Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK

Easily the best iPhone development book, especially getting started

This is the most enjoyable computer book I have ever read. If you are getting started with iPhone/iTouch programming, and you are looking for a book, this one is easily at the top of the list. One of the strengths of this book is how much of the SDK is covered. You would expect a lot less from a "beginning" book. The reward is how MUCH of a beginning you get from this book. It's like a collection of goodies being handed to you one at a time, and they just keep coming.

This book has style and substance. It's wonderful, polished, and relaxed. I would compare this book to Girardelli premium chocolate squares. It's a great experience, that makes you happy, that you can't scarf down, that you simply enjoy slowly because it's so rich. For beginning iPhone development, you could not ask for a better book than this one.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book helped me so much!

Beginning with my background I have done some previous programming but it is pretty minimal and nothing amazing. I wanted to begin on something new and this turned out to be the book for me! Once I read the first three chapters I was ready to make a simple app of my own that was actually polished and fairly impressive. I was able to pull code from the different examples and quickly make my own app which was very nice. It has good explanations that not only show what you are doing but why you are doing it. This was almost perfect for a programmer that has had no C experience and had never touched xcode. It begins believing that you have a brief knowledge of C but I didn't find it too much of a problem. I highly recommend this book to any beginners that want to start on xcode!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Excellent book. Well thought out and easy to work through.

I was recently the happy recipient of the book ¿Beginning iPhone Development¿ from Apress - written by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche.

I¿ve seen a lot of technical books in my time, and I¿m usually almost wincing as I open the cover, due to frequent experiences of poorly written or poorly documented (read: bad code) books.

I¿m very happy to say this is NOT the case here. I¿ve been through to Chapter 6 at this point and have tested the code through chapter 4. Nice! It works and the book is doing what it promised. Explaining the iPhone SDK in a way that is clear and understandable.

In particular, I thought the discussions of the initially confusing world of NIBs, File¿s Owners and all the rest to be adroitly handled and fairly easy to understand. Frankly, worth the price of the book to any new iPhone developers who have been pulling their hair out over that new paradigm¿

I grew up the son of a managing editior - and so am fussy about layout and the ¿art¿ of a book. I give ¿Beginning iPhone Development¿ high marks here too. Simple, easy layout. Nice to read through and easy on the eyes. My slightly older eyes really appreciate the fact that the publisher was willing to put a few more pages in to accomodate a slightly larger print size.

More to come but at this point, TWO THUMBS UP!

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Most recent comments:

I¿ve been through 90% of the book¿s exercises now and I¿ve continued to be very pleased with the work of the authors and editors. There are some errors in the text but nothing serious. Frankly, unavoidable in a first edition¿

What is impressive to me is the responsiveness of the authors on the errata page (http://www.apress.com/book/errata/1069). I¿ve found all the answers I needed there, as well as some good advice. I certainly appreciate their commitment to spending some time responding to reader¿s questions or comments.

The examples and exercises in the book are well thought out and clear. As I mentioned earlier, the explanation of what goes on behind the scenes when using Interface Builder is alone worth the price of the book.

Bottom line: If you want a well-designed, easy-to-follow introduction to the iPhone SDK, you can¿t go wrong with this book. If you are new to Objective-C or Cocoa, you will probably want to buy books on those subjects as well, since the purpose of this book is specifically the iPhone SDK.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great book to start your iPhone developement

This was my 3rd book on the iPhone SDK and will be my last. Its the perfect book for the iPhone app developer that is just starting out. A must have.

Great way of representing the info but needs a good back ground!

If you know how to program with objective-C, C++, or C# then it is a great book to invest in in order to learn programming for the iPhoe SDK.

Great foundation for beginners.

This book covers all the basics you will need to know to develop applications for the iPhone.

Loved it!

Great for both beginners and experienced Mac Programmers

I started this book having quit a bit of experience programming in Cocoa on the Mac which is fairly similar. I was a little worried that it would be a lot of repeat from that but it turned out to be very informative on the differences. If you already know how to program on the Mac, this book is perfect for you.
If you don't know programming, or specifically C or Objective-C, you will not have any problem following along with the examples but I suggest if you plan on going forward with the iPhone getting a book on Objective-C.

Excellent resource...

Beginning iPhone Development has been an excellent resource as I have come up to speed on the iPhone SDK and development environment. One advantage I have found with this book over others is the comprehensiveness of the example code. For a novice to Objective-C and the iPhone SDK, the extra "hand-holding" has been extremely beneficial. Additionally, the authors' writing style made the concepts easy to understand.

Excellent introduction

I had zero experience with the iPhone, and this book took me to the first level. It's well written, lively, and even entertaining at times.

The only reason I don't give it five stars is that it does contain a number of errors in the code, which is a bit aggravating, but there is a web site with the corrections.

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