Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition – In with the New, Out with the Old (iOS 5 & Earlier) – #bookreview

Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition
Matt Neuburg
(O’Reilly - paperback, Kindle)

“My book is way bigger than your book.”

Matt Neuburg, author of Programming iOS 6, could make that claim and win almost any book-size contest. The recently published 3rd Edition of his well-respected how-to guide focuses on the “Fundamentals of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Development” and now spans 1,154 pages in its paperback edition. It’s definitely much thicker and heavier than any of the devices it covers.

This new edition is centered on iOS 6.1 and xCode 4.6. The author notes that he has “eliminated most references to previous iOS versions.” And he explains: “Many iOS 6 features, of course, do not exist in iOS 5 or before; I usually mention that a new feature is new, but I have not generally addressed the problem of writing backwards-compatible code. The text would become confused and bloated if everything had to be qualified with advice for different versions (‘but if you’re targeting iOS 5.1, do this; if you’re targeting iOS 5.0, do that; if you’re targeting iOS 4.3, do the other’). I believe that I can justify such omissions on the grounds that previous editions of this book exist!”

Indeed they do. Programming iOS 5, which was published in two editions, also covers iOS 4.3 and is available on Amazon.com and through other sources..

“New iOS 6 features are, of course, both explained and adopted” in the new 3rd edition, Neuburg says. “For example, having described NSArray subscripting (in Chapter 10), I then use it consistently, in place of objectAtIndex:, throughout the rest of the book. Aside from this, the book’s structure remains the same as in previous editions, growing where necessary to accommodate explanations of new features, such as autolayout (in Chapter 14), state restoration (in Chapter 19), and collection views (in Chapter 21). Also, in response to reader requests, I have inserted a short example of Core Data programming into Chapter 36.”

Absolute beginners should not start with this book. Get some basic programming experience in C and Objective-C first.

And don’t be surprised that not everything about iOS is covered in a book 1,154 pages long. “It’s far too big to be encompassed in a book even of this size,” Neuburg emphasizes. “There are areas of Cocoa Touch that I have ruthlessly avoided discussing. Some of them would require an entire book of their own. Others you can pick up well enough, when the time comes, from the documentation. This book is only a beginning — the fundamentals.”

– Si Dunn

iOS 6 Programming Cookbook – Updated for the new SDK – #iOS #programming #bookreview

iOS 6 Programming Cookbook
Vandad Nahavandipoor
(O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)

If you are a new iOS developer, you can learn many things quickly from this hefty book. And even if you are an iOS veteran, you can gain some important new insights.

The iOS 6 cookbook has been completely updated to cover the recently released iOS 6 SDK. And the author is a well-known and well-experienced developer of iOS apps.

The 20-chapter book begins with the basics of programming for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, using Objective-C. But it is not intended for beginners who are just learning to program.

In some forums, debates continue to rage over whether new programmers who want to create iOS apps should dive straight into learning Objective-C or study traditional C first and perhaps other programming languages before tackling Objective-C.

No opinion is offered in this well-written, well-organized book. It is just assumed that “you are comfortable with the iOS development environment and know how to create an app for the iPhone or iPad.”

The book’s  focus, the author says, is on explaining “frameworks and classes that are available in iOS 6 SDK” and teaching the reader “the latest and greatest APIs. As you know, some users of your apps may still be on older versions of iOS, so please consider those users and choose your APIs wisely, depending on the minimum iOS version that you want to target with your apps.”

Here is the chapter line-up for iOS 6 Programming Cookbook:

1. The Basics
2. Implementing Controllers and Views
3. Auto Layout and the Visual Format Language
4. Constructing and Using Table Views
5. Storyboards
6. Concurrency
7. Core Location and Maps
8. Implementing Gesture Recognizers
9. Networking, JSON, XML, and Twitter
10. Audio and Video
11. Address Book
12. Files and Folder Management
13. Camera and the Photo Library
14. Multitasking
15. Core Data
16. Dates, Calendars, and Events
17. Graphics and Animations
18. Core Motion
19. iCloud
20. Pass Kit

Vandad Nahavandipoor’s important new iOS 6 cookbook offers hundreds of how-to examples and code samples that can help solve problems and give well-defined starting points and frameworks for developers at all levels of experience.

