When learning programming specifically for an IPhone app, which is the best?

I have no experience in computer programming or any languages, but want to learn more and eventually create an app.

I know native IPhone apps use Objective C, but I also understand that's a pretty difficult language to learn.

I know other languages such as HTML5 might not be able to include certain features that Objective C could, but that's alright because the apps would not be very complex (would not need to access camera, etc.)., and that languages such as this are easier to learn, especially for a beginner.

My question: can you use HTML5 or a similar language to make an IPhone app? Or will you have to translate it to Objective C using phonegap or a similar tool. If so, would it be easier to simply learn Objective C, or another language and then translate it?

Objective C is only difficult to learn because we've all been taught to think in standard C syntax.

Objective C really isn't hard to work in once you get your head past two things:

The brackets - just think of them as being like other programming structures (such as braces or dot syntax) that keep logic prioritized. The stuff further inside the brackets happens first, and works its way out. Do some simple stuff with the NSString object, and I think you'll find you get over that,

Messages and delegates - classes send messages to other classes, unlike other languages that "call" things. Objective C doesn't "fire events" - instead, delegates receive instructions that might otherwise just go nowhere… Which has the same effect as events, but requires a little different thinking.

Think of Objective C as being kind of like the long book you've got to read for a book report. You'll understand your app better once you've read it - even if you don't even use Objective C, it is critical to understand how it works in order to understand the iPhone, because the iPhone is built on it.

Don't cheat yourself - once I got past the difficulties with following brackets and messages, I really got to see that Objective C is not that different from other languages, and really is actually pretty easy, once you know it well enough to dig into the CocoaTouch framework. It is easier to make good apps in Objective C than trying to kludge it together in PhoneGap.

Objective C is a good stepping stone into the world of modern programming, because it was the first of the modern languages that have really rich frameworks (like Java and Microsoft's C# that followed.) Apple has done most of the work for you in the CocoaTouch framework, and you'll find that you can get a lot of the complicated stuff done by just letting Apple do it for you.