Customer Reviews

iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides)

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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)

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

This is a good introduction on iPhone programming. It doesn't cover as depth as some of the other books on the market, but it doesn't waste pages on useless things. Overall, it is a good buy.

A fine book, but quite a lot of the material is now out-of-date as Apple has changed XCode quite radically and updated the iPhone SDK. If you're using XCode 3, you'll find all the screenshots of the dev tools make sense, and all the code examples work. If you switch to XCode 4 (as I did when I was half way through the book) you're in for a bit of head scratching. How do I add frameworks now? Why doesn't this code work? What's the replacement for this now-deprecated function? Not insurmountable hurdles, but they definitely break the flow. I'm looking forward to getting the 2nd edition, which presumably uses XCode 4, and is now apparently broader, as it's for "iOS Programming", not just "iPhone Programming".

I've been casting about for the past year or so to learn Objective-C for Mac and iPhone programming, and to be honest I've gone through quite a few books. I've found almost all of them to be one of two sorts: those that think the reader is an absolute beginner (and do way too much hand-holding like screenshots that include arrows pointing to the right button to press-- that kind of thing), and those that assume I have already learned Objective-C in some form, and don't explain enough. So far none of the other books available have made iPhone programming 'click' for me.

Then there is this excellent book. The authors, who are also originators of an Objective-C training program, take you step by step through each project, not just showing what needs to be done, but going into just enough detail. In some cases, they ask you to enter code, explaining that some of it may not make sense YET, but that it will be explained later. In almost every chapter, you're given not just the regular project, but also a series of 'challenge' assignments that apply what has been learned so far (but that also push the reader beyond the regular book projects), as well as a 'for the more curious' section that explains various concepts in more detail.

The end result is an extremely satisfying learning experience. Without fail I have given the challenge assignments my all, to great positive result. I highly recommend this book to anyone trying to learn iPhone programming, as long as you have some concept of programming to start with.

I don't usually write reviews, but i'm annoyed. I'm working on the Ch4/5 and in the book, some of the code provided has to be slightly changed in order to work. I figured this out the hard way. I'm completely new to this so it took me a while. Finally, what really annoyed me is in CH5, i followed all the coding examples to the T and the app doesn't work. Okay, i figure since I downloaded the example files, let me just look at the code they did and do a side by side comparision (maybe a copy/paste) to see if and where i went wrong... I open up their sample files that go with the chapters of the books and they're completely different from the book!!!!!! Another words, their own coding doesn't follow their own directions in their own book... WHAT!?!?! So I can't figure out where i went wrong and the files that come with the book are of ZERO help. This is only chapter 5, i could only imagine the nightmare i face if i decide to go further with the book. This sucks!!