The topics and code samples range from the basic, such as testing new iOS apps by running them on the iOS simulator, to the advanced, such as using Apple’s Pass Kit to create digitally signed coupons, tickets or passes that can be delivered to compatible iOS devices running iOS 6 or later.

– Si Dunn

iOS SDK Development – A totally new and improved 2nd edition – #programming #bookreview

iOS SDK Development
Chris Adamson and Bill Dudney
(Pragmatic Bookshelf, paperback)

The previous, 2009 edition of this popular how-to book was titled iPhone SDK Development.  But this  new and re-titled second edition is much more than a copy-and-paste, just-make-some-tweaks update.

“[W]e have copied absolutely nothing from the old book,” the authors say. “As we looked at all the changes to the platform—between Xcode 4, iOS 6, and the iPad—we decided that so much had changed that we would be better off starting fresh.”

While they tried to cover virtually everything in their previous book, their new, 274-page edition is much more focused and, yes, it’s more pragmatic.

“This book,” they state, “is about setting you off on the right foot: understanding the fundamentals, getting comfortable with the tools and the concepts, and developing good habits. We’ve put a particular emphasis on the last of these, looking for the kinds of things that aren’t just handy classes or compiler tricks but instead are the values and routines that will help produce better apps. We’re also adopting modern iOS development practices, such as using Objective-C properties exclusively instead of using traditional instance variables and getting private methods out of public header files.”

Two other goals: They want iOS SDK Development “to serve as a prerequisite” for Pragmatic Bookshelf’s other iOS titles; and they hope you will “come away from this book with a firm grasp of the most essential iOS APIs—the UIKit GUI framework and the essential utilities of the Foundation framework—and enough of a sense of where things are and how things work to be able to grab the documentation for interesting looking features and be able to figure it out.”

The book has 10 chapters, with illustrations and short code examples. The chapters are:

1. Tweetings and Welcome to iOS 6 – Shows how to download and install the SDK and begin working on a first app.
2. Programming for iOS –Introduces Objective-C and “the two frameworks we use most often in iOS apps: Foundation and UIKit.”
3. Asynchronicity and Concurrency – Shows “how many of the iOS APIs use asynchronous callbacks and [employ] the Grand Central Dispatch system to handle concurrent execution….”
4. View Controllers – “…looks at how iOS apps are built on a strong Model-View-Controller (MVC) foundation.”
5. Table Views – Deals with “the flexible and widely used table view, the linchpin of most iPhone apps that need to present lists of data.
6. Storyboards and Container Controllers – Covers “how to build a visual road map of the many screens of an app and how to build much of the logic of that navigation and presentation automatically.”
7. Documents and iCloud – Shows the tools needed “to save our user’s work to the filesystem as well as to Apple’s new iCloud service.”
8. Drawing and Animating – Explains how to use the Core Graphics framework and Core Animation.
9. Testing and Fixing Apps – Looks at what can go wrong and how to use the SDK’s tools to fix things.
10. The App Store and Beyond – Focuses on moving from learning to doing, by maintaining code, running it on devices, submitting it on the App Store, and “managing it after it’s in users’ hands.”

Whether you want to learn how to develop iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch apps, or improve and update your knowledge of the necessary processes, you should read the new, improved iOS SDK Development and keep it within easy reach.

– Si Dunn

Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual – #bookreview

Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual
Chris Grover
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Chris Grover’s well-written and updated new book shows you how to build animated HTML 5 graphics for the iPhone, the iPad, and the Web, using familiar Adobe features. By the sixth page of the first chapter, you are using the software to begin creating your first animation.

The previous edition of this book, covering Adobe Edge Animate Preview 7, was released just two months ago, shortly before Adobe released the 1.0 commercial version of its Edge Animate product. This new edition has been updated and expanded to cover the commercial version.

