30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
3.5 - 4 stars, generally recommended, October 30, 2009
This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (Paperback)
I've read through the first nine or so chapters and tried a couple of examples - fairly impressed so far.
Good:
+ loads of color screenshots.
+ strong on UI description and diagrams.
+ easy read and good flow, without compromising content or making silly jokes all the time.
+ technically most of it is correct, with a few caveats.
+ quite strong on application lifecycle and the authors have an ability to put some points over (sometimes fairly complex points) in a surprisingly efficient and straightforward way.
Not as good:
- some typos/errors (missing pointer asterisks, diagrams that don't display what is discussed in the text).
- some fundamental errors related to properties (@property/@synthesize are not in any way required in order to make use of dot syntax), also the book declares properties and then doesn't use them, but makes the mistake of thinking they're needed in order to access properties of a pre-existing class. Interestingly - and I suspect not entirely unrelated - Mark and LaMarche made the exact same error in the first edition of their Apress iPhone dev book.
- ok Objective-C coverage but by no means great (though the authors stress the need to read up on it elsewhere).
The good points outweigh the bad and I'd recommend the book with the provisos: get an Obj-C book to go with it, and you'll probably want to read it with another iPhone dev book to get a different viewpoint (eg. Apress or Pragmatic Programmers).
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slam-dunk best way to start iPhone Dev, December 2, 2009
This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (Paperback)
If you're a developer who has never worked on Apple platforms before, this book is GREAT. The iPhone training materials from Apple are thorough but they are frustrating to anyone coming into it cold and wanting to know how to start. This book plugs all of the holes and gets you going fast. It does not give you every little detail but the point is that you can build simple but interesting aps, understanding what you are doing at each step of the way, and come out of it knowing how to continue by yourself. I looked at a lot of other books and they were either too simplistic, only oriented at games, too advanced, etc.
Couple of challenges... the index is mediocre and there was one missing step in the early stages (you have to go into xCode->Windows->Organizer and actually enable your iPhone for development or it won't load your debug aps).
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good intro into iPhone Dev, January 22, 2010
This review is from: Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (Paperback)
While other iPhone books received many deserved praises, I found that this book had the easiest explanation and learning curve for the beginner cocoa touch and objective-c programmer.
After read all the book, you will be prepared to absorb more demanding books easily. It's a great intro book and really worth your money, specially the first chapters.
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