iOS courses being retired?

I also noticed iOS/Swift is no longer a topic in the forum.

Could a moderator or staff member please clarify?

Matt

Same issue here. Points under Swift track are gone. I'm here for Swift track only and my free trial is ending soon. I do not wish to continue if Swift track is gonna remove :(

Hi all! We unfortunately do not have any plans to update the iOS content at this time. The courses and Tracks will be retired, removed from our site all together. We no longer have an iOS Teacher to add or update courses, and our main focus is now shifting away from mobile development. When we retire and remove a topic, this is removed from the student profile pages as well. We apologize for any inconvenience!

Hi Kara,

Thanks for clarifying.

Does this mean all Android content any anything else related to mobile such as Xamarin will be removed too?

Have to say I’m a bit surprised as mobile dev is obviously still a hugely popular area for developers and and is a fair chunk of Treehouse’s content.

Matt

Is there a way to access these courses in an archive?

This is such a disappointment, I have been making steady progress through the Beginning iOS course, I'm currently half-way through protocols and really like how everything built on top of the previous lessons. Having a hard time making sense of why this is being removed. Can someone recommend an alternative?

This is a major disappointment. I'll finish up the exercise I'm on but I can't see myself continuing with my membership once you retire your Swift content. It's especially galling since it's not as if your iOS instructors just up and quit: your iOS instructors were among last year's layoffs...

I don't understand why Treehouse can't just leave the courses live. Even if they have no teachers to update the content, there is nothing wrong with leaving the existing content available for people to learn from.

So is learning Swift still the best choice for iOS or are other languages that will compile an application into Swift (like Xamarin ?) a better choice?

I bought a new Mac just to take this course. But as I went through the course it's not hard to tell that it is outdated...

I do not understand why they are moving away from Mobile dev all together though, web dev is def at an all time high and with all the new JS frameworks and libraries available, it's probably a gold mine for not only TT but all code instructors. But, it is a fad and realistically native code especially for iOS shouldn't be completely wiped out.

To those who asked above if it's still worth learning.. the answer is a big yes.

I only subscribed for the iOS courses so just added a cancellation reminder to my calendar for May 31st. We can download the courses via iTunes as Podcasts but a Pro subscription is required. I upgraded to Pro and dowloaded both iOS tracks, beginning and intermediate. Does anyone know if the Podcasts will still be accessible after I cancel? Something tells me no.

Three words

Angela Yu Udemy

She has the best course on ios development you'll ever need.

I too had kept my subscription just for the iOS track, wish they could have just kept the courses. I know they are swift 3, but learning to update old code is part of being a developer.

BYE

Why are you moving away from mobile development?

Udemy isn't moving away from mobile development.

I find it annoying as well that I had to go to the forum to find an explanation for this. The Swift course just had a simple banner telling the course is to be retired, with no link to further information.

Hugely disappointing.

Perhaps Treehouse staff will read this and apply some common sense by not taking down the courses as clearly a lot of people are disappointed with this decision.

Please revoke the decision to take the videos down, or at minimum delay the action so that members have a chance to study the existing content.

Thank you

Incredibly disappointed as I always thought Treehouse offered the best iOS and swift courses. They’re comprehensive but easy to understand and much more fun compared to other sites.

Like others, I only subscribed here to study iOS and if that’s going away I Guess I’ll cancel my subscription too.

It’s a pity that I’ll have to revert back to sites like Lynda/LinkedIn learning.

Hi everyone - I'm the CEO of Treehouse. I appreciate all the direct feedback. I will take this to the leadership team and let you know the outcome of that conversation.

Thanks Ryan, we just want to complete our tracks.

I was able to download the videos for most of the basic and intermediate iOS tracks before the courses were retired, but I forgot to get any of the associated Xcode projects. Treehouse Support told me that once the courses and workshops have been removed, projects and source code are gone as well, no way to retrieve them.

Support suggested that I check with my fellow students to see if anyone else was able to get the source code before the courses were removed. It's not a show stopper but it might come in handy one day if I hit a roadblock while working through these projects or following along. Please let me know.... Thanks a lot!

I was just about to reactivate my account to brush up on iOS for an upcoming job as an iOS developer but it seems I won’t after reading treehouse decided not to continue mobile development. In NYC, there seems a very high demand for iOS developers, I don’t understand why people think iOS is not doing well in the job market when it seems stronger than web, hence why I decided to stop learning web development for iOS as my main specialty skill just this year.

Hi everyone, I’m the new Director of Learning here at Treehouse. I want to first thank you for being Treehouse students! I recognize how frustrating it can be to start a new learning experience and not having the opportunity to complete in the manner in which you hoped for. I can assure you it is not our intention to cause you frustration. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you all. It is our intention however to provide you with the highest quality of course content we can. In order to focus on some of our other programs such as, Python, UX, FSJS, FEWD, and developing new Techdegrees like a Data Analysis, we are having to ensure that all of the teaching resources are being concentrated on these efforts. In the future, we will explore options for expanding access to retired content on a limited basis, but unfortunately, we do not have that option today.

