Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An introduction to Core Animation, but certainly not a definitive tome., June 26, 2009
This review is from: Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
I bought this book based on the rave recommendations I read here. And with the limited selection of books on the topic, this one seemed like the best one available at the time (June 2009).
I have to report that I was disappointed with this book. The author's style is a tad repetitive. Often the text would promise explanations of something "in detail", but the detail never came.
Generally the book scratches the surface of many elements of Core Animation, giving the reader a reasonable starting point for further research. But since the text of the book does not include complete code examples (just snippets) it is sometimes hard to see how the examples would fit into a larger application.
I am an accomplished software developer with over 20 years experience designing complex software applications. I have read (at this point) more than few serious books about Objective-C, Cocoa, and iPhone development. I learned little from this book, sadly. Except that I need to buy another book.
Bottom line: If you are already a Max OS X and Cocoa developer, then this book will be a good introduction to Core Animation. But you will need to read more than just this book to get up to speed. If you are an iPhone developer, the one chapter in this book about iPhone specifics as they relate to Core Animation is not worth it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE Book to read if you want to understand Core Animation, December 30, 2008
This review is from: Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
Core Animation is one of the coolest technologies to come out of Cupertino in many years. It makes doing all sorts of cool things in your application not just possible, but downright easy. Core Animation opens up worlds of possibilities for your applications' user interface.
The problem is, Core Animation is not intuitive. Even an experienced programmer can expect to spend a lot of time with Apple's documentation before he or she will grok the terminology and concepts of this new framework well enough to use be proficient.
Fortunately, the author has already gone through the trouble of doing that and has taken the time to break it all down into digestible chunks, explaining the concepts and terms in plain English, and setting out exercises that reinforce your understanding of those concepts.
As previous reviewers have mentioned, the bulk of the book focuses on using Core Animation when writing Mac programs, however both the basic concepts and the practical use of Core Animation are the same when programming the iPhone. The iPhone chapter explains the differences between using it on the two platforms and shows how to apply the stuff you've already learned earlier in the book when developing on the iphone.
I think this book probably reduced the amount of time I needed to learn Core Animation by at least half, probably more, and I'm an experienced programmer who's accustomed to learning from Apple's documentation.
Just a quick note of something that's probably obvious: You should already have a decent grasp on Objective-C and Cocoa before picking up this book if you want to get the most out of it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Animation is Hard to Teach in a Book, February 24, 2009
This review is from: Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
I got this title just to get a feel for the animation capabilities and how the APIs are for this platform. The book was just fine for that. The author's style is fairly readable, and he has a good tone.
I think any graphics book really should be in color; it makes a big difference, and trying to teach animation in a book is tough anyways. The reason to buy a tech book is to learn something away from the computer (IMO), so it can be hard to learn animation this way.
Would I recommend it? Hard to say. Depends on what you're after. He does have some good tidbits for folks to go beyond the mechanics of animations and think about the experience the animations provide. I think that could be handled more deeply, too.
So, take a look at the TOC, read a sample chapter, and decide if you think it's for you.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
