iOS good iPhone dev book

[mattjgalloway]

Hey,
I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a good book for iPhone development? Or maybe even a good book on objective c or cocoa development.

Any advice?

 

[tyr2]

There aren't any published yet for the official SDK. But since the NDA is changing I expect we'll see some soon.

There's one from O'Reilly (iPhone Open Application Development) but that's talking about 1.x and jailbroken phones, I would avoid it and wait for something tailored to the full SDK.

You don't say what experience you've got already, but if your vaguely familiar with C, I found 'Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X' invaluable in learning OS X programming, the techniques of which follow over to the iPhone.

 

[fenrus110]

Hopefully you have a somewhat solid background in OO programming in Java and some C and C++ experience.

I'd highly recommend reading the first few chapeters of Steven Kochan's Programming in Objective-C. It just really helps enforce some concepts and familiarize yourself with the bizarre looking syntax.

 

[Encryptic]

Hey,
I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a good book for iPhone development? Or maybe even a good book on objective c or cocoa development.

Any advice?

Pragmatic Programmers has published a PDF beta of their book @ http://pragprog.com/ Currently only half released. I recently started reading it but haven't gotten as far as I would like. I'll post back more when I get further.

 

[mattjgalloway]

Hi yes sorry I didn't say what my background is. I've got a very good grounding in C++ and OO techniques - my final year project at University was written in C++ using the STL and Boost, so I definitely don't need to be taught OO techniques.

What I am finding hard is working out where everything links in with Cocoa programming and particularly on the iPhone SDK. Also I never know when to use the braces syntax to access functions / variables of a class - like [textField text] or when to use the dot syntax - like textField.text

Obviously coming from a C++ background I am thinking in the incorrect way for Objective-C, and I'd like to get out of that by reading something to help me.

I've been looking at that Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X book and I may buy it...

Any more advice greatly appreciated - such as good online tutorial links (there's tonnes out there and lots are awful).

Thanks!

 

[Darkroom]

New iPhone Dev Books?

Anyone know of any books coming out for iPhone development now that apple has dropped the NDA?

[Moderator note: threads merged]

 

[chrisesposito]

Amazon has a half dozen books coming out on this; the soonest is listed in about 3 weeks. At http://www.pragprog.com/ they have a draft of their book available now as a PDF that you can download as they complete it.

 

[lucasgladding]

What I am finding hard is working out where everything links in with Cocoa programming and particularly on the iPhone SDK. Also I never know when to use the braces syntax to access functions / variables of a class - like [textField text] or when to use the dot syntax - like textField.text
...
I've been looking at that Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X book and I may buy it...

The dot syntax for properties can be ignored initially if you like. In general, it's just a short form for accessor methods. For example:

textField.text = x;
is the same as [textField setText:x];

and

textField.text;
is the same as [textField text];

+1 for Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. The majority of what you learn there translates very easily to the iPhone SDK.

For online resources, check out http://www.cocoadevcentral.com. The tutorials there are very well done IMHO. They are Mac-focused, but you can learn the iPhone specifics from the API documentation.

Kind regards

 

[cpatch]

Erica Sadun has a beta out of her upcoming (and excellent) iPhone Developer's Cookbook:

http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321553519

Programming in Objective C 2.0 is available in a (overpriced) beta version:

http://safari.oreilly.com/9780321605559

Finally, Manning has a beta out of their upcoming iPhone dev book:

http://www.manning.com/affiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=1049_130

Craig