Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK [Paperback]

David Mark (Author), Jeff LaMarche (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1430224592 | ISBN-13: 978-1430224594 | Edition: 1

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, Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK is just the book for you. Updated and revised for iPhone SDK 3, many of the discussions in the original book have been clarified to make some of the more complex topics easier to understand. In addition, all of the projects have been rebuilt from scratch using the SDK 3 templates.

Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, this book 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, and then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. From there, you'll learn to integrate all the interface elements iPhone users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. The confusing art of table building will be demystified, and you'll see 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. In addition, you'll also learn about Core Data, an important persistence mechanism that has just been added with SDK 3.

And there's much more! You'll learn to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES, add multitouch gestural support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the camera, photo library, accelerometer, and built-in GPS. You'll discover the fine points of application preferences and learn how to localize your apps for multiple languages. You can discover more about this book, download source code, and find support forums at the book's companion site, at www.iphonedevbook.com.

• The iPhone 3 update to the best-selling and most recommended book for iPhone developers
• Packed full of tricks, techniques, and enthusiasm for the new SDK from a developer perspective
• The most complete, useful, and up-to-date guide to all things having to do with Apple's iPhone SDK

What you’ll learn

• Everything you need to know to develop your own best-selling iPhone apps
• Best practices for optimizing your code and delivering great user experiences

Who this book is for

Anyone who wants to start developing for iPhone and iPod touch

What's changed from the first edition of Beginning iPhone Development

• All code samples have been updated to follow current Apple coding conventions
• The autorotation code has been updated to use the new single-step fast autorotation instead of the original two-step method
• A new section has been added introducing Core Data, covering basic principles and showing how to build a simple Core Data application
• All the table view-related chapters have been updated to use table view cell styles. They've also been updated to use textLabel and detailTextLabel instead of the deprecated text property of the table view cell.
• All known errata have been corrected
• All projects have been rebuilt from scratch using the SDK 3.0 templates
• Many concepts have been clarified based on feedback and supplemented with information we've learned from another year of using the SDK

Table 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! Accelerometer!
16. iPhone Camera and Photo Library
17. Application Localization
18. Where to Next?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dave Mark is a longtime Mac developer and author who has written a number of books on Mac and iOS development, including Beginning iPhone 4 Development (Apress, 2010), More iPhone 3 Development (Apress, 2010), Learn C on the Mac (Apress, 2008), The Macintosh Programming Primer series (Addison-Wesley, 1992), and Ultimate Mac Programming (Wiley, 1995). Dave loves the water and spends as much time as possible on it, in it, or near it. He lives with his wife and three children in Virginia.

Jeff LaMarche is a Mac and iOS developer with more than 20 years of programming experience. Jeff has written a number of iOS and Mac development books, including Beginning iPhone 3 Development (Apress, 2009), More iPhone 3 Development (Apress, 2010), and Learn Cocoa on the Mac (Apress, 2010). Jeff is a principal at MartianCraft, an iOS and Android development house. He has written about Cocoa and Objective-C for MacTech Magazine, as well as articles for Apple’s developer web site. Jeff also writes about iOS development for his widely-read blog at http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 584 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430224592
• ISBN-13: 978-1430224594
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars It's not a bad book, it just uses interface builder too much December 12, 2009

By Michael L. Friscia

Format:Paperback

First, I like Apress books, I have many.

If you are starting out with iphone development and do not come from an Objective-C background, you may want to hold back on buying this book. It will teach you Objective-C. But it will get you to rely on using the Interface Builder(IB) for all your interface stuff. After going this route for a couple months I now realize that I hate Interface Builder. So I'm reading books that teach coding the interface and find that it is much faster.

If you buy the book you will see how the author tries to politely say that the IB is ok at some stuff and terrible at other stuff. For the most part it is only worth using IB if your iphone app meets one of two requirements. It closely resembles an example from this book or one of the predefined iphone templates when you start a new project in Xcode is all you plan on needing. If you want to do more complicated things with multiple views with multiple types of navigation, this book will lead you down a path of trying to make something work that was never setup to work that way.

Bottom line, if you are a programmer that's written a lot of code, created a lot of interfaces and can code your way out of a paper bag, this book is not for you. You will buy it, like it (because it IS a good book) but then feel like you got the pre-school version of what you are looking for.

Anyone that is interested in making complex interfaces on the iphone will find that they end up working just in code and then rarely, possibly never, opening IB for anything. If you want a good book to start, get the iPhone Developer's Cookbook by Erica Sadun. It does not teach IB, it does not teach Objective-C (but you'll pick it up). It teaches you how to build iphone apps the way a real programmer expects to build apps.

If you want to learn how to build simple iphone apps that barely do anything and almost the entire process is drag and drop, get this book. It will teach you that well, but as soon as you want to start to do more complicated things, everything this book taught you will end up holding you back.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, but it is THIRD in a series October 4, 2010

By Andrew T

Format:Paperback

This book is great. However if you have never programmed before, You first need to check out Apress' 'Learn C on the Mac'. Then you should read Apress' 'Learn Objective-C on the Mac'. After that you are ready for this book and will be making your very own professional apps in no time! Remember, this book is third in a series, so if you have very little knowledge in programming, start from the beginning. It is better to learn to walk before learning to run.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Irrelevant to new SDK March 9, 2011

By Sean V

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Good book, however it lags behind Apple Software Development Tool Kit (SDK). Book's figures are no longer relevant, which makes it difficult to follow. I also purchased "Learn C on the Mac" by same author and publisher and had the same experience. All due to new version of SDK.