Welcome!

AJAX & REA Authors: Andreas Grabner, Michael Kopp, Gathering Clouds, Patson Luk, James Carlini

Blog Feed Post

iOS SDK Development Book Review

This book a no nonsense approach to learning the key points of Objective-C and iOS at the speed of light. It is a fast paced sprint through tons of hands on examples.

The books starts off with a nice introduction to Xcode by building a small twitter application using the new iOS 6 Social framework. The twitter application is used as the example in the first 3 chapters and then the rest of the book builds a recipe application.

I have listed the chapters below to give you an idea of the topics covered throughout the book.

Tweetings, and Welcome to iOS 6
Programming for iOS
Asynchronicity and Concurrency
View Controllers
Table Views
Storyboards and Container Controllers
Documents and iCloud
Drawing and Animating
Testing and Fixing Apps
The App Store and Beyond
Wait! I Forgot (Or Never Learned) C!

To me this is not a reference book, but rather a great cover to cover read. There are a lot of books that I don't get far with that are hands on building of an application from start to finish, but this one really kept my interest. The applications being built are at the perfect level of complexity to introduce a ton of topics, but do not bog you down with a bunch of domain knowledge. I hate the books like this that spend 50% of the book explaining the non-technical what and why of what you're building.

I found the chapter on storyboards very cool. The authors take the recipe application built using a pre-iOS mindset using nibs up to this point in the book, and converts it to a storyboard application. They reuse all the view controllers built so far. This is a great chapter for showing the power of the MVC pattern used throughout iOS development.

The chapter on Documents and iCloud does a great job of introducing persistence by implementing the NSCoding protocol. There is no Core Data coverage in this chapter or the rest of the book. I also could not get the iCloud samples from this chapter to run, but I did not spend much time on trying to get it to work.

The chapter on testing provides a nice introduction to unit testing, debugging, and performance testing using Instruments.

I think a reader should have some experience with C or Objective-C before reading this book. Like I said above the authors have a very no-nonsense approach. But I would recommend a little more experience than what the author's put into the Wait! I Forgot (Or Never Learned) C! appendix. C in 7 pages is a bit to no-nonsense!

Over all I found the book a really enjoyable read. I definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to learn iOS through a hands on experience. This book will give you a great foundation to start building on.

iOS SDK Development

Read the original blog entry...

More Stories By Tad Anderson

Tad Anderson has been doing Software Architecture for 16 years and Enterprise Architecture for the past few.

Cloud Expo Breaking News
“I believe it is incumbent on the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and/or System Integrators (SIs) to understand the regulatory and compliance-related issues that their customers face,” noted Manjula Talreja, VP of Global Cloud Business Development at Cisco, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Of course these issues are different in each industry and in each country.” Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn't about saving money, it is about saving time - ...
“Regulations and compliance are key trust topics with regards to cloud solutions and technology,” noted Sven Denecken, Vice President, Strategy and Co-Innovation Cloud Solutions, SAP AG, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “But it is also more than security of access – it is portability of data and a clear definition of where the data resides.” Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn't about saving money, it is about saving time – agree or disagree? Sve...
Many organizations want to expand upon the IaaS foundation to deliver cloud services in all forms – software, mobility, infrastructure and IT. Understanding the strategy, planning process and tools for this transformation will help catalyze changes in the way the business operates and deliver real value.
WSO2 on Thursday announced that WSO2 Vice President of Technology Evangelism Chris Haddad and SUSE Business Development Manager Frank Rego will lead a joint presentation at 12 International Cloud Expo. The session, "Bridging IaaS and PaaS to Deliver the Service-Oriented Data Center," is part of the event's Enterprise Cloud Computing Track on Thursday, June 13, 2013. The Cloud Expo conference is being held June 10-13, 2013 at the Javits Center in New York City. Bridging IaaS and PaaS to Deliver ...
IT has more opportunities than ever before with the growth in users, devices, data and secure cloud services. This creates not only a more enriching experience for users, but more opportunities for businesses. The