Prior to the 1.0 release, seven Preview versions of Adobe Edge Animate had been issued as free downloads, and user feedback was gathered so the product could be enhanced and expanded.

Here is what I reported about this book’s Preview 7 edition in an  October, 2012, review:

First, this book can help you get started with the 1.0 commercial version of Adobe Edge Animate. Second, O’Reilly will soon bring out an Adobe Edge Animate “Missing Manual” that covers the new commercial release. And, third, sources at O’Reilly tell me that readers who purchase this Preview 7 edition of Chris Grover’s book will get access to “the e-book version of Adobe Edge Animate the 1.0 version and all of its updates.”

The new edition of Adobe Edge Animate: The Missing Manual has ten chapters organized into five parts, even though page xiv of the paperback version states that the book is “divided into three parts.” (It then lists four parts, instead of  five, or three).  The new part in this edition is titled “Publishing Animate Compositions” and focuses on “Publishing Responsive Web Pages” that will look good “in web browsers of all shapes and sizes….” Here are the new edition’s parts and chapters:

Part One:Working with the Stage

• Chapter 1: Introducing Adobe Edge Animate
• Chapter 2: Creating and Animating Art
• Chapter 3: Adding and Formatting Text

Part Two: Animation with Edge Animate

• Chapter 4: Learning Timeline and Transition Techniques
• Chapter 5: Triggering Actions
• Chapter 6: Working Smart with Symbols

Part Three: Edge Animate with HTML 5 and JavaScript

• Chapter 7: Working with Basic HTML and CSS
• Chapter 8: Controlling Your Animations with JavaScript and jQuery
• Chapter 9: Helpful JavaScript Tricks

Part Four: Publishing Your Composition

• Chapter 10: Publishing Responsive Web Pages

Part Five: Appendixes

• Appendix A: Installation and Help
• Appendix B: Menu by Menu

Where keystrokes are appropriate, Chris Grover lists both and does not make you have to translate between systems, as some how-to manuals do.

“Animate works almost precisely the same in its Macintosh and Windows versions,” he assures. “Every button in every dialog box is exactly the same; the software response to ever command is identical. In this book, the illustrations have been given even-handed treatment, rotating between the two operating systems where Animate is at home (Windows 7 and Mac OS X).”

– Si Dunn

For more information: (O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

iPhone: The Missing Manual, 6th Edition – Covers all iPhone models with iOS 6 software – #bookreview

iPhone: The Missing Manual, 6^th Edition
David Pogue
(O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

 

This latest “Missing Manual” from David Pogue covers all iPhone models that have iOS 6 software, including iPhone 5.

The 538-page book is well-written, well-organized, and heavily illustrated with color photographs, illustrations, and screen shots. It also has numerous tips set off in yellow boxes for extra emphasis.

The 6^th Edition’s chapters are gathered into five parts:

• The iPhone as Phone – Focuses on “everything related to phone calls” with the iPhone.
• Pix, Flix & Apps – “[D]edicated to the iPhone’s built-in software programs, with a special emphasis on its multimedia abilities…also app management….”
• The iPhone Online – Includes “email, Web browsing, and tethering (that is, letting your phone serve as a sort of Internet antenna for your laptop).”
• Connections – “…the world beyond the iPhone itself—like the copy of iTunes on your Mac or PC that can fill up the iPhone with music, videos, and photos, and syncing the calendar, address book, and mail settings.” Also covers the iPhone’s control panel, the Settings Program, and other features.
• Appendixes – Appendix A covers the iPhone setup process; Appendix B looks at accessories such as chargers, car adapters, and carrying cases; Appendix C is a “master compendium of troubleshooting, maintenance, and battery information.”

The new iOS 6 software is available free, Pogue says, and is “the same operating system that runs on the iPad and the iPod Touch.”

He adds: “Why is that important? Because you can run iOS 6 on older iPhone models (the 3GS, 4, and 4S) without having to buy a new phone.” His new book “covers all phones that can run the iOS 6 software: the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5.”

