Customer Reviews

More iPhone 3 Development: Tackling iPhone SDK 3 (Beginning)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dave and Jeff delivered again in this sequel to Beginning iPhone 3 Development. More iPhone 3 Development shows the readers more advanced topics in iPhone development, and specifically many new APIs introduced in iPhone SDK 3.0. The major additions in SDK 3.0 are Core Data, MapKit, GameKit, and built-in delegate to send emails within your apps. Luckily, Dave and Jeff went in depth to show us how these new APIs work.

Chapter 2 to Chapter 7 are all Core Data related. I highly recommend these chapters. They give you a complete view of Core Data APIs with working samples. It also touches on how to modify existing Core Data structure, as well as versioning and upgrade. Once you master Core Data API, you can unleash this newly gained power in your conquering of iPhone app development.

Chapter 8 is a very interesting one talking about peer to peer networking over Bluetooth protocol using GameKit. This is very useful when you are in-door w/o any Wifi and 3G data connections. Bluetooth will guarantee to work within iPhones/iPod touches anywhere.

Chapter 9 tackles Bonjour service and network streams. Many multiplayer games are built using Bonjour networks, it's a must read for game developers, as well as anyone who's interested in how network stream works.

Chapter 10 is an introductory on working with HTTP connections and GET/POST operations. This chapter is a little lean. There could be more coverage on HTTP connections and requests, but this chapter should be good enough to get you started.

Chapter 11 describes MapKit. This is very very useful. Pre-SDK 3.0, it was a pain to integrate Maps into your iPhone apps. Messy AJAX calls, loading delays, un-responsive UIs. Now MapKit solves these in a very elegant way. It's a simple delegate that you need to implement, and define annotation views for each POI on the map. Building a map application couldn't be any easier these days.

Chapter 12 introduced the MessageUI which has controllers and methods to let your apps to send emails w/ various configurations without leaving your apps! This IS a big deal! Your app becomes more sticky and cohesive to the users. Highly recommend this chapter!

Chapter 13 shows you how to use iPod Library, media picker and music player. An interesting read on how media is handled on the iPhone.

Chapter 14 and 15 talk about responsive UIs and debugging techniques. Very very helpful information on how to improve your apps.

Again, Dave and Jeff deserve a long-standing ovation for giving us another must-have iPhone development book. I wish they can come out an iPhone game development book soon, heavily centered on OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 ;) Thank you!

I am huge fan of Apress and both of the authors who contributed to this book. I read" Beginning iPhone 3 Development" which is a reference I go to regularly. All that being said I must say this. I am not trying to be the one person who rates a book poorly without a valid reason. I was very interested in this book because of the Core Data section. While working through the book I noticed numerous bugs and contacted the author. I did get a response which said they had been having numerous problems. I was told that I would get a response and the error would be fixed. Well it is months later, have not received a follow up email (I understand people are busy but I did send a quick follow up with no response), have tested the updated code and the bugs are not fixed and the support site has numerous comments about bugs with responses. So to make a long story short I really don't feel comfortable with Core Data. I did learn a lot about it but I would definately feel uncomfortable implementing it in an app. The second half of the book is great and goes over numerous parts of the SDK. Again I really love Apress but find it disappointing that the section on Core Data had problems and the development community has been left without a solution. If you are looking for a book on Core Data I would not recommend this book. If you are interested in exploring parts of the SDK that are covered in Part II, I highly recommend this book.

For those of you who read Beginning iPhone 3 Development, written by the same authors, know that they not only know their stuff, but are great in delivering the message. This book is no different. I like this book especially because of its in-depth take on Core Data. After a brief introduction, the authors dive into Core Data. The way it's explained is clear and the examples are easy to follow. Although the iPhone SDK has grown into a large set of frameworks and libraries, the selection the authors made in the second part of the book covers some of the most used frameworks of the SDK making the chapters useful for a wide variety of readers/developers.

I have been looking forward to this release and the book hasn't disappointed me. If you master the basics of iPhone development then this book is definitely for you.

This is a very good book. The coverage of core data is excellent. I haven't seen migrations or validations covered much at all in other books but there is good detail on those core data topics in this book.

This is an excellent book. While the first book provides a great intro to iPhone programming (as it should), it was missing some critical components I was looking for in my app (PhotoCalorie, [...]) namely, core data and dealing with web data. I'm pleased to see their coverage of core data is now quite extensive including database migrations and versioning, which is the main reason I purchased the book. For future app improvements, I am considering adding an email feature. They have an entire chapter devoted to sending mail that looks perfect for my app. Both books make iPhone programming fun, easy to learn, and teach you how to develop a robust and stable app.

In addition to the book, don't forget to checkout their forum and blogs. They are a great source of additional information. I noticed that Jeff posted extra core data info (on 12/29/09) that had to be cut from the book due to page limitations.

I have been searching for a quality iPhone Development book for beginners. There are lots of books on iPhone development available, but it is VERY difficult to find something for real beginners. Obective-C is not HTML and it takes real effort to understand iPhone development. To that end, this book has been somewhat helpful. It does build gradually, introducing more and more complex tasks and does a pretty good job of explaining it along the way. The problem I found is that some of the exercises are spot on and work perfectly, while others fall flat and there is no life boat. The forum associated with the book is active but dated and responses spotty. I think the problem here is that the pace of development is so rapid with the iPhone (iOS3 last year, iOS4 this year) that the authors are so busy writing the next book that they don't have time to assist with the current edition and the editors are not checking the code carefully enough before hitting the print button on the presses.

As readers we are anxious to devour good material in order to learn, but the bane of many software books is that the code is not checked as well as the grammar and we are left to work through it or give up. This is a solid book and helpful in many ways, but there are a few flaws that can trip you up. Apress should pay a little more attention to making sure all the code works!

This is the 3rd book that I have purchased from the Dave Mark & Jeff LaMarche series. One of the best series. If you are serious about wanting to develop for the iOS platform, these books are high value as instructional tools *and* references. Combine it with a book on Cocoa Programming (Hillegass for example) and you should be off to the races.

Don't forget to use the associated website for even more value.

And always great service, timely delivery, and competitive pricing from Amazon.

This is truly a worthy sequel to "Beginning iPhone Development" and a must have for your iPhone development library. The book has a nice writing style that is very approachable. I just had the pleasure of meeting the authors at WWDC 2010. These are dedicated talented guys doing great work.

I especially like the coverage of Core Data and Networking (Bonjour). There are a never ending array of topics subsystems in iPhone development. This book does an excellent job of covering a number of them. It will help you move to the next level.

Great job!

DJK

Mr. Jeff & Mr. Dave teach iPhone programming like class-room teachers. Each and every chapter is awesome and clearly explained. One of the best books for the beginers.

I have the others that Jeff and Dave have done, and this one is a great addition to my library. The subject matter is much deeper in this version and still written so that someone new to the concepts can quickly understand. I strongly recommend to anyone in the iPhone Dev community.