If you have been impressed by the quick rise of the iPhone platform and the popularity of its applications and think you want a piece of the action, read on! This guide will teach you how to develop iPhone applications.

1. Read the iPhone documentation! The documentation is one of the most useful resources available to you.

2. Participate in online communities. These will help when you are stuck and you just can't figure out a problem.

3. Have fun! Programming can seem very difficult at times but it is also very rewarding, and when you see thousands of people buying something you made you will be extremely gratified.

This guide isn't going walk you through the technical process of developing iPhone applications as that can get very complex. It will however help you get started on the path to become an iPhone application developer. Before you begin, you'll need an Apple Mac running either OS X Leopard or OS X Snow Leopard and an iPhone or iPod touch that ideally is running the latest firmware.

The first step in becoming an iPhone developer is getting the correct tools. If you want to test on your device, have plenty of documentation available to you, and sell your apps on the App store you need to register for a developer account. Visit Apple to enroll as a developer.

It's best to get all the paperwork out of the way at the start. If you visit iTunes Connect you will be able to apply to sell free applications and also charge for applications. There are also tax forms and contracts for you to fill in. It is important to get these in as early as possible because if they haven't been processed you may not get paid.

Now all the boring stuff is out of the way you can get down to building your applications. iPhone applications are built using the Objective-c programming language. If you have a good understanding of C or C++ you should pick this up relatively quickly. If you have never programmed before you should read guides on Objective-c which are available all over the Internet. You should also check out 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' by Aaron Hillegass. Although it doesn't cover the iPhone it will help you learn the basics of Objective-c and as the iPhone OS is built off the Mac OS X most of what you learn in the book will transfer over to some degree.

You can learn about the iPhone SDK and the various frameworks by reading the documentation on the developer site and by participating in Apple's official developer forum. There are also other forums, which you can find with a quick search, where you can get help from experts.

Like all applications iPhone apps should be thoroughly tested. You should use your application and try out all of its features, just as a user will. You should also run it through instruments to test for memory leaks and poor performance as these are critical on a mobile platform. If you choose you can also BETA test using Ad-hoc distribution which is fully explained in the developer portal. It is recommended that you test not only on the simulator but on both the iPhone and iPod touch. Even though they are similar you can't receive calls on the touch which is a situation your application needs to be able to react to. Once your are satisfied that the code is fully tested you can submit it to Apple for approval.

Step 5: Submitting an application This can be as tricky as building the application at first. It involves installing various certificates to your Keychain and provisioning your device for distribution. Fortunately Apple has several videos on the front page of the developer portal which walk you through exactly what to do. Follow them step by step and be careful not to miss out any steps as it can get quite complicated.

After you submit you iPhone app to Apple you have to wait. The waiting time varies but it is about 2 weeks on average. The average wait is displayed on the developer site. If your app has been accepted you will wake up one morning to an nice email notifying you of your success. If your idea was good and you market it well you should be on the road to success!