When I started learning Swift and iOS development, I did what everyone does — opened Udemy and bought a course.

Then another.

And another.

And before I knew it, I had started like 3 different beginner courses… and still had finished not one of those.

Midway I had gotten bored in each one because the thing they were teaching was too boring, too basic. It was nothing like the billion dollar iOS app that I wanted to build.

If that sounds familiar, welcome to the iOS party.

Here’s how I’m getting out of tutorial hell — step by step. 🛠️

Phase 1: Accept That Tutorials Won’t Make You an iOS Developer

This was hard to admit.

I thought if I watched more tutorials, I’d eventually just “get it.”

But the truth is, watching is not building.

And copying code is not learning how to think in code.

So I stopped pretending I was learning when I was really just following.

That’s when things started to shift.

Coding is a muscle and muscles develop by actually exercises not watching Arnold Schwarzenneger bechnpress 200 kilos.

Phase 2: Build One Tiny Thing — Without a Tutorial

Not a full app. Not something perfect.

For me, it was a simple minimalist to-do list app. It let me check off tasks, which would then:

  • shrink and fade the text,
  • move it to the bottom of the list with a smooth animation, and
  • add a strikethrough.

That’s it.

It took me longer than I expected — I had to Google a lot of things. But I built it without pressing play on a tutorial video.

And it felt good. 😌

Phase 3: Write Down What You Don’t Know

While building that little to-do app, I kept running into stuff I didn’t fully understand.

Like:

  • How do I animate list items in SwiftUI?
  • What’s the best way to track which task was marked complete?
  • Why does the text not update unless I use @State?

So I started writing those questions down.

Now instead of jumping into another tutorial, I’m going through that list one by one. It helps me stay focused and not spiral into random videos.

One question at a time. One clear answer. That’s the plan. 🧭

Final Thoughts

Tutorials are not bad. They’re great for getting started. But they can’t teach you how to build on your own.

That part? You only learn by doing.

So if you’re stuck, try this:

  1. Accept you’re stuck.
  2. Build something tiny.
  3. Write down your gaps.

Then repeat.

I’m still learning. Still making mistakes. Still googling basic stuff. Still asking ChatGPT to explain that piece of code to me like I am a 10 year old time and again.

But I’m out of the loop now.
And I’m finally moving forward.