.

SwiftUI is a new and popular framework for building the User Interface of an app. SwiftUI was introduced by Apple in 2019.

The difference between Swift and SwiftUI is that:

  • Swift is an actual programming language.
  • SwiftUI is a framework for building UIs using Swift.

So you should learn Swift programming before learning SwiftUI. This is the right learning order that the courses in this list follow too.

Why Pay for a Swift Course?

Anyone can learn how to code online for free.

But let’s face it: Finding the right type of information and overall direction can be difficult. Especially as a beginner, it can be tricky to know what to focus on.

Even though there are great free resources, taking a paid course is highly recommended.

A paid course is good because real experts in the field found the courses. They’ve spent countless hours creating a beginner-friendly course. Usually, the paid courses are more versatile and comprehensive. You might for example get video lectures, theory, exercises, examples, and projects. In addition, you commonly receive a certificate for the new skill.

On a free course, resources are limited and no certificates are shared.

In my personal experience, a lot of free beginner Swift courses are too shallow. They assume you are already familiar with programming. Some even assume you have installed the required tools and set up your programming environment. This problem does not exist in a high-quality paid course.

In this article, all the Swift courses come with affordable prices, great ratings, and tons of great experiences.

How Long Does It Take to Become a Job Ready iOS Developer?

Learning how to code is a long process. It is not difficult but it takes time and practice.

You need to have the right type of attitude, great resources, and a lot of patience.

To learn quicker and make the most of a course:

  • Practice daily.
  • Repeat every example.
  • Play with the examples.

If you practice coding once or twice a week, you are going to progress slowly. So much so that it might feel like you are stuck. Instead of practicing rarely, practice a couple of hours every day.

Remember, watching a tutorial or reading a book does not make you a coder.

To learn to code, you need to repeat all the examples in the course. Don’t just copy-paste the code, write it. And make sure to understand every line of code you write. Also, experiment with the examples. Make some custom changes to the code.

What Makes a Good Swift Course?

When you are looking for a Swift course, make sure the course has:

  • Good ratings
  • Lots of participants
  • Up-to-date
  • Decent price
  • Real-life applications
  • Certification(?)

When other developers have found a course useful, chances are you will find it too. The best way to make sure a course is worth purchasing is by checking the ratings and reviews. The more good ratings the higher the chances that a course is worth it.

Also, make sure the course is not too old. Technology changes quickly and programming language information tends to get outdated rather quickly.

If you have never tried Swift or programming in your life, it is not wise to spend too much money on a course. A beginner-level course should cost at most $100.00. You don’t need to spend more than that at first.

A great Swift course should consist of real-life projects that you can add to your portfolio. Theory and simple examples are not enough to turn you from zero to hero.

Also, make sure to get a certification for the course. This is a great way to showcase your knowledge to recruiters.

Now you know what is Swift and iOS development and why you should take a course on them.

Here is a list of the best Swift and iOS development courses brought to you by Udemy.

The first six courses are for complete beginners. The last two are for developers with some background in Swift and Xcode.

Also, at the end of the list, you find a bunch of other useful courses on other platforms.

Conclusion

While learning Swift is possible for free, I recommend paying for a high-quality course.

The quality of these paid courses is on another level compared to most of the free courses on the internet. Most free courses are incomplete. They can for example assume that you already have a background in coding.

Instead of assuming you already know how to code, on a high-quality course you start from absolute basics and work your way up!

Thanks for reading!

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