Well at least ios workshops are still up 😎

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾

Honestly, It seems to me that if its not about having to pay the former instructor a royalty or something to keep the videos, then it would make sense to simply have an archive or vault on Treehouse Island that contained the content with an understanding and.. visual cue that this content while helpful to learn and may be out of date, but people are still free to access the videos, downloads and ever peruse the closed community threads.

Space for this content cost's nothing and still allows Treehouse to keep those iOS paying customers around. No need to cut off your nose, if someone is going to pay for you to keep it.

Simply, keep the messaging clear about not taking any new support questions about IOS track, you could even make some spider web graphics to clearly show this content is older and may be outdated. Hell you can even just put it back on your YouTube channel in an closed track section. and the community there could helps others out.

This can be done to keep people happy and they may find that iOS might not be for them and try other courses they are paying for. Seems like a win win.

-W

@ryancarson what do you think about the idea from @wadeljones

That's what made me laugh about the comment above from the staff member:

"In the future, we will explore options for expanding access to retired content on a limited basis, but unfortunately, we do not have that option today."

You do have the option today - just don't press the delete key basically!

The content was already live and running, all you had to do is not delete it.

This is the problem when many organisations expand to a fairly large size, all common sense goes out the window.

I think the instructor for these iOS courses, Pasan Premaratne, is why they were so good and well liked. You can find similar content on a lot of other tutorial sites but Pasan is an excellent teacher.

Here is his blog entry about his layoff from Treehouse, http://www.pasanpremaratne.com/2019/06/24/new-chapter, and you can follow him on Twitter to find out what's next for his teaching and writing career. @pasanpr.

Hi TreeHouse instead of teaching people code why not retire all your tracks and show people how to kill a Niche business.

its shows when just one staff member answers questions that only paints fake optimism for the future.

I was really encouraged to take these tracks seeing that a friend with zero programming experience took these tracks and within 2 years landed a job as a Swift developer at Apple corporate. I signed up today and was going to start next month. I guess I will have to find an alternative, but from what I hear this is, I mean, was the best place to learn Swift and iOS development.

I've been absent for a couple of years and found out this sad news about the swift/ios course been removed and Pasan (swift teacher) being laid off. Pasan was an awesome teacher, he was very clear on his explanations... such a pity Treehouse couldn't even kept them archived or something.

I am very sad to just now realize that iOS development has been removed from Team Treehouses content. Being that my dream and focus is to stay in mobile development this is very frustrating news.

Team Treehouse was my one-stop-shop to learn and develop but with this material gone, I will have to most likely cancel my membership and look elsewhere for iOS content.

While I understand the material was slightly outdated it was still greatly appreciated to understand iPhone development. it seems very ridiculous to me to just stop supporting a huge demographic of development for web development. Mobile development is just as important if not more important than web development.

Like others have described while learning new hybrid frameworks is the new popular trend. Having a base and fundamental understanding of Native development is way more important. If your going to focus on web development at least create some more resources for hybrid mobile frameworks cause even in that area Team Treehouse is lacking. Going through material that you have like react-native you have no resources for the native side of things. Just 1 lesson that supposes, to sum up, everything?

I always wondered why there was no tech degree at Team treehouse for Mobile Development and guess the answer was just they don't care about it anymore. I would like to challenge this company to look back at mobile development as it is an important tech sector, especially for new and inspiring developers.

Posted some links to reasons why iOS development matters:

https://www.comscore.com/ita/Public-Relations/Infographics/iPhone-Users-Earn-Higher-Income-Engage-More-on-Apps-than-Android-Users

https://medium.com/@the_manifest/android-vs-ios-which-platform-to-build-your-app-for-first-22ea8996abe1#:~:text=It%27s%20faster%2C%20easier%2C%20and%20cheaper,Swift%2C%20Apple%27s%20official%20programming%20language.

https://theappsolutions.com/blog/development/ios-vs-android/

While I completely understand the need for web development I would like to post some links to reasons why web development/hybrid development is not always great.

https://medium.com/better-programming/were-killing-the-mobile-web-be5c5662c807

https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/fus8xd/my_team_was_forced_to_use_react_native_heres_what/

https://youtu.be/NxJCSI7a8wk

I am a little late to the conversation here. This is hugely disappointing, as I was working my way through the iOS/Swift track a year or so ago, and had to leave it due to other personal committments. It was an excellent course and the trainer was first rate. When my current subscription expires, I shall not be renewing as this was the primary reason for maintaining my membership.

