Customer Reviews

iPhone SDK 3 Programming: Advanced Mobile Development for Apple iPhone and iPod touch (Wiley)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this is a really good book. but be warned...advanced users only. it does take you from the beginning but the approach i must say...is not for absolute beginners.

I bought this book because I was struggling with some detail with navigation controllers. The book seemed to have the answer. Sadly the first example I looked at is flawed. In chapter 9, page 278 is the code line self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem.title = @"Shows"; This is an attempt to give a title to a backBarButtonItem that does not exist at the root level of the navigation hierarchy. Page 276 shows a screenshot without the button or its impossible label, so the author should have picked up that the code was not working. Further into the nav hierarchy, the book (and downloaded source code from which I copied and pasted these code snippets), tries to name the backBarButtonItem again. e.g. self.navigationItem.backBarButtonItem.title = [delegate showNameAtIndex:delegate.selectedShow.row]; (p280 in the book). This does not work, despite its impressive sophistication. The back bar button title is derived from the title of the view from which we moved. (The screenshots on p276 and 277 show that this code line is ineffective and unnecessary, the navcontroller did all the work anyway. Again, the author should have realised that the code was not working, because it is obvious from the screenshots he supplied.) I have experimented with commenting out lines of his code and am satisfied that there is a conceptual error here. It would seem to be a major conceptual error, judging from the number of blogs, discussion groups etc on this very topic. After a couple of days struggling with this, I reviewed the Apple sample code again, and finally realised my conceptual error-shared, it would seem, with many others.
The NavBar sample code from Apple is clear on how to get out of a navigation hierarchy. The "Done" button we all wanted here should be set up in a sequence like this:

- (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibName bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundle {

if (self = [super initWithNibName:nibName bundle:nibBundle]) {
self.wantsFullScreenLayout = NO;
self.title = @"Intervals";
UIBarButtonItem *addButton = [[[UIBarButtonItem alloc]
initWithTitle:(@"Done")
style:UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered
target:self
action:@selector(doneAction:)] autorelease];
self.navigationItem.rightBarButtonItem = addButton;
}
return self;
}


- (void)doneAction:(id)sender
{
// the Done button was clicked, handle it here
}

That having been said, as a hobby programmer who has been having fun since the days of Fortran 4, I found the introductory sections of the book lucid and certainly added value over the freely available documentation from Apple. Sometimes we need someone to pull stuff together, to select the key stuff. In part, this book does that. It is also very full of examples and distinguishes itself from similar books by the range and usefulness of the examples.
Pity about the profound error in the chapter I started with. I hope it is the only one, because I shall be continuing to use this book.

I'm an experienced Java developer and was looking for a book that went straight into advanced topics such as Collections, Threading, Custom UI views and this book was great at doing that, the 2nd edition is much better and more detailed than the original version, I used this in conjunction with a couple of other iPhone & Objective C books and this worked out well for me.

I have been developing an iPhone app for a while, and I was at a brick wall with regard to a particular functional implementation that just wouldn't work, no matter how I approached it. After buying this book, I broke through the wall!

I found it to be extremely well written, with very clear and complete descriptions of the topics covered. I have been developing mainframe and Windows software for many years, and did some Mac development way back in the early 90's, so I have certainly read my share of technical manuals and "How to" books. "iPhone SDK 3 Programming" is definitely up there near the top. I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who wants do do more than the simple, everyday iPhone app.

although the object-c for iphone was hard for me in the beginning But this book is explaining it as easy as possible.
now i am in the middle of the book i feel that i have understand a lot.
thanks you Maheer

This book fails to explain properly the ins and outs, making it very hard to read or understand, even for an advanced reader. Showing dots but missing links, sort of speak. I agree with other reviewers' comments that the content can be found online but it's certainly easier to have it put together in a book like this. The book could and should be expanded to 2-3X volume in order to better explain the topics included. To author: Please explain, don't just lay out facts.

Look forward to an improved 4th edition.

Whether your programming for the new iPhone 4.0 or the iPad. This book is a must into advanced iPhone programming. All the techniques present in this book work on the new 4.0 platform.

I completely recommend this book because of multiple reasons. I does not waste time going over the basics and explains only what needs to be explained. It starts at a level where you must have a solid foundation using iPhone SDK. After going through all the techniques and such, it works as an excellent reference guide. Nice job Maher Ali!

Actually I wrote a bad comment about this book previously, but I should change the comment.
I've read more books related with iPhone development but they are too bad or worse.

I think this book makes simple topics complicated and its edit style is not convenient for reading but its content sustains high fidelity but the others which handle iPhone SDK and project samples are seriously insufficient.

Relatively good book in iPhone SDK part.

What a waste of money. The only thing that is advance in this book are the subjects listed. The content is not well presented and falls short of completing any area covered. The examples you can find in documentation and not of added value. You are better off surfing the Web for documentation than this book.

Nice and useful book, I really enjoy it. It make all the money. It provides you from 0 to Hero insight of Iphone SDK :)