Customer Reviews

The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The book states it is aimed "squarely at anyone just getting started with iPhone programming." It is not.

At the time of purchase, I was a brand new iPhone developer with zero exposure to Apple's developer tools and their iPhone SDK. That said, I am a very seasoned Java and C# developer, I have used Eclipse and VS.NET extensively for numerous years to build some very sophisticated applications. Apple's developer tools, XCode and Interface Builder, are radically different tools unlike either of these development environments. Instead of a singular IDE, the Apple tools are a hodgepodge of separate applications filling your screen with a plethora of small tool and inspector windows. If you are brand new to XCode and Interface Builder, this book simply doesn't have enough horse power to properly educate you on the pitfalls newbies will face.

If you are already familiar with Apple's developer tools, then the book may be better received by you then by someone who had no exposure to them.

As a newbie you need to realize a very, very important point: copying code out of a book and into XCode is simply not enough to get a demo working out of this or any iPhone developer book! The trick is knowing how to "link" within Interface Builder- how to establish what I now know to be IBAction and IBOutlet property decorators. The IB stands for "Interface Builder" and these two markers provide "hints" from XCode to Interface Builder. For example, to "link" a button from Interface Builder to a property in XCode, the @property would have to be properly decorated (with IBOutlet) and then you must physically establish the link in Interface Builder, using a control-click-drag metaphor from source to destination. To my point- therein lies the problem with "recipe" books like this one- unless you already have a grasp on this concept and how it works (which I didn't when I bought the book several weeks ago), this book will leave you very frustrated. You have verbatim code in XCode, but things don't work! Worse, you have no idea why. [bang head on desk repeatedly here]

My recommendation is to look at the forthcoming book from the guys over at Pragmatic Programmer- iPhone SDK Development I purchased their book, and while it still left me to figure out some holes and some of the Interface Builder nuances, it was much more targeted for someone who has never used any of Apple's developer tools. The Pragmatic book isn't a panacea for all newbie problems, but it is far better suited then this "recipe" book.

I'm confident (well, hoping) that as my iPhone developer experiences grow and I become more accustomed to Apple's developer tools, the recipes presented in this book might be of more value.

It is my opinion that its stated objective should have read "...squarely at anyone just getting started with iPhone programming who is already comfortable with the nuances of XCode, Interface Builder, and the other Apple developer tools."

The "Who This Book Is For" section of this book states: "This book is written for new iPhone developers with projects to get done and a new unfamiliar SDK in their hands." I am rating this book three stars because it does not live up to this statement.

As someone familiar enough with Xcode and iPhone development to understand the Apple templates and Cocoa design patterns, I was sadly disappointed when I discovered that the code listings in this book were not separated into .m and .h files. Rather, all code is jumbled up into long single-file, multipage listings. The author even states that this format is suited for book publishing. I whole-heartedly feel that this single issue makes this book worthless to a new iPhone developer. Why? A newly created default iPhone project in Xcode has separate .h and .m files.

In addition to the above-mentioned flaw, this book does little beyond Chapter one to hand-hold a new iPhone developer. This book in not instructional at all in this regard and is only suited for those with several months or more of Xcode/iPhone SDK experience. That said, Chapter one contains incredibly detailed and well thought out introductory material, enough so that it may mislead you into thinking this book is for beginners. Chapter two jumps right into code without even explaining the bare essentials of Obj-C.

Furthermore, I think the lack of IB (Interface Builder) instruction will only confuse matters more. I equate this to coding in VB without The Visual Studio IDE.

It is clear, however, that Ms. Sadun knows what she is talking about when it comes to iPhone development. I give her credit for that. Unfortunately, her book comes off no clearer than Apple's own documentation.

I recommend you look elsewhere if you are starting out as a brand-new iPhone developer.

I hoped for a good introduction in Iphone programming, but am disappointed. The book doesn't conform to Cocoa programming standards which is very annoying. For example, all the Code is put in the 'main' file, not the way it should be. From a teaching perspective it's confusing. Bits of code are presented without proper explanation to which class they belong and poor code evaluation. Perhaps no big deal for experienced iPhone programmers, but for starters like me very tedious to read. Dont expect a book with a quality like "Cocoa Programming for MAC OS X from Aaron Hillegass. If you're starter wait for better books, This one won't help you. It only teaches bad habbits.