– Si Dunn

For more information: paperback, Kindle

Adobe Edge Animate Preview 7: The Missing Manual – #bookreview #html5 #animation

Adobe Edge Animate Preview 7: The Missing Manual
Chris Grover
(O’Reilly, paperback – Kindle)

Chris Glover’s well-written new book shows you how to build animated HTML 5 graphics for the iPhone, the iPad, and the Web, using familiar Adobe features. By the sixth page of the first chapter, you are using the software to create your first animation.

The only problem is,Adobe released the 1.0 commercial version of its Edge Animate product on Sept. 24, 2012, very soon after this Preview 7 book was published.

And, for a limited time, Adobe was offering Edge Animate 1.0 free with a new membership in Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

Prior to the 1.0 release, seven Preview versions of Adobe Edge Animate were released as free downloads, and user feedback was gathered so the product could be enhanced and expanded.

Preview 7 was released about five weeks prior to the appearance of new 1.0 commercial version. And this book was created to fill a gap that was expected to remain open longer.

Here’s the good news – three items of good news, actually.

First, this book can help you get started with the 1.0 commercial version of Adobe Edge Animate. Second, O’Reilly will soon bring out an Adobe Edge Animate “Missing Manual” that covers the new commercial release. And, third, sources at O’Reilly tell me that readers who purchase this Preview 7 edition of Chris Grover’s book will get access to “the e-book version of Adobe Edge Animate the 1.0 version and all of its updates.”

Adobe Edge Animate Preview 7: The Missing Manual has nine chapters organized into four parts:

Part One:Working with the Stage

• Chapter 1: Introducing Adobe Edge Animate
• Chapter 2: Creating and Animating Art
• Chapter 3: Adding and Formatting Text

Part Two: Animation with Edge Animate

• Chapter 4: Learning Timeline and Transition Techniques
• Chapter 5: Triggering Actions
• Chapter 6: Working Smart with Symbols

Part Three: Edge Animate with HTML 5 and JavaScript

• Chapter 7: Working with Basic HTML and CSS
• Chapter 8: Controlling Your Animations with JavaScript and jQuery
• Chapter 9: Helpful JavaScript Tricks

Part Four: Appendixes

• Appendix A: Installation and Help
• Appendix B: Menu by Menu
• Where keystrokes are appropriate, Chris Grover lists both and does not make you have to translate between systems, as some how-to manuals do.

“Animate works almost precisely the same in its Macintosh and Windows versions,” he assures. “Every button in every dialog box is exactly the same; the software response to ever command is identical. In this book, the illustrations have been given even-handed treatment, rotating between the two operating systems where Animate is at home (Windows 7 and Mac OS X).”

 

– Si Dunn

For more information: (O’Reilly, paperback, Kindle)

Mobile JavaScript Application Development – Bringing the Web to Mobile Devices – #programming #bookreview

Mobile JavaScript Application Development
Adrian Kosmaczewski
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $24.99; Kindle edition, list price $19.99)

In the author’s view, “the most important moment in recent technological history was the introduction of the iPhone in January 2007. The impressive growths of iOS, Android, and other platforms [have] completely transformed the landscape of software engineering, while at the same time opening new possibilities for companies.”

Indeed, Adrian Kosmaczewski notes: “It is estimated that, in 2015, more than 50% of all web requests will come from mobile devices!”

So, if you are, or are planning to be,  a JavaScript programmer, you better know how to develop and support apps for mobile devices. And you’d better stay aware of “platform fragmentation” – the various platforms that you may encounter as old and new ones battle for survival and market dominance.

Kosmaczewski’s new, 145-page book is aimed at web developers who have some familiarity with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.

