Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK

Not too far into this book yet - about chapter 5. But I wanted to say how well written this book is compared to others. I have read 2 other iPhone books and cost lost a few chapters in! With this book I have gone from knowing nothing to fully understanding what I'm doing in about a night! I recommend this to everyone and anyone!

Excellent book, it drives the reader along all the way from zero knowledge, to what is needed in order to implement a complete iPhone application. It enables to grasp all the basics, from a single source, in a clear style. A must-read.

This really does start at the basics, and quickly explains things, including keyboard shortcuts and the like, to get you up and running developing user interfaces and simple applications for the iPhone. When you first come to develop for the iPhone, you'll find it's rather different from what you're used to, and this guides you through those first baby steps, literally step by step. It stops to explain each piece of code that it asks you to put in, and then, having explained exactly what to do and why the first time, it then introduces the keyboard shortcuts that will speed things up, and doesn't keep explaining the same thing again and again. The style is easy to read, and while Objective-C was an unfamiliar syntax at first, I quickly got a feel for why I needed to do things - it explained why something was added to the interface, why I needed a @synthesize keyword, when I need to allocate and release objects, and so on. It also explained alternative ways of doing things where they aren't used there but may be preferable in certain circumstances. It's not really designed as a reference guide - it's designed as a series of tutorials to guide you through setting up various types of views, and with that aim it works very well, managing to introduce memory management elements without making it seem arcane and scary, which is an improvement over what the C++ books I'd previously read managed. It doesn't make a big thing of what's C, and what's specifically Objective-C. If you're more comfortable with C, C++, Java or C# then some of the syntax would be familiar, some unfamiliar, and better explanation of the more Smalltalk style pieces would be useful, but it's a minor complaint for what is a very good book for getting to grips with the basics.

I'm a very experienced developer on Microsoft technologies, but as a real starter with Mac development, I touched a Mac for the first time a few days ago. It was hard to follow the initial chapters, because it assumes that you already have some experience with the tools and Objective-C, or in other cases just says to not worry and go ahead because it will be explained later. I would prefer a book with more juice and practical content. I had to get iPhone in Action from Manning and start reading read it from page 150 (SDK programming), only then I was prepared to go back to this book.

I know that it say's "Beginning iPhone 3 Development", it does but it assumes a working knowledge of Objective C programming. Before buying this book, get a hold of a book that starts you purely on beginning Objective C, then buy this book and sink your teeth into it. It's well written, clear code examples and fantastic "build your own" sample apps. 100% recommended for anyone starting iPhone development! Note: This book does not cover any aspects of the iPad.

This is my first book and first guide to SDK for the iPhone. It's a very good entry point to iPhone programming, there is much simple example projects. I'd recommend to anyone who wishes to learn.

This book is a joy to read and understand. The authors understand their subject matter and know how to explain complex topics with good examples, I esp. found the picker and Nav bar examples very useful in my own iPhone development. Another good thing is the topics are fairly independent from one another, so you don't have to read it from front to back in that order I've read a few Cocoa dev books now and I have to say this is the best! I am now considering purchasing their next book (the Pro version)!

I bought this book thinking it would be good from looking at the reviews, but most topics are skimmed over and loads of the example code does not work. Beware

Bought this book to help me start my final year project at Uni. Pros: - Easy to read and understand - Good for just jumping to sections that you need - Covers all of the basics and some advanced features - Good for people who have done Java or any OOP Cons: - doesnt go into depth with any topic (Probs why there is other books from Apress) Over all its awesome and sits on my desk at all times

Beginning iPhone 3 Development is a solid beginner's book. However I would not recommend the book to completely novice programmers with no programming experience. Complete beginners might wonder what MVC, protocols, delegates, outlets would mean. These are advanced topics although not difficult to comprehend may overwhelm the completely new beginner. If you have other programming background particularly object oriented language you will have no problem understanding the Objective C constructs. It does help a lot and makes the picture clearer when you understand what they mean. Like for example, the use of square brackets [ ] is the dot notation version in calling methods from an object instance in C# or Java. It also helps to know the notion of method naming in Objective C which is very new to me i.e. the method name includes the series of parameters involved in the behavior which actually makes sense. I am used to naming methods by just the verb without the parameters involved. I had to look this up elsewhere as I found the method declarations completely baffling at first. But like when you start using the Mac coming from Windows, you get used to it and if you think about it more closely, it makes more sense and is actually very well designed. Anyway, back to the book: I particularly like the progressive style especially in the beginning when as a newbie Objective-C programmer and Xcode user I have no idea what outlets, delegates and protocols are. The authors present simple chunks of exercises that build up to more complicated ones with just the right balance not to overwhelm the readers. Although the progression from simple to complex examples are well presented, the practicality and reusability of the examples are slightly questionable. This is debatable because whilst the choice of simpler example with no practical application creates a less steeper learning curve by isolating the topics at hand. I could also do with a more cohesive set of examples that lead into a final unified application. But this is the style the authors have chosen and I am not complaining as I have learnt a lot from the literature. The meat of the book are topics concerning and leading up to Table Views manipulation from basic interaction to navigation. Chapter 11 about Basic Data Persistence falls flat with a very compact explanation especially on SQLite. The authors have however written the sequel book concentrating on what they have left on Data Persistence. Other chapters although compact are still useful including Quartz and OpenGL, Gestures, Core Location, Accelerometer, Camera and Localization. I recommend that the reader, type the exercise themselves as you will more likely remember the topics involved. This is mandatory to beginner books and tutorials. However a bit of warning to those typing the code themselves. Especially when a specific protocol dictates a mandatory method to be overridden or implemented. If you misspell the method name, the application will likely crash with no clue in the debugger as to what happened. This is a gripe of mine directed towards Xcode as opposed to the book, because coming from a Visual Studio user, the mandatory methods would have been easily re-factored by the IDE. My advice is, just don't make any typographical mistakes. If the application crashes, you can download the actual code itself from their website and run it without any problems. In conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a beginner's book and it packs in a good punch in iPhone development.