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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.

Customer Reviews:

• Excellent Crash Course for Apple's iPhone SDK
  This book is an excellent crash course for experienced programmers wanting to become rapidly familiar with key aspects of the iPhone SDK. This book has 368 pages that have few pictures and is filled with very concise text.
  
  After the first few introductory chapters, most of the chapters are written in a style suitable to serve as a reference, albeit friendlier (and shorter) than Apple's documentation. Prospective readers should be warned that this book is not like the "...for Dummies" series of books that depend on a sequence of teaching points presented chronologically. This book is full of information, mostly to serve either as a reference, or to be read by experienced programmers. It requires the reader to understand the significance of the various APIs being described and used in sample code without the author making it overly obvious.
  
  This is in stark contrast to the "Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK" book by Mark and LaMarche, which is more tutorial based with more "hand holding". The Mark and LaMarche book is full of diagrams and depends on a teaching method of the reader following a carefully scripted sequence of teaching points. While the Mark/LaMarche book might seem easy to follow, the downside is that there is a lack of depth in their coverage of the APIs.
  
  
  CHAPTERS IN BOOK:
  
  01. pg 001 Getting Started with the iPhone SDK
  02. pg 027 Interface Builder: Xcode's GUI for GUIs
  03. pg 039 Introduction to UI Kit
  04. pg 115 Multi-Touch Events and Geometry
  05. pg 131 Layer Programming with Quartz Core
  06. pg 143 Making a Racket: Audio Toolbox and AVFoundation
  07. pg 179 Network Programming with CFNetwork
  08. pg 197 Getting a Fix: Core Location
  09. pg 207 Address Book Frameworks
  10. pg 219 Advanced UI Kit Design
  11. pg 315 Application Settings
  12. pg 325 Cover Flow
  13. pg 335 Page Flicking
  14. pg 349 Media Player Framework
  
  
  It is an excellent book, but completely novice programmers may want a more tutorial based introduction to the APIs. I find it to be complementary to the Mark and LaMarche book. It is impossible for either book, however, to cover all the extensive iPhone APIs completely. After using these two books, one will still have to use Apple's developer reference guides.
  
  As an aside, I should mention that even after using Zdziarski's book, the competing Mark/LaMarche book, and Apple's documentation, most novice iPhone programmers may still struggle to understand how to assimilate all of this into productive code, manufactured in part with Interface Builder. As an example, after using all three of these different types of resources, it was still quite difficult to produce an iPhone application that used a tab bar controller with separate table views with navigation bars. After I figured this out using Interface Builder (as opposed to programmatically), it seems so easy and logical in retrospect, but there are no current resources that assimilate coverage of the APIs with more fundamental concepts of Cocoa and the use of Interface Builder to build the XIB/NIB files....more info
• Excellent beginners tutorial
  While this book is not as comprehensive as some have wanted, I found it to be a nice beginners tutorial to writing iPhone applications. The book starts out with an objective-C primer. Since objective-C has such an "interesting" syntax this is badly needed, even though I come from a strong programming background.
  
  Each section includes a reasonably complex sample that puts that section's material to use. Most of the sections also include a "Further Study" area that gives you some homework. This is where the user can expand his knowledge through research and working with the tools.
  
  The book jumps around a bit by first going over simple UI patterns, then spending time talking about audio services and networking, only to come back and spend more time with UI controls, only to jump back into audio/video. Still, one has to remember that this is a reference book and not a novel so jumping around is ok.
  
  The sample applications that I have tried so far are ok and I feel like I have a much better grasp on how the iPhone system works.
  
  This book is not an XCode or Interface Builder tutorial. ...more info
• Get Apple docs instead
  Very inconsistent book. The chapter 3 is the longest one. But what was the point to describe UI elements without a single illustration? I could not find a single useful piece of info there. Some info is incomplete or simply wrong. Like why exactly you have to implement loadView method in your controller. You will be better of with Apple free documentation, like "View Controller Programming Guide for iPhone OS"....more info
• Good reference but lacked a lot of usage examples
  I am new to Mac/iphone development and this book didn't cover a lot of basics. I used a few other books for basics on Objective-C/Coca programming. I tried to read the book by implementing examples but some of the examples didn't work. I contacted the author but didn't get any reply. Overall, I liked first six chapters and they had good examples but last six chapters were just list of APIs and their explanation. Apple has very good reference on iphone development but I was looking for a way to build complete applications using different APIs and in that regard the book failed. Finally, this book completely ignores Interface Builder that is key part of Mac development....more info
• A waste of time and money
  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. ...more info
• Good but inconsistent
  This books meanders from the brilliant to the poorly edited. There are sections that are probably just about as good as you could get, then there are areas that are glossed over, missing or ignored.
  
  My guess is that the editors or Apple got to the manuscript before it was published as there are items in the index that aren't in the book (check out Bluetooth if you don't believe me). There are also a lot of key items that appear in book, but are not in the index. Considering the size and scope of the index, I find this very puzzling. This makes the index worth a check, but not really as useful as you would expect.
  
  All in all this is a handy reference to have, but it hints of how good it could have been and I find that disappointing. Not quite a programmers guide to development on the iPhone and not quite an authoritative reference. I find myself tempted to give it less than 4 stars due to it's failings, but when it is good it is damn near perfect.
  
  So if you are starting programming with Cocoa or on the iPhone, I would recommend you start with something else. If you are familiar with the concepts and want to learn how to go that step beyond, this book might point you in the right direction.
  ...more info
• A train wreck in a paper package...
  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....more info
• Neither book is a good starting point
  Both the current books on iPhone development fail to provide an "introduction" to development as I'd call it. Both books (this one, and Beginning iPhone Development by Mark and LaMarche) say, right up front something akin to "the Apple approved and easy way to write for the iPhone is to use Interface Builder, but we're going to start you off with the harder, hand-coded way, so you'll learn the guts of how it works."
  
  Really bad idea. Delegates, controllers et al are different enough without throwing unnecessary hand-coding at the novice first. Further, in both books, the code is usually "just presented" (here: type this) with only modest followup as to what you've just entered actually does and where it fits into a larger picture.
  
  Now it's obvious that I'm new to Xcode and iPhone, but I'm not new to programming per se: I started coding in 1978. I'm also a teacher, and can say that both these books represent the "jump into the lake and while you're gasping for air, I'll teach you how to swim" approach.
  
  The beginner would have been far better served with the inclusion of Interface Builder right up front. That would help understand the whole paradigm used by the frameworks and how it implements MVC.
  
  Once that was understood, -then- is the time to go back and say "... and this is how we hand code that..." - once the basic understanding and overview was in place in the reader's mind.
  
  I'm even monitoring the Stanford class... and what I can say is that between that, and two books, and constant re-reading, I've finally managed to extract the conceptual overview needed to understand WHY thing are done, which any programmer needs to understand to write good, efficient code.
  
  Copy/paste doesn't teach programming. It's like teaching "turn screwdriver clockwise to set screw" first, and expecting that to lead to carpentry skills.
  
  It's a common problem when experts teach, and is why teaching is a profession unto itself.
  
  I've figured it out.. and am still learning... but I should not have to "reverse engineer" it all to learn to do it.
  
  In sum then: at least if you're starting from where I started, get everything you can find on iPhone programming - one book alone won't cut it....more info
• exactly what I wanted
  I was fairly new to Mac OS and iPhone development. I had done a little bit of Mac OS development in the past year. This book was exactly what I was looking for in terms of getting more familiar with iPhone development.
  
  The issue of digging under the hood, and not using Interface Builder for everything, was something I wanted. People should know what IB is doing for them. The concept of delegates should not be too confusing to anyone looking to do significant Mac/iPhone development.
  ...more info
• The Complete iPhone UI / Experience Guide
  In January 2009, I purchased Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK (apress) mainly because it was the only book available that seemed promising in.
  
  I wish I had access to this first, the iPhone SDK: Application Development (O'Reilly) book, as it contains details of all of the interactions that I've been trying to develop on my own.
  
  If you are trying to decide between this book and the apress book, please read on...If not, skip to the Bottom Line.
  
  The apress book is great for beginners to get up to speed on the iPhone's functionality, but it lacks the basic components needed to complete the user experience that people have come to expect from most iPhone Apps. I was constantly soliciting help from other iPhone developers on Twitter for help with things like the Page Flick interaction because it wasn't written up in this book. It has lots of pictures of the iPhone sample programs running in the screen view, but this just means there is less room for explanations that could lead to something you or I can customize. This book, in my opinion, won't be enough to build a production ready program that will garner high sales in the iTunes App Store by itself...
  
  Bottom Line: Jonathan Zdziarski's iPhone SDK book provides fully detailed instructions to intermediate XCode programmers on how to construct and embed almost all of the iPhone's notable UI features: Date/Time Pickers, Progress / Activity Indicators, Proximity Sensors, Cover Flow, and the Movie Player Controllers to name a few. The book even covers network connectivity (CFNetwork) which is quintessential for data driven applications. The prospect of using rich media components such as video and page controls means that others will be adding these features to many iPhone Apps in the future and soon demand for those items will be commonplace. There aren't a lot of pictures of sample apps running, but that's where the examples come in and you can customize the code however you want.
  
  My bet is on the book that has sections dedicated to user experiences that most iPhone users will pay money to download. Plus, most software companies won't hesitate to pay top dollar for people who can actually build Cover Flow into their software either......more info