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Title: Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
ISBN: 1430216263
Author:
Dave Mark
Jeff LaMarche
Publicate Date: 2008-11-14
Publish: 2008-11-14
List Price: $39.99
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $26.39
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $56.61
Amazon Merchant Price: $26.39
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Good for non Mac programmers
I would say this book is particularly good if you don't come from a Mac development background. The Sadun book I think assumes a lot of Mac programming background. This book is much easier to just pick up and start using, especially if you are familiar with other gui development environments like c sharp or some other gui development tools.
A word of advice for people who want to use the the apple iphone dev sample code. When you download it seems to put all the files in a temporary place that you can't save to. You can use it in xcode once but you can't save it or changes for later use. I'm sure the mac guru's have a better way to do this but I found you can see the temporary space the sample code goes to after you download it in Finder. When you are in that temporary directory Apple Key a, the Apple Key c, then Apple Key v into another permanent directory. Then you can use xcode project open to have permanent access to the code.
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2: Best way to start developing for iPhone
Before any iPhone development books were released, learning the frameworks was next to impossible for me. There was just no easy way to learn iPhone development until now. It's extremely well written, and feels carefully crafted to maximize understanding - not just quickly thrown together to get the first iPhone dev book on the market. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in iPhone development.
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3: Excellent
I've been learning Obj-C for iPhone for about 3 months and this is by far the best book I've come across. It explains things like nothing else I've read and I have been doing exercises from the book involving things I thought I already understood, just because things become a lot clearer after reading it. Highly recommended reading.
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4: Fantastic reading!! Excellent work!!
When this book arrived, and I saw the book cover, I knew I got something different. Not a cookie-cutter book but an original piece of work where somebody really intended to teach something.
I just got this book a few days ago and with this 4-day Thanksgiving weekend and living alone I have been having a blast focusing just on this book. I haven't read through it all yet, still just a quarter of the way through, but I'm not trying to cram. This book does exactly what I want a book to do (as opposed to an online reference resource): stop and talk about every little thing that is really useful to know in the workflow of applications programming on an iPhone.
These guys know how to write. They don't leave the reader with presumptuous word choice and leave the reader hanging; every time they say something it's like they read the mind of the reader, "Now you might be wondering, what about... or why not do ... Well, let's talk about that." Nearly every corner is covered, and where I still have questions it's usually not directly related to the topic, i.e. I have an Obj-C question. Even then, after I return from surfing the web for answers, I return to the book and turn the page and the book says, "You should read up on this stuff at [URL]"... I kid you not, this book had me floored.
Looking towards the latter pages of the book, I can't help but be astounded, thinking, wow, I get to learn about THAT? And in the same style of learning that I've been enjoying so far? This is great!
There are very few errors, mostly just little things that the reader can spot just by paying attention. There are plenty of enough illustrations and tips to keep the reader engaged and constantly learning not just the basics but how to get comfortable in the workflow of iPhone development.
My only disappointment is that the book assumes knowledge of Obj-C, but fortunately it comes with plenty of URLs and references to complete those prerequisites as well, and really, to discuss Obj-C in detail, beyond the rather brief coverage-as-we-go that is indeed in this book, would have been beyond the scope of the book so that's fine.
There's just nothing I can say bad about this book, and everything good. It is by far the funnest technical book I've owned and cracked open in months, if not years.
By the way, coming from a C# background (and Java and VB5/6 before that), lightweight programming of the iPhone is EASY!! It's different, but it's easy, particularly compared to C++ programming which I've had a number of false starts. For me, if I can go from VBScript to VB6 to Java to C#, I can go from C# to Obj-C. Also, the workflow of Xcode + Interface Builder is somewhat analogous to the workflow of Visual Studio + Expression Blend 2 for WPF programming, if indeed event handlers would have been set up in the Blend designer in a drag-and-drop way. I must also add, learning how to develop software in Xcode forces the developer to learn MVC. I don't know why people who are used to Visual Studio programming dislike the MVC-ness of Xcode programming, but I love the change of workflow, and I think there is much to take back with me when I return to C# development.
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5: Strong foundation on which to build your Cocoa Touch knowledgebase
In keeping with Dave Mark's excellent track record for introductory Mac development books (referring to his Learn C on the Mac classic) and Jeff LaMarche's obvious talents, this book is THE book for those new (and really, who isn't?) to iPhone Development.
I'll start by saying that relative to the Apple samples, the authors are heavily into Interface Builder usage, which is good to force separation of your Views from your Controller logic, but a challenge when you fumble hooking up an outlet and things don't work as you expect. Understanding how IB outlets & actions interact with source code is different than other programming most of us not from a NextStep heritage are used to. That is to say, for most programmers, debugging and changing behavior in source code is a much more familiar method to follow than trying to fix a NIB file. Not necessarily a better one mind you, but a significantly different one that'll take some getting used to.
That said, from my own brief experience, it seems starting off with a strong fundamental understanding of Apple-flavored MVC from this book, enforced via Interface Builder views and managed via controller source code, is preferable to trying to structure it correctly just in source code (as Apple usually shows it).
With respect to IB, the authors do a great job covering the common mistakes we all make and what you should do to resolve them (i.e. in Chap 6 they mention that if you don't see the proper action popup, you probably control-dragged from the wrong IB component. Nice touch.)
A minor nit, when I read the chapter on autorotation, I didn't find mention of the very handy "autoresizingMask" property of a view (UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth), which handles the changing sizes of a view for you. They mention it in passing, but it's such a nicely done feature that more people should use, it might deserve a project sample. Bonus: they explain why Apple discourages use of the "upside-down portrait" mode, which is good to know.
The authors wisely emphasize the importance of TableViews, which are so central to so many iPhone app interfaces for a reason. I've skimmed those chapters (8 & 9) and they're the best available anywhere on explaining tables and how they interact with Navigation Controllers and subviews. I'm really looking forward to digging into them. My initial concerns that like a compelling preview to a bad movie (I'm looking at you Zohan) I was worried that Chapter 3 [which Apress has available on their website, google for it if you're looking for a representative sample] would be the best in the book. Chapters 6-9 put those fears to rest.
The remaining chapter coverage is conducive to arming you with the basics to create a solid, stable, fully-featured iPhone/iPod Touch application that combined with your own creativity and hard-work, you'd be proud to display in the App Store.
So, in sum, this is the book to get right now if you're just starting out on developing Cocoa Touch apps. Even after I've learned the basics, I can see myself referring back to this book for refreshers. Thanks Dave & Jeff!
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