“It does not matter if you have mobile software engineering experience,” he assures potential readers. But: “Mobile applications are a world of their own, and they present challenges that common applications don’t deal with.…” These include:

• Small screen sizes
• Reduced Battery Life
• Little Memory and disk specifications
• Rapidly changing network conditions

His book is divided into seven well-written chapters. And six of them offer numerous screenshots and short code examples. The chapters are:

1. HTML5 for Mobile Applications
2. JavaScript Productivity Tips
3. jQuery Mobile
4. Sencha Touch
5. Phone Gap
6. Debugging and Testing
7. Conclusion

Mobile JavaScript Application Development takes this straightforward approach: (1) “leave the theory to others” and (2) focus on “understand by doing.” And, mercifully, the author does not try to tackle too many technologies at once. Instead, he concentrates – in “an opinionated, hands-on” way on three technologies that he says “are currently the most promising and…show the most interesting roadmap.”

These are, as previously mentioned in the chapter list, jQuery Mobile, Sencha Touch, and PhoneGap. His goal is to help you determine which one is best for your project. (If you don’t agree with his choices, he provides helpful links to several others but does not discuss them.)

To work with the book’s code samples, certain items are needed and not easily summed up here in a few words, because of platform fragmentation and other factors. But the requirements can be viewed easily, using Amazon’s “Click to Look Inside!” feature for both the paperback and Kindle editions.

If your job or ambitions include developing apps for smartphones, you should check out this book.

– Si Dunn

Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Ed. – Updated to cover iOS 5, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch – #programming #bookreview

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition
By Alasdair Allan
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)

Alasdair Allan’s popular iOS programming book recently has been updated to cover iOS 5. And it has a new name. (The first edition was titled Learning iPhone Programming.)

“The changes made in this second edition reflect the fact that a lot has happened since the first edition was published: the release of the iPad, a major release of Xcode, two revisions of the operating system itself, and the arrival of Apple’s iCloud,” the author notes. “This book has therefore been refreshed, renewed, and updated to reflect these fairly fundamental changes to the platform, and all of the example code was rewritten from the ground up for Xcode 4 and iOS 5 using ARC.”

Allan’s book – well-written and appropriately illustrated – is structured to provide “a rapid introduction to programming for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad,” and it assumes that you have some familiarity with C or a C-derived language, as well as a basic understanding of object-oriented programming.

And the pace is fast. By chapter 3, you are building the requisite “Hello, World” application and running it in iPhone Simulator.

In that same chapter, Allan also introduces the basic syntax of Objective-C and highlights some of the “rather strange” ways that it deals with method calls. He discusses how the Cocoa Touch framework underlying iOS applications “is based on one of the oldest design patterns, the Model-View-Controller pattern, which dates from the 1970s.” And he warns that “[a]ttempting to write iOS applications while ignoring the underlying MVC patterns is a pointless exercise in make-work.”

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition does not emphasize web-based applications. It centers, instead, on creating native applications using Apple’s SDK. “The obvious reason to use the native SDK,” Allan states, “is to do things that you can’t do using web technologies. The first generation of augmented reality applications is a case in point; these needed close integration with the iPhone’s onboard sensors (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, digital compass, and camera) and wouldn’t have been possible without that access.”

He emphasizes a financial reason, as well. “Consumers won’t buy your application on their platform just because you support other platforms; instead they want an application that looks like the rest of the applications on their platform, that follows the same interface paradigms as the rest of the applications they’re used to, and is integrated into their platform.”

He adds: “If you integrate your application into the iOS ecosphere, make use of the possibilities that the hardware offers, and make sure your user interface is optimized for the device, the user experience is going to be much improved.”

Hard to argue with that.

Learning iOS Programming, 2^nd Edition provides the steps necessary to develop and market your first iOS application. Allan notes: “Until recently, the only way to obtain the iOS SDK was to become a registered iOS developer. However, you can now download the current release of Xcode and the iOS SDK directly from the Mac App Store.”

Of course, if you intend to distribute your applications “or even just deploy them onto your own device, you will also need to register with Apple as a developer and then enroll in one of the developer programs.”

You may need some system upgrades, as well. To develop apps for the iOS, you’ll need an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”) or later. If you plan to create apps that use Apple’s iCloud, you’ll need OS X 10.7 (“Lion”) or later.