I've been working through this book since it came out and had to write a review. I'll be short.

Pro's: This is one of the first, and for awhile only books on the iPhone SDK available. It is written in a friendly manner, and if you understand Xcode and Object Oriented Programming, you'll do OK.It does cover things more clearly than many of the code SDK snippet sites, and is often better organized.

Con's: Boy, this thing was PUSHED out the door. There are many errors in the book that you'll be able to fix yourself. Novices beware of keying in the examples. It may not be your typing that's causing the error. The level of detail in the book jumps from highly precise to woefully lacking. Often on the same page. Many concepts and terms are used without any attempt to explain them.

Make sure you download the code samples from the author web site (ericasadun.com) they have been updated, commented, and actually compile. However, they often mix bad practices, like not breaking out headers, or naming things clearly, in with the code.

At this point in time (2008), this is a very valuable book, because there are so few good references out there. The second edition needs to be much more solid, or it will quickly be eclipsed by other books coming onto the market.

Erica Sadun is known for her iPhone reengineering since the beginning of (iPhone) time. This book sums up her experiences with iPhone programming, starting from the toolchain times. She shows a lot of tricks you won't see in the standard books. But to really enjoy this book, you should know iPhone programming at least basically. This is NOT a methodical introduction for complete beginners, but a collection of iPhone programming concepts and gems for people who already understand the basics. So, if you buy this book to LEARN iPhone programming, you will certainly be disappointed. But if you buy this book to IMPROVE your iPhone programming skills, you will really like this book a lot.

This book is a real mixed bag. I wish I could give a straight 2.5 stars rating. On the one hand, there are some valuable tips interspersed throughout (one tossed off reference to [self navigationController] was the only mention I found of this extremely useful piece of knowledge anywhere). On the other hand, the structure of the book is very awkward, jumping around seemingly randomly from idea to idea. I understand it's a "cookbook" but even so, haphazard is a polite way to describe it.

I will echo other reviewers' sentiments that the listings are terrible, mashing together .h and .m files into long pages of code.

The worst thing about it though is the constant reference to undocumented and private APIs. Apple will never let an app that uses private APIs into the iTunes app store, and you're taking a risk using the undocumented ones as well. I feel these bits of the book should be surrounded by giant red WARNING signs, but they are mixed in with everything else as if they are no big deal.

I can't recommend this book wholeheartedly - there is useful information to be gleaned but it's mixed in with a lot of dangerous and unorganized chaff. Definitely should not be your first iPhone book.

One change in the way this book is written would make a world of difference:
Use the classes and views in the way that they are supposed to.
Putting every line of code in the main goes against the very grain of the programming model and makes the reader waste a LOT of time in trying to adapt the examples in the book to anything that could be created in real life.
Object Oriented programming is not new, I have seen many books resolve the issue of displaying classes before.
On top of being unable to draw any use from this book, I feel cheated by the author and I feel like the only reason why she wrote it this way is to be able to send the book to print quickly and cash in on all the fools like me who are trying to learn how to program the iPhone early on.

If you want to distribute your app in the App Store and not have it rejected by Apple, this book is chock full of stuff you can't use. Don't even bother -- of the many topics I've needed answers on or thought sounded interesting from the table of contents, well over half depend on unofficial / undocumented APIs. (?!?!?!) That may have been useful before the app store, when jailbreaking was the only way to put new apps on the device. Now, it's a recipe for rejection by Apple and broken apps.

I bought this book as a brand new, wet behind the ears, iPhone developer. What I discovered was that I really didn't know enough to fill in the gaps this book had, but I got the impression that if I knew enough about the gaps this book left, I wouldn't need this book.

The code was pretty awful as well. If I'm reading code in a book, I expect it to be somewhat "pristine" or "text book" code. I got the impression that this code was more of the caliber of "holy crap, I have to have this finished by when??? I better get coding...".

I ended up buying Beginning Iphone 3 Development, which is a much better book.

I found this book very helpful in developing my iPhone apps. I also welcomed the "code snippet" method for documenting APIs in the pursuit of learning said APIs. While Apple has a lot of sample iPhone applications with source on the iPhone developers site, sometimes a code snippet focused on one topic, with an explanation of the workings of the code, is more helpful. I also found the inclusion of the details on some of Apple's hidden APIs very interesting ... the occasional peek behind the curtain is one of the things that make software development fun!