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

Dave Mark (Author), Jeff LaMarche (Author)

Book Description

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

The best-selling, most highly recommended, and most complete guide to Apple’s iPhone SDK just got even better. It’s now updated with new code, screenshots, and guidance to and for the new features in iPhone OS 3.0. This continues to be the one book every iPhone developer needs and wants.

Editorial Reviews

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. Dave is the Editor-in-Chief of MacTech Magazine and has been writing for MacTech since its birth.

Jeff LaMarche is a longtime Mac developer, and certified 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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 584 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430224592
• ISBN-13: 978-1430224594
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple
  • #71 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Handheld & Mobile Devices

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 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 "wickedHangover" (New England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (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 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (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 (Cedar Falls, IA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (Paperback)

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.