iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides) [Paperback]

Joe Conway (Author), Aaron Hillegass (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2010 | ISBN-10: 0321706242 | ISBN-13: 978-0321706249 | Edition: 1

Based on Big Nerd Ranch’s popular iPhone Bootcamp class, iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide leads you through the essential tools and techniques for developing applications for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. In each chapter, you will learn programming concepts and apply them immediately as you build an application or enhance one from a previous chapter. These applications have been carefully designed and tested to teach the associated concepts and to provide practice working with the standard development tools Xcode, Interface Builder, and Instruments. The guide’s learn-while-doing approach delivers the practical knowledge and experience you need to design and build real-world applications. Here are some of the topics covered:

• Dynamic interfaces with animation
• Using the camera and photo library
• User location and mapping services
• Accessing accelerometer data
• Handling multi-touch gestures
• Navigation and tabbed applications
• Tables and creating custom rows
• Multiple ways of storing and loading data: archiving, Core Data, SQLite
• Communicating with web services
• ALocalization/Internationalization

"After many 'false starts' with other iPhone development books, these clear and concise tutorials made the concepts gel for me. This book is a definite must have for any budding iPhone developer." –Peter Watling, New Zealand, Developer of BubbleWrap

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joe Conway, iPhone instructor for The Big Nerd Ranch, has been writing software on the Mac platform since he was a teenager, and began consulting and training for The Big Nerd Ranch shortly after graduating from the University of Wisconsin.

Aaron Hillegass, CEO of Big Nerd Ranch, has more than 18 years of experience as a software engineer and developer trainer. He wrote the Big Nerd Ranch course on Cocoa, drawing from his experiences working at Apple and NeXT as senior trainer and curriculum developer. He is author of Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X (Addison-Wesley), the definitive guide to Cocoa programming.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (April 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321706242
• ISBN-13: 978-0321706249
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.1 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Development & Programming > Cocoa
  • #32 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Development & Programming > iOS & App Development
  • #55 in Books > Computers & Technology > Apple > Home Computing & How-to > Mac Computers & Hardware

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

91 of 92 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Top of the Heap April 27, 2010

By Joshua Paul

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you plan on picking up a book about iPhone programming, you've found the right one.

I have a *ton* of iPhone books (and programming books, in general), and this sits at the top of the heap. The book is easy to read and understand, and the code provided is reusable (bonus!). It's obvious the material is derived from an experienced team.

Ultimately I've found that I can "trust" the problems/solutions laid out in the book, since it's coming from The Big Nerd Ranch (search for it if you're not familiar).

5+ stars.

My 3 book recommendation for iPhone:
1) iPhone Programming (this book)
2) Programming in Objective-C (Kochan)
3) Cocoa Design Patterns (Buck, Yacktman)

69 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best programming books I've ever read May 4, 2010

By Samer A

Format:Paperback

I move from software technologies almost yearly, starting with PHP to ASP.NET and now starting iPhone development, so each year is basically another library of books I have to buy to teach myself the language. I've read a ridiculous amount of computer books, ranging from the terrible (super boring, dense) to the insultingly easy ones (that basically treat you like a 4th grader learning programming.)

This, thankfully, is a fantastic mix of being incredibly easy to pick up and read, and also super informative. As far as iPhone development goes, this will be my 4th introductory book I've picked up, trying to get a handle on developing for the platform. The other books all typically tend to throw you into immediately coding, and never really actually explain why you're doing what you're doing, or make sense of any of it. Yes, this book does start off with an example chapter that you basically just copy word for word, but that's mostly to get your feet wet before actually digging through all the details and building your foundation.

In the first 3-4 chapters of this book, I already feel like I have a complete grasp on subjects that I did not yet understand from the 3 previous books I've read. I sort of had an idea why I typed '*' in front of names, or what @property (retain) statements meant, but I never fully understood what I was doing--it was mostly just "well, I read it, so it must be the way to do it." Basically, the other books got me about 75-80% there, but this one is 100%. The last 20 I feel is the most important, because that's when you finally begin to understand the concepts of the language, which let you move onto the more complex stuff with confidence.

Another reason I feel this makes a great coding book is the layout of each page.... I can't tell you how important it is to present all that text + code in a meaningful, organized way. I've read some books where they just hit you over the head with instructions, with almost no visual clues and with fragmented code samples. But the pages in this book have plenty of white space per page, have plenty of illustrations and each code sample is commented (an appropriate amount) to give you hints as you're typing code as to what you're doing.

Finally, and thank goodness for this, the first example in this book that you write is NOT a Hello, World app :)

In summation, if you're like me and have started to read a few books (or maybe you haven't, I wish I could have started with this one) and are looking for a way to really feel confident with iPhone core concepts, then pick this book up and give it a read. I can't wait to get started on the many project ideas I have! Read more ›

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it. I can't stop reading it April 21, 2010

By Jose L. Rivera

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love this book. I like the style and honesty of the author. Go right to the point. Is not boring. This is my 3rd iPhone Programming book. I love Jeff LaMarche too (It is also, a great intro to iPhone development). But, I think this one is less cluttered. I got the book yesterday (April 20, 2010). In two hours I read up to chapter 4 (I liked chapter 3 - Memory Management). Good introduction. The combination of XCode screen shots and UML charts are excellent complements to the text. I recommend this book (and Kochan, Objective-C programing book, latest edition) to anyone who wants learn how to program the iPhone. It is sad, that they don't have a chapter on OpenGL-ES, but it looks like the authors are planning to put together a book alone on this subject. I can't wait!. IMHO, Mr. Hillegas and his group, have (or has) mastered the art of communicating knowledge to the masses.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Misleading on OpenGL ES. May 26, 2010

By Marc R. Bublitz

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book promises "Dive into animation and effects, using Core Animation and OpenGL ES" but there is no OpenGL ES in the book. The authors state that they wrote a chapter for it, then rewrote it, then rewrote it, then decided to leave it out and put the information into another book.

The rest of the book seems like it is well written and gets to the point without a lot of fluff, but seeing as I specifically ordered the book for the OpenGL ES information then had to go through a return process because I was mislead by the publishers I cannot rate this any higher than a three star.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars WARNING: This is an old edition, there is a newer 2011 edition July 7, 2011

By tall-latte

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

There is a newer edition of this book, called iOS Programming (instead of iPhone Programming). It was released July 2, 2011. Don't buy this edition by mistake!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Could go into greater depth January 4, 2011

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I found this book to be a good starting point for iPhone development, but also find it only brushes the surface of what can be done. To go further, one has to dig deep into Apple's so-so documentation (Java is worse, some other languages and APIs I use have been better). I would actually suggest for the book more information on how to use the online Apple documentation.

There are programs that simply don't work in the latest SDK and it's difficult to find solutions in the forums, although they are usually there, just buried. I actually blame Apple for this. How can you change the functionality of APIs?!?

The challenge problems are, well, quite challenging. This is the first book I've ever had which posed such a challenge. I think this is mostly because I am not comfortable with Mac (I'm from a Windows background and am struggling just to figure out how to move around the IDE in XCode) and the documentation. For instance, I needed some information about a parameter for a certain API call. I clicked the link for it's class definition and it took me to one of the three possible pages for the class definition - not the one I needed. It took me awhile to realize there were other pages for the class definition. Come on Apple.... Back to the book, the challenges are very difficult because the content of the chapters isn't thorough enough and there isn't much guidance. You can usually find somewhat coherent solutions in the forum. However, if you don't, good luck posting, as to register you have to be approved by the administrator of the forum. I am waiting for my account to be activated to post some questions I have.