I am getting into programming and would like to start designing mobile apps and such but am not sure where to start. Any any advice would be helpful

I'd start with desktop apps, not games. The majority of the mobile guides out there assume you know the language (minus objective-C) and how to program, and they just explain how to do the mobile side of it.

There's a number of ways to go about developing apps / games for mobile devices.

For games, you can do it using a game engine like Unity, or UDK. Or you can write native games in Objective-c (iOS), Java (Android) or C# (Windows phone)

For apps, you have much more flexibility because you can write cross-platform apps using html5 and javascript or native apps in the languages above.

I think the easiest way to start out developing apps is with html5 and javascript using jQuery Mobile or PhoneGap, or Vaadin touchkit, which interprets Java into HTML5 and javascript.

I recommend Vaadin Touchkit if you already know Java. I use that to write most of my apps when I don't require any native functions from the phone (camera, gps, accelerometer, etc.)

Games: Game maker studio, use drag and drop and slowly learn how to write code.
Apps: Checkout Teamtreehouse for some tuts

This is my suggestion. I haven't done any mobile myself but I have heard that this is the best way to start. If you try going right into straight programming you may be frustrated at how long it will take to learn to do what you want from scratch.