What do you think?
Rate this book
Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
Are you a programmer looking for a new challenge? Does the thought of building your very own iPhone app make your heart race and your pulse quicken? If so, then Beginning iPhone Development is just the book for you. Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, Beginning iPhone Development offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone and iPod Touch programming. The book starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and installing Apple's free iPhone software development kit, then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. You'll move on from there, mastering all the iPhone interface elements that you've come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, sliders, etc. You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. You'll master the art of table-building and learn how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You'll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone's built-in database management system. You'll learn how to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES. You'll add multi-touch gesture support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the Camera, photo library, and Accelerometer. You'll master application preferences, learn how to localize your apps into other languages, and so much more. Apple's iPhone SDK, this book, and your imagination are all you'll need to start building your very own best-selling iPhone applications.
536 pages, Paperback
First published October 27, 2008
13 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 20, 2009
The strength of this book was introducing me to the basics of iPhone development without a lot of confusion. Objective-C, Cocoa Touch, Xcode, views and controllers, and Navigation and TabBar controllers are all covered in a way that provided me with the confidence that I can do this stuff.
Then I try to write my first application that is on par with the examples from the book, fall flat on my face, and realize that copying-and-pasting code into my editor (or worse transcribing from the book) has taught me nothing. The bulk of the book is taken up by code which belongs in a download living on the net, and this code is then repeated amongst explanations. This is a nice example of literate programming, but that the literate part isn't in the code in comments. At this point, I realized that the true value of this book is the code examples themselves, not the explanations. The explanations are too simple to be very useful. This is truly a book for beginners.
This text was very useful as a launchpad, but very quickly I found myself getting more out of the official Apple docs.
Once past the chapters on controllers, some of the chapters seem phoned in. For example, some of the gesture-recognition code is broken while the text claims otherwise.
Then I try to write my first application that is on par with the examples from the book, fall flat on my face, and realize that copying-and-pasting code into my editor (or worse transcribing from the book) has taught me nothing. The bulk of the book is taken up by code which belongs in a download living on the net, and this code is then repeated amongst explanations. This is a nice example of literate programming, but that the literate part isn't in the code in comments. At this point, I realized that the true value of this book is the code examples themselves, not the explanations. The explanations are too simple to be very useful. This is truly a book for beginners.
This text was very useful as a launchpad, but very quickly I found myself getting more out of the official Apple docs.
Once past the chapters on controllers, some of the chapters seem phoned in. For example, some of the gesture-recognition code is broken while the text claims otherwise.
March 12, 2013
one of the better books out there - it systematically goes through the basic mechanics of the SDK quite well. I couldn't believe how many errors there were in the book so no surprise there's a new edition! there is great forum support online but found the code still a bit buggy. IMHO, I don't think they needed the release of SDK3 as an excuse to write a new book. I would give the new book out to everyone who trudged through the first one for being beta testers :) all in all, dive in, you'll get some good ideas. my personal wish is for more emphasis on solid software engineering principles - the book would take the cake if it discussed even basics around version control and some really simple examples around how to build and run unit test cases - I feel it would make a difference to seed these practices in early rather than as an afterthought and help improve the quality of app out there - we all know how often they crash!
July 11, 2009
I am giving this book 2 stars primarily because, while it is relatively straightforward to follow all the examples, I found that I didn't learn many of the concepts in a deep way. I followed steps without always understanding why I was doing what I was doing, and as a result, am having a tough time (in some cases) applying what I learned to other programs, even similar ones. I also found the lack of pictures to help explain concepts and steps really annoying. There are plenty of pictures of the iPhone apps, but none at all of programming concepts needed to understand at a deeper level, and I'm a visual thinker so this really bothers me.
The examples were a bit too contrived in many cases also.
The examples were a bit too contrived in many cases also.
June 3, 2011
I lost count of how many versions of Xcode and the iOS SDK I went through in my SLOW progress through this book, but it was an excellent primer on iOS development. The good thing about all the changes in software was that it forced me to debug deprecated methods and such. So, maybe slow wasn't all bad.
January 12, 2010
Good book if you're just getting started. I looked at several other iPhone development books and they all pretty much cover the same topics. However, the authors of this book do a good job of combining theory, code, and explanations. Don't expect to be an expert after reading this book however, the online documentation on the developers website is a must read.
March 2, 2009
Excellent book! Only thing I would add is exercises at the end of every chapter.
Certainly better than the Hillegass Cocoa book.
Certainly better than the Hillegass Cocoa book.
May 6, 2009
Chapters 8-9 killed this book for me. A programming book should never state (over and over) "well you'd really want to do this the normal way, but we are going to show you OUR way." Huge letdown.
July 17, 2009
Learn by example. However being such a style of book, some vital topics you may need for your project are missed... Check the Table of Contents first. Regardless a great starter book.
July 8, 2010
My first decent book about iPhone programming, it wasn't too bad.
August 14, 2009
Good examples. Working code. I like this the best of all the iphone books I have.
January 14, 2010
A really good overview of iPhone development
September 13, 2011
Excellent starter book for writing applications for the iPhone. I highly recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews