Dear Auntie TUAW,

I've been thinking about trying my hand at development for the iPhone (I've got some good app ideas already), and I was wondering where a good place to start might be. Should I mess around with learning some Objective-C first, or just spend the $99 and dive in with the dev kit? I know some PHP, Javascript, and a smattering of C++, but have never tried developing in Objective-C or Cocoa.

I have some free time this weekend to try messing around with development and see if it's something I might be able to do. Where's a good place to stick my toe in and see if the water's good for swimming? Should I buy an Objective-C book and spend the whole weekend with that, or is it worth it to put down the money on a dev kit and see what I can make my iPhone do?

Let me know! Just thinking of you, there's this scent in the air... like a mixture of 4711, hard candies and Aqua Net.

Your devoted nephew,

Mikey

As we close out 2007, there are thousands of new Mac users just beginning to explore the wonderful world found on those shiny computers that were tucked under the tree/menorah/nonsectarian gift deployment venue. If there's one thing we'd recommend that experienced Mac hands could do to make the adjustment easier... well, there isn't just one thing, there's five. Got other suggestions for onboarding the switcher nouveau? Drop them in the comments.

1. Don't buy Apple RAM. This should be stenciled on every Mac box, printed on UPS driver caps, and possibly placed on street stickers outside the Apple Stores (I kid! Don't sue me). I recently priced a 512 MB upgrade for a vintage G4 iBook, and while I would have liked the convenience of the Apple Store for quick pickup, I could not possibly justify the 300+% markup over crucial.com's or OWC's price for the exact same part ($150 vs. $38). I doubt that an educated-customer avoidance of Apple memory, either BTO or upgrades, will make much difference to pricing policies, but this situation is so insanely out of whack that something has got to give.

Update: Several readers have pointed out that you should hold onto your factory RAM in case you need to troubleshoot problems down the road, a good suggestion -- Apple support or Genius Bar techs will often ask you to return your machine to as-shipped condition. If you want to cross-check that you're getting the same manufacturer as Apple uses, you can always compare RAM prices and part specs in a jiffy at dealram.com. Reader JC did a quick survey of manufacturer markups on RAM and suggests that Apple's pricing may not be so far out of line when compared to other high-end computer vendors like Sony; still, I stand by my statement that buying Apple RAM is too expensive.

2. Make a shareware gift basket. You've got the massive downloads folder and the experience with your favorite Mac programs; why not leverage that? Burn a CD full of your top shareware apps, or register a couple of them in your buddy's name. Nothing says "I care" like software.

3. Give the gift of bookmarks. Your experience as a Mac veteran has populated your browser bookmarks with a zillion helpful sites; export them and send them on over! If you need a starter list: macfixit, macintouch, macworld, dealmac, macosxhints, versiontracker, iusethis, and of course our humble little blog.

4. Provide a personal support gift certificate. An email that says "call me anytime" might give too much license for midnight pleas for help -- maybe a stylized one-sheet saying "This certificate good for three hours of handholding, gentle instruction, wireless troubleshooting & general Mac advice" will set the ground rules.

5. Deliver the Kool-Aid. One of the hardest transitions for recovering Windows users to make when adjusting to the Macintosh Way is the attitude: expecting things to "just work" instead of having to tweak registry settings and swap out DLLs, being willing to cooperate with your computer instead of fighting it all the way. Sit with your buddy and watch them work for a bit; if you notice points of friction, try to lubricate. Remind them they can still right-click, allow them to plug in a printer and not go searching for drivers. See the light in their eyes return.

Mac | Life has a huge roundup of "25 iPhone Power Tips"-- just in case you've been living under a rock since late June, here's everything you missed about the iPhone, from how to unstick a stuck slider, to using aluminum foil to insulate an audio cable from the iPhone's signal, to where to go for iPhone 411. Of course you're here already, baby, and if you haven't noticed, that we have a page completely dedicated to iPhone itself, then look no further.

Some of the tips are a little obvious (like #6: surprise, surprise, if you can't see the camera button while the phone's turned away from you, place your finger before you turn it-- brilliant!). And there are plenty of omissions-- I know for sure that Battlefleet, the best game I've seen on the non-jailbroken iPhone, is missing, and there's nothing at all about Installer.app or any of the craziness you can pull off with that. That's a big deal, even though it may be a little more underground than Mac | Life wants to go.

But there's some good info here, especially if you've just recently plunked down the cash to AT&T and want your tips all in one place. Just make sure to come back here and pay attention when you're done.

I could've sworn that Download.com got rid of their Mac software section a while ago, but alas: digg submissions never lie. CNET's Download.com has posted a list of top iTunes add-ons for tackling everything from grabbing album art to watching who is listening to which songs from your library. Included in the list is RadioLover which lets you record streaming radio, as well as iPodRip with (thankfully) an accurate explanation as to why its abilities aren't included in iTunes itself. This list actually part of a guide Download.com wrote called iTunes Advanced, which includes some handy tips for things like adding an equalizer column to your list of songs to easily assign custom EQ settings to specific songs, as well as a list of hotkeys for the default iTunes visualization mode.

Seasoned iTunes pros will probably balk at getting iTunes advice from Download.com, but there are probably at least a couple handy tidbits here for just about everyone.