It turns out they laid off Pasan the instructor: http://www.pasanpremaratne.com/2019/06/24/new-chapter

Please, if you have downloaded the Swift/iOS videos before they were retired, I'd like a copy. I updated to premium membership and spent about 3 months off the platform while still paying, but when I came back, the course was gone with no traces. I felt robbed, having paid premiums for months. The least I expected was an email to everyone in the course to at least know beforehand. Putting announcements here only helps few who maybe active at the moment.

Mark, you are the best! Thank you so much. I will now go ahead and cancel my subscription. I only came here for iOS, so there's no point to stay.

What PASAN did transcends swift and iOS Dev, it's the explanation of the concepts of computational thinking that make these videos timeless regardless of the language and platform having upgraded.

Many thanks to you Mark!

On side note, there was an advanced course that dealt with networking advanced concepts...it was building yelp-like restaurant locator using yelp API. If anyone has it, plz share.

A bit off-topic, but I've noticed yet another strange decision by Teamtreehouse: They will remove their only Redux course from their React track, without a replacement course and without giving a reasonable cause imo.

Please chime in in the thread I created if you have any thoughts about that. https://teamtreehouse.com/community/building-applications-with-react-and-redux-this-course-is-to-be-retired-soon-why-no-link-to-replacement-course

To everyone still following this thread:

I'm a former Treehouse student. I moved out two and a half years from this comment since I outgrew Treehouse because I feel that I learn so much faster by reading pure documentation now instead of watching videos. Logged in just to see what's new. Anyways, I agree with Treehouse because, although it is disappointing to see no iOS courses, they were severely outdated! Let me tell you what was there when I was around:

iOS development with Objective-C

Learn Swift

iOS development with Swift (beginner/intermediate)

Here's the problem with that content: Objective-C, in my opinion, is horrible to read and write. It's an old language from the 80s and has been nearly phased out with Swift language. The only time you will see Objective-C in the wild now is in enterprise/legacy apps for big corporations, not in new projects. Even Apple is not really supporting it much anymore as most of the system code is written with a mixture of Swift, C, Ruby, and Python. Then there's Swift content: the courses for that were based on Swift 3, but as of this writing, we are on Swift 5, so the language has indeed changed and upgraded. Many new features, some deprecated, some gone, so that content would need to be updated. Lastly, the iOS SDK has changed significantly. The courses taught you the old way of manually building layouts, as well as a quick course on AutoLayout, which many developers hate. If you're building layouts with AutoLayout, almost all the time, you WILL need to learn a library that can make it easier to write such code (I use Stevia for this), but the real note here is that the latest iOS apps are being built with SwiftUI, a complete shift away from UIKit, the library used for iOS components; even the code syntax looks a lot different. So yeah, all the old content has got to go and since there's no new teacher, unfortunately that means now new iOS content.

Here's my advice: ask yourself what kind of apps are you looking to build. If you want to build native apps that make use of iOS SDK/libraries, then learn Swift and SwiftUI on another site. If you want to build native, high performance apps, like games, you will likely need to learn Unity or some other game engine and learn C# or C++. But if you're building business, data driven apps, try Flutter, my personal favorite. Flutter uses Dart language and compiles native apps for both Android and iOS, plus it recently just got upgraded to version 2, which now supports web browsers and desktop (Windows, MacOS, Linux). You may want to shop around for a course on Udemy that teaches you either one of these platforms.

The amount and types of users' comments and the poor argumentation of treehouse internal team makes me doubt a lot the quality and applicability of what treehouse sells. If treehouse was so convinced its courses could provide users with skills necessary to get the jobs each course mentions, then why not to pick some of the users who finished the corresponding track for this missing role? The treehouse internal team argues they cannot find a tutor to keep up with the course, but based on the comments here (me included) there's a lot of frustration around this and a considerable demand. Since mobile is an increasing field and still a hot requirement today, a platform that promises to prepare its users for the market (better than universities would do) cannot afford to exclude exactly what is needed to enter it. This looks to me as a good scenario for a failing service strategy - not aligning to customers' outcomes nor listening.

The bottom line; Treehouse does not want to do what's required to keep their content up to date with current mobile technology. Read the articles written by AirBNB on their multi-year project/experiment to convert their apps from native iOS to React Native if you think mobile web is the future rather than native mobile.

Also, there are many pieces of iOS technology still in UIKit that have not been ported to SwiftUI yet. Basically, you need to know both. And what about all the companies still using both? Many companies have very big projects that could take years to convert from UIKit to SwiftUI. You might get lucky and find a job with a startup with most everything written with SwiftUI but those jobs could be hard to find for a new iOS developer. I am still here on Treehouse because I was asked to build a website for a client and TH does have very good courses on designing and building web applications. But I go elsewhere for native mobile training.