One other recommendation from Allan: If you’re truly serious about being an iOS developer, consider also registering with the Mac Developer Program.

#

– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

Three new specialized how-to books for SharePoint, JQuery & Mac OS X Lion Server – #bookreview #in #programming

Here are three new books for those with at least some basic to intermediate experience with Microsoft SharePoint, or web development, or Mac OS X Lion.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects
By Jennifer Mason, Christian Buckley, Brian T. Jackett, and Wes Preston
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)

If you have some background in Microsoft SharePoint and want to dig deeper, this book can help you learn how to use SharePoint to create real-world solutions to ten common business problems.

Each chapter is devoted to a single project, such as creating a FAQ system to help users quickly find answers to their questions, setting up a help desk solution to track service requests, or building a simple project management system.

The projects are based on “various scenarios encountered by the authors as we have used SharePoint as a tool to build solutions that address business needs….Each of the solutions has been implemented in one or more organization,” they state.

Do not jump into Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Creating and Implementing Real-World Projects until you have gained “a general understanding of the basics of SharePoint,” the authors caution. And note that SharePoint is not easily defined as one “type” of product.

If you keep in mind the process of building a house, they write, “SharePoint is like the various tools and materials, and the final business solutions you build are like the house. There are many features and tools in SharePoint, and within this book, you will see different ways to combine and structure them into business solutions.”

Their 403-page book is well written and cleanly organized with short paragraphs and many headings, step lists and illustrations. It also has an extensive index.

#

JQuery: Novice to Ninja, 2^nd Edition
By Earle Castledine and Craig Sharkie
(SitePoint, paperback, list price $39.95; Kindle edition, list price $29.95)

Technology changes fast, and web developers curious about JQuery will welcome this updated edition of Earle Castledine’s and Craig Sharkie’s book that first appeared in 2010.

This also is not a book for beginners. “You should,” the authors note, “already have intermediate to advanced HTML and CSS skills, as JQuery uses CSS-style selectors to zero in on page elements. Some rudimentary programming knowledge will be helpful to have,” they add, “as JQuery—despite its clever abstractions—is still based on JavaScript.” 

The authors offer high praise for the power of JQuery: “Aside from being a joy to use, one of the biggest benefits of JQuery is that it handles a lot of infuriating cross-browser issues for you. Anyone who has written serious JavaScript in the past can attest that cross-browser inconsistencies will drive you mad.”

They describe how to download and include the latest version of JQuery in web pages. And their book is organized to introduce JQuery features and code examples while also showing you, step by step, how to build a complete working application.

JQuery: Novice to Ninja, 2^nd Edition has plenty of illustrations and is well indexed and written in a friendly, approachable style. 

#

Using Mac OS X Lion Server
By Charles Edge
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $29.99; Kindle edition, list price $23.99)

Yes, intermediate and advanced system administrators will find some useful information in this well-written and nicely illustrated guide.

“But the book,” says author Charles Edge, “is really meant for new system administrators: the owner of the small business, the busy parent trying to manage all of those iPhone and iPads the kids are running around with, the teacher with a classroom full of iMacs or iPads, and of course, the new podcaster, just looking for a place to host countless hours of talking about the topic of her choice.”

What Using Mac OS X Lion Server  does not cover is “managing a Lion Server from the command line, scripting client management, or other advanced topics.”

The topics it does cover include: Planning for and installing a server; sharing and backing up files; sharing address books, calendars, and iChat; Wikis, webs and blogs; building a mail server; building a podcasting server; managing Apple computers and iOS devices; network services; and deploying Mac OS X computers.

The author cautions: “In many ways, the traditional system administrator will find Lion challenging in its consumeristic approach. There is a lot of power under the hood, but the tools used to manage the server have been simplified so that anyone can manage it, not just veteran Unix gods.”

