iPhone SDK Application Development: Building Applications for the AppStore (Paperback)

~ Jonathan Zdziarski (Author), Zdziarski Jonathan (Author)
Key Phrases: quartz core, audio toolbox, scroll views, Core Location, Kit Design, Getting Started (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This practical book offers the knowledge and code you need to create cutting-edge mobile applications and games for the iPhone and iPod Touch, using Apple's iPhone SDK. iPhone SDK Application Development introduces you to this development paradigm and the Objective-C language it uses with numerous examples, and also walks you through the many SDK frameworks necessary for designing full-featured applications.

This book will help you:

• Design user interface elements with Interface Builder and the UI Kit framework
• Create application controls, such as windows and navigation bars
• Build and manage layers and transformations using Core Graphics and Quartz Core
• Mix and play sound files using AVFoundation, and record and play back digital sound streams using Audio Toolbox
• Handle network programming with the CFNetwork framework
• Use the Core Location framework to interact with the iPhone's GPS
• Add movie players to your application

iPhone SDK Application Development will benefit experienced developers and those just starting out on the iPhone. Important development concepts are explained thoroughly, and enough advanced examples are provided to make this book a great reference once you become an expert.

About the Author

Jonathan Zdziarski is better known as the hacker "NerveGas" in the iPhone development community. His work in cracking the iPhone helped lead the effort to port the first open source applications, and his book, iPhone Open Application Development, taught developers how to write applications for the popular device long before Apple introduced its own SDK. Prior to the release of iPhone Forensics, Jonathan wrote and supported an iPhone forensics manual distributed exclusively to law enforcement. Jonathan frequently consults law enforcement agencies and assists forensic examiners in their investigations. He teaches an iPhone forensics workshop in his spare time to train forensic examiners and corporate security personnel.

Jonathan is also a full-time research scientist specializing in machine learning technology to combat online fraud and spam, an effort that led him to develop networking products capable of learning how to protect customers. He is founder of the DSPAM project, a high-profile, next-generation spam filter that was acquired in 2006 by Sensory Networks, Inc. He lectures widely on the topic of spam and is a foremost researcher in the fields of machine-learning and algorithmic theory.

Jonathan's website is zdziarski.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (January 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596154054
• ISBN-13: 978-0596154059
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #177,927 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A train wreck in a paper package..., February 24, 2009

By	Keith Henrickson (Fremont, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Okay.. I'm not even sure where to start. So, I'll start where the author does in chapter 2. At random points. And I will switch threads of thought like a rabid ferret on caffeine, just like the author. Oh, wait, no, I want you to GET something out of this review, so I will try and be clear.

I've made it through 2.5 chapters of this train wreck of a book, so maybe it gets better. In chapter 2, he obstensably shows you how to build an iPhone app with Interface Builder. However, it's not complete. He says things like, "Set the buttons correctly, and proceed to the next section." Of course, he doesn't tell you what "correctly" means. And he does have some goal in mind. He jumps between points of view. And ends up with a program that's not functional. No full source provided. When I wrote in to complain about this, they said, "Just download the full source from our website." I did. It doesn't include source for the program in Chapter 2. It starts at Chapter 3.

Moving along to Chapter 3, it gets better. The first program, HelloView (a simple 'load and do nothing' program actually works. The second program, it's obvious he never TRIED it before. He puts two different classes into the same source file. Not great style to encourage, but, we all get lazy and it's a small program. As soon as you move the cursor over the old UIView variable declaration, the entire XCode IDE spins to 100% CPU usage and locks up (which is 100% reproducable). This doesn't happen if you put the classes in separate files. That's not a bug with this book, per se, but he does lead you down the garden path into exercising a bug in XCode. Again, it suggests he never tested his own code.

Now, that's as far as I've gotten, and I bought it on Sunday.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars horrible, March 10, 2009

By	Mark Twain - See all my reviews

Horrible horrible book. Rushes through the basics in a very confusing way. He uses words instead of pictures or screenshots to try to convey what you should be seeing on your screen, or looking for. XCode can get very cluttered very easily so pictures would be much more descriptive than words (a picture is worth 1000 words to be exact!). There are many typos and errors. There aren't many iPhone books out currently, and this is near the bottom of the bunch. I own them all. This book is more like one of O'Reilly's "Nutshell" books, maybe useful to a certain few people but not terribly comprehensive. I feel like O'Reilly just wanted to get an iPhone book out ASAP, without really focussing on usefulness or ease of reading, and not proofreading very carefully.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A waste of time and money, April 9, 2009

By	ipo - See all my reviews

Where do these people learn to program? Just reading the examples in the book tells one how superficial and confused this author's brain is. And don't give me the "...my intention is not to provide the most efficient code..." excuse. This is nothing but bad code. The text itself is no better. Just read the What's Going On sections.

I've read the first 3 chapters and already looking for something else. Don't waste your time and money. I've been programming for 25 years and it is hard to find a worse book than this one. It is the typical "get it out the door" text.