Product Description

Please note that there is now an iPhone 3 edition of this title available!

Are you a programmer looking for a new challenge? Does the thought of building your very own iPhone app make your heart race and your pulse quicken? If so, then Beginning iPhone Development is just the book for you.

Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, Beginning iPhone Development offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone and iPod Touch programming.

The book starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and installing Apple's free iPhone SDK, then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. You'll move on from there, mastering all the iPhone interface elements that you've come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, sliders, etc.

You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. You'll master the art of table-building and learn how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You'll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone's built-in database management system.

You'll learn how to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES. You'll add MultiTouch Gestural Support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the Camera, Photo Library, and Accelerometer. You'll master application preferences, learn how to localize your apps into other languages, and so much more.

Apple's iPhone SDK, this book, and your imagination are all you'll need to start building your very own best-selling iPhone applications.

You can discover more about this book, download source code, and find support forums at the book's companion site: www.iphonedevbook.com

Reviews

"People ask me again and again about how to get started in iPhone development, but I never had a very good answer for them until now. Dave and Jeff's book starts at the beginning in clear English, making sure you understand the fundamentals with many large illustrations. From there, they progress into key concepts such as the MVC pattern and ImageBuilder fundamentals. Additionally, I find myself flipping back to it as a reference guide—the plethora of code samples make it a must-have."

—Steve Demeter, Creator of "Trism" and owner of Demiforce LLC

"Beginning iPhone Development delivers a clear picture of the entire development process from registering as an iPhone developer through creation of complete applications. There is a wealth of examples illustrating each feature of the iPhone. The authors did an excellent job of demonstrating "best practice" coding methodology throughout the book. You would be hard pressed to find a better guide to creating software for the iPhone."

—Aaron Basil, iDev2.com

"Dave Mark has always been the king of Mac programming authors, and now he's proven to be the reigning king for books on iPhone development!

"Beginning iPhone Development is the definitive guide for iPhone development, and anyone aspiring to develop for the iPhone should get this invaluable reference."

—Brian Greenstone, President & CEO, Pangea Software, Inc.

"Jeff and Dave have done an exceptional job exploring the iPhone SDK. This book is far and away the single best resource for iPhone SDK development. Developers will latch on to this book and find it useful as they create the next great iPhone application. If you're a developer with an interest in this amazing new platform, this is a must buy."

—Chris Stewart, Founder, iPhoneDevSDK.com

"If you're planning on coding for the iPhone, start here. Dave and Jeff know their stuff and also know how to explain it. I was amazed how much stuff they cover, from Hello World through analyzing user gestures. Not only do they cover the fun stuff like playing with the camera, they cover real-world development issues like localization. I learned a huge amount from them"

—Mark Dalrymple, Co-founder, CocoaHeads, and Principal Author, Advanced Mac OS X Programming

"Starting with an overview of the technology, how to approach the device, the authors lead us straight into the heart of iPhone development. As you progress, you'll learn more about various layout engines and view managers, as well as the more meaty topics like accelerometer and GPS APIs. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in getting started quickly and efficiently with iPhone development!"

—Chris Pelsor, Manager, Tarantell:Hybrid

"All in all I was very surprised and pleased with the book. I've had the fortune of reading many technical books, and few do a great job of walking someone through the basics without making them feel like a dolt. It felt like every time I was stuck or unsure there was a tip, hint or paragraph which explained what was going on."

—Cory Foy, at Slashdot.org

Summary of Contents

1. Welcome to the Jungle
2. Appeasing the Tiki Gods
3. Handling Basic Interaction
4. More User Interface Fun
5. Autorotation and Autosizing
6. Multiview Applications
7. Tab Bars and Pickers
8. Introduction to Table Views
9. Navigation Controllers and Table Views
10. Application Settings and User Defaults
11. Basic Data Persistence
12. Drawing with Quartz and OpenGL
13. Taps, Touches, and Gestures
14. Where Am I? Finding Your Way with Core Location
15. Whee!
16. iPhone Camera and Photo Library
17. Application Localization
18. Where to Next?

About the Apress Beginning Series

The Beginning series from Apress is the right choice to get the information you need to land that crucial entry–level job. These books will teach you a standard and important technology from the ground up because they are explicitly designed to take you from “novice to professional.” You’ll start your journey by seeing what you need to know—but without needless theory and filler. You’ll build your skill set by learning how to put together real–world projects step by step. So whether your goal is your next career challenge or a new learning opportunity, the Beginning series from Apress will take you there—it is your trusted guide through unfamiliar territory!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17616 in Books
• Brand: Apress
• Published on: 2008-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 536 pages

Features

• Apress Beginning iPhone Development: Exporing the iPhone SDK
• Are you a programmer looking for a new challenge? Does the thought of building your very own iPhone app make your heart race and your pulse quicken? If so, then Beginning iPhone Development is just the book for you.

About the Author

Dave Mark is a long-time Mac developer and author and has written a number of books on Macintosh development, including Learn C on the Macintosh, The Macintosh Programming Primer series, and Ultimate Mac Programming. His blog can be found at www.davemark.com.

Jeff LaMarche is a longtime Mac developer, and Apple iPhone Developer. With over 20 years of programming experience, he's written on Cocoa and Objective-C for MacTech Magazine, as well as articles for Apple's Developer Technical Services website. He has experience working in Enterprise software, both as a developer for PeopleSoft starting in the late 1990s, and then later as an independent consultant.

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Customer Reviews

A first decent iPhone SDK book, but missing some basics
NOTE: I will be updating this review once I am done reading the new SDK 3 updated book. The review below is for the original SDK version of the book. I thank the author for personally responding to my review in the comments, and will make adjustments to this review after I read the updated book. I feel that some of his points are fair, but still arguable, as to what should and should not be included in the book.

I, like many others, bought this book simply because there really aren't any other iPhone SDK books on the market right now. It's a decent first book, but as someone who has programmed on the iPhone previous to reading this, I found some issues with it.

I DO recommend this book so far, as it really is the only one out there, and it does cover a lot of ground, but I feel that there will be much better books to come. I'd love to see a 2nd Edition of this.

THE GOOD:

- Current to iPhone 2.1
- Current to Objective-C 2.0
- Covers a wide area, such as Accelerometer, Swipes and Touches, Data Storage, Drawing, etc.
- Easy to read.


NEEDS WORKS:

- The author fails to show some useful shortcuts, such as putting all objects that need to be synthesized on one line: "@synthesize txtName, lblFileName, myViewController"

- They also seem to skip over some very basic areas, such as what do all the iPhone pre-built templates do? Instead, they say "Apple provides this for you, but we are going to build from the ground up". That is great, but ALSO cover the easier way and explain some differences between the easy/hard ways.

- They don't go deep enough into using and understand views. Sure, they go into navigation controller, tab bars, etc. but they don't explain enough on just basic view manipulation. The example of switching between two different colored views doesn't cover enough ground for something so important on the iPhone.

- I would have liked to see an "Advanced topics" as a final chapter. For example, how do I combine both a Tab Bar and a Navigation controller? Applications that are more than just very basic need a section going into some deeper topics. I do understand that this is a beginners book though.

- Skips over explaining basic concepts, such as what does "scalar" mean, how to view SDK headers to find methods (besides the documentation), and how you can right-click on an object in Interface Builder to bring up the connections pop-up.

Good book though 3.5 stars. Recommend it for beginners until a better book comes along.

Very well written, but missing useful information
I have some very mixed feelings about this book. Let's start on a positive note. First of all, it is VERY well written. the authors don't just walk you through the answers they present in their projects, but also awaken your curiosity and walk you through the trial and error process that leads to their answer. some people say that this makes the book longer than necessary. i say that this makes them great teachers, since they know how to engage their readers and get you to understand not just what their solutions do, but why they have been implemented a certain way. my only qualm about their writing is that they spend a bit too much time explaining what they have done in the past and what they are going to do in the future instead of focusing on the lesson at hand.

I also got a lot of mileage out of the projects / code included in the book, especially the chapters on setting up your first two applications and the chapter on persistence.

Unfortunately, though, after reading this book it turns out i was not ready to make iPhone applications. i still ended up reading exorbitant amounts of documentation from apple to troubleshoot my code and do some very ordinary things. i found that apple's iPhone Application Development guide and Cocoa Fundamentals Guide had much more relevant data for learning how to make an iPhone application and are a better way to get started. i especially found that i needed to understand a lot more about how how my development environment manages resources, how events are handled and passed around (especially with regard to when to use actions vs delegates vs notifications and details on how these mechanisms work), memory management details, how an iPhone application works under the hood, how to interface between different languages and libraries, etc, etc.

The material in this book is great, but in the end, i would say that apple's introductory guides are what you need to get started, and this is just a supplement to them.

Fantastic reading!! Excellent work!!
When this book arrived, and I saw the book cover, I knew I got something different. Not a cookie-cutter book but an original piece of work where somebody really intended to teach something.

I just got this book a few days ago and with this 4-day Thanksgiving weekend and living alone I have been having a blast focusing just on this book. I haven't read through it all yet, still just a quarter of the way through, but I'm not trying to cram. This book does exactly what I want a book to do (as opposed to an online reference resource): stop and talk about every little thing that is really useful to know in the workflow of applications programming on an iPhone.

These guys know how to write. They don't leave the reader with presumptuous word choice and leave the reader hanging; every time they say something it's like they read the mind of the reader, "Now you might be wondering, what about... or why not do ... Well, let's talk about that." Nearly every corner is covered, and where I still have questions it's usually not directly related to the topic, i.e. I have an Obj-C question. Even then, after I return from surfing the web for answers, I return to the book and turn the page and the book says, "You should read up on this stuff at [URL]"... I kid you not, this book had me floored.

Looking towards the latter pages of the book, I can't help but be astounded, thinking, wow, I get to learn about THAT? And in the same style of learning that I've been enjoying so far? This is great!

There are very few errors, mostly just little things that the reader can spot just by paying attention. There are plenty of enough illustrations and tips to keep the reader engaged and constantly learning not just the basics but how to get comfortable in the workflow of iPhone development.

My only disappointment is that the book assumes knowledge of Obj-C, but fortunately it comes with plenty of URLs and references to complete those prerequisites as well, and really, to discuss Obj-C in detail, beyond the rather brief coverage-as-we-go that is indeed in this book, would have been beyond the scope of the book so that's fine.

There's just nothing I can say bad about this book, and everything good. It is by far the funnest technical book I've owned and cracked open in months, if not years.

By the way, coming from a C# background (and Java and VB5/6 before that), lightweight programming of the iPhone is EASY!! It's different, but it's easy, particularly compared to C++ programming which I've had a number of false starts. For me, if I can go from VBScript to VB6 to Java to C#, I can go from C# to Obj-C. Also, the workflow of Xcode + Interface Builder is somewhat analogous to the workflow of Visual Studio + Expression Blend 2 for WPF programming, if indeed event handlers would have been set up in the Blend designer in a drag-and-drop way. I must also add, learning how to develop software in Xcode forces the developer to learn MVC. I don't know why people who are used to Visual Studio programming dislike the MVC-ness of Xcode programming, but I love the change of workflow, and I think there is much to take back with me when I return to C# development.