Jun 162010
- ISBN13: 9780321706249
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Written by the trainers at the Big Nerd Ranch, the worldwide leader in professional training for Mac developers, this book provides a hands-on guide to learning how to program for the iPhone and iPod touch. Coverage includes
An overview of Objective-C, the core language you’ll use to program for the iPhoneAn overview of the Xcode ToolsHow to work with the iPhone SDK’s UIKit framework and Cocoa TouchBuild apps that use MapKit and CoreLocation, as well as t… More >>
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.
Rating: 5 / 5
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!
Rating: 5 / 5
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.
Rating: 3 / 5
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)
Rating: 5 / 5
I marvel at the writers’ abilities to take a complicated subject area and parse it in a manner which benefits both beginning and advanced programmers. I’ve gotten most of the other popular iPhone development books and found that they made minimal effort to predict readers’ questions. It’s like a plate of bad food from a deaf chef. This book, on the other hand, goes completely in the other direction and answers the questions that pop up into my head and, more importantly, they kick in a little challenge along the way that rivals an in-person classroom experience. I’ve also read their Mac OS X titles, and they have clearly improved their editing. This book is professional and the best there is out there. Just because the App Store is getting close to having a gazillion titles doesn’t mean that writing iPhone apps is easy. If you want to write something which peaks above the baseline of uselessness and silliness, then this book is the only way to go. Bravo! Where’s the sequel already
?
Rating: 5 / 5