Customer Reviews

Iphone in Action: Introduction to Web and SDK Development

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book because I wanted a good discussion of both SDK and web development for the iPhone and this was the only book that gave any serious talk about web development. Although SDK development is definitely hotter right now, Web development continues to make more sense in a lot of situations, and will become even more compelling as time goes on and technology gets better. This book is a great resource because of that. A very good book to have.

Be aware that this book is strongly focused towards iPhone Web applications development. Sadly, your Web based iPhone app is not what consumers want - they want an SDK application, and those are the applications that you'll get paid for. Note how few - if any - of the iPhone applications selling on the app store are Web based.

With over half this book an introduction to HTML, JavaScript, and AJAX, you'll find that the section on Objective-C development is given short shrift.

This is the first "In Action" book that I would not recommend to a serious developer. This is a survey book on iPhone development, barely superior to the tutorials available online.

This is the only book I know of that covers how to create web apps (ie. web sites that are specially designed to work on the iPhone and look similar to an actual application, but are not actually applications you install on the phone). It provides a good jumping off point and reference on how to do that. In fact, half of the book is dedicated to it, so if that's what you're looking to do, this is the book for you.

However, if you want to write iPhone applications that you actually install on the phone and could sell through the AppStore, I'd suggest you find a different book unless you are a very experienced Objective-C programmer. I've programmed for 20+ years, in a variety of languages, including for mobile devices, but never in Objective-C or for the iPhone. After reading a review of this book on Slashdot, I thought this would be a great way to learn how to code for the iPhone. I couldn't have been more wrong. The book does give you all the basics, including a short intro to Xcode and interface builder, but this half of the book seems disorganized, rambling, and doesn't provide enough detail for a seasoned, but new to the platform, programmer to pick up what they'd need to be able to really develop an actual app. The examples are extremely rudimentary, and right when I thought I was past the elementary ones and getting into the "real guts" of iPhone programming, the book starts giving overviews of the other frameworks, leaving me with just enough knowledge to write a few variations of "hello world" type apps, but not enough to really understand how to get things wired up properly.

If you're new to Objective-C programming and want to develop apps for the iPhone, I'd recommend Programming in Objective-C 2.0 (2nd Edition) (which actually has a small section about iPhone programming, but this is more to learn Obj-C and as a reference), and Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (a new edition of the book comes out revised and updated for the 3.0 SDK on July 20th, 2009)

If you have a desire to create an application for the iPhone or iPod Touch, this book is a great starting point. It covers development of both web-based applications and those built using the iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). Very importantly, it also gives you the information you need to decide between which way you want to develop your application. Need access to dynamic data? You might be better off with a web app. Need to use the iPhone's accelerometer or GPS? You'll need to build your app using the SDK.

Once you have decided how you want to go, the authors provide good tutorials for getting into either method of development. I have done more web development than programming so the web portions of the book were kind of a breeze for me. Once I got into the SDK portions, I slowed down and took more time on the tutorials. With the help of this book I have got myself to the point where I understand the basics of object-oriented programming, Objective-C, and how to use the SDK and Xcode to build simple applications. I'm ready to build my own apps and explore more of what I can do.

iPhone in Action has very broad coverage of developing for the iPhone including native apps, web apps, and native apps that use web technologies. It introduces everything you need to know with good tutorials and examples for the most critical topics. The first third of the book covers web stuff - both how to revamp your existing website so it works great on both the desktop and iPhone, and also how to create iPhone specific web apps. Topics include design, CSS, iUI (the awesome library to make native looking web apps), graphics with webkit canvas, Dashcode, and debugging tips. The middle third of the book gets you started with native SDK development, starting with an overview of Objective-C and XCode, and then on to lots of good step by step tutorials for learning how to use Interface Builder and the different kinds of view controllers to create your GUI. The final third covers important SDK programming topics including graphics, web interaction, SQLite databases, using the address book, etc. The book is invaluable for beginners because it shows you all the possibilities of both web and SDK and it introduces all the key topics - something no other single title does (though it won't teach you programming or much Objective-C). Experts too will want this title too for the detailed web development topics that most other iPhone dev books don't include.

I think this book is great. iPhone development is very complex, and the authors of this book make it accessible by giving diving into enough detail to make you productive quickly while gently introducing the more complicated concepts in later chapters.

Like other reviewers, I'm more interested in SDK development than web. However, chapters 10-19 are devoted solely to that purpose, and you miss nothing by starting directly on chapter 10, and always having the web development portion there should you ever need it. This really is two books in one.

My major complain is that it either left out the important stuff or only roughly addressed them. For example, NSException handling is not even mentioned in the book.

If you are interested in native SDK apps for the iPhone be warned that full source code for exercises are not included in the book nor for download elsewhere.

The section 13.3 on table view controllers is incomprehensible in particular the steps outlined in Table 13.6. Having the example code would allow you to fill in the gaps but the authors choose to attempt to describe things in the text instead.

The same could be said for section 14.6.3 although there are no steps at all. It just says "as usual" you do this in Interface Builder. In a book that's a tutorial laying out the steps in detail would be helpful.

I read the Dave Mark book "Beginning iPhone Development" and it was much better. I'm glad I read it first otherwise I probably couldn't get anywhere with the inAction book.

Given the superficial coverage this book might be well served in conjunction with a class of some sort. The instructor could then fill in the gaps and details with slides or handouts.

This book is horrible. Many key object descriptions are just one sentence. Every time I turn to this book for a solution I come away disapointed and continue my search somewhere else.

spend you money somewhere else, this book is not worth the cost of printing.

I'm the type of person who loves to see full source examples instead of just being fed the concepts. Unfortunately this book gives a snippet here and a snippet there and does not build up an example you can latch onto to say "yes I got that concept down in practice." This book could be so much more....