#

– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.

iOS 5 Programming Cookbook: Solutions & Examples for iPhone, iPad, & iPod Apps – #bookreview

iOS 5 Programming Cookbook
By Vandad Nahavandipoor
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $49.99; Kindle edition, list price $39.99)

This huge and helpful ”cookbook” does not ignore iOS novice programmers. But the author, a veteran software developer, expects readers to at least be “comfortable with the iOS development environment and know how to create an app for the iPhone or iPad.”

His well-structured new edition “presents useful ways to get things done” and promises that readers “will learn a lot more about the basics of iOS programming, and a lot more about UIKit, dictionaries, arrays, loops, and conditionals.”

He notes that “[a] lot has changed in iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch programming since the introduction of iOS 5. The whole runtime and the way we write Objective-C code has dramatically changed. ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) is now introduced into the LLVM Compiler, which in some ways gives us more flexibility and in other ways makes the runtime more fragile.”

Nahavandipoor’s 852-page book is loaded with code examples, screenshots, and other illustrations and is divided into 17 chapters and an index.

• Chapter 1: The Basics - An overview of  Objective-C.
• Chapter 2: Implementing Controllers and Views - “Describes various approaches to constructing your iOS application’s user interface…”
• Chapter 3: Constructing and Using Table Views - Shows how to use table views “to create professional-looking iOS applications.”
• Chapter 4: Storyboards - The process of storyboarding can help you “define the connections between different screens in your app.” And, with storyboarding, “you don’t have to know anything about iOS programming to get a simple app running.”
• Chapter 5: Concurrency - Focuses on Grand Central Dispatch, “Apple’s preferred way of achieving concurrency in iOS.” Also looks at timers, threads, and operations.
• Chapter 6: Core Location and Maps - Describes “how you should use Map Kit and Core Location APIs to develop location-aware iOS applications.”
• Chapter 7: Implementing Gesture Recognizers - Shows “how to use all available gesture recognizers in the iOS SDK, with working examples tested on iOS 5 on different devices such as the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPad.”
• Chapter 8: Networking, JSON, XML, and Twitter - Includes downloading data from a URL and parsing XML files. The pros and cons of synchronous and asynchronous connections. Caching files in memory and on disk to minimize an iOS device’s bandwidth consumption.
• Chapter 9: Audio and Video - Focuses on “the AV Foundation and Media Player frameworks that are available on the iOS SDK.”
• Chapter 10: Address Book – Structured to help Objective-C developers get a handle on the Address Book framework and how to retrieve contacts, groups, and their information. “The Address Book framework is composed entirely of C APIs.” So, “many Objective-C developers find it difficult to use this framework….”
• Chapter 11: Camera and the Photo Library - Shows how to “determine the availability of front- and back-facing cameras on an iOS device.” Also looks at accessing the Photo Library “using the Assets Library framework…available in iOS 4 and later” and editing videos on an iOS device.
• Chapter 12: Multitasking - Explains and presents examples that show “how to create multitasking-aware aplications that run beautifully on iOS 4 and above.”
• Chapter 13: Core Data - Using Core Data to “maintain persistent storage for your iOS applications….”
• Chapter 14: Dates, Calendars, and Events - Shows how to use “the event Kit and Event Kit UI frameworks, which are available on iOS 4 and later, in order to manage calendars and events on an iOS device.”
• Chapter 15: Graphics and Animations – Introduces the reader to the Core Graphics framework and shows how to work with images and text and graphics context.
• Chapter 16: Core Motion - Introduces the Core Motion framework and shows how to access the accelerometer and gyroscope on an iOS device. (Not all devices have those capabilities.)
• Chapter 17: iCloud - “Shows how to use the iCloud service, which ties devices together and allows them to share data…as the user moves from one device to another.”

More than 100 new recipes have been added to this updated second edition of Nahavandipoor’s book. He also provides extensive references and links to other materials, including some Apple documents that he believes “every professional iOS developer should read.”

#

– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. His latest book is a detective novel, Erwin’s Law. His other published works include Jump, a novella, and a book of poetry, plus several short stories, including The 7th Mars Cavalry, all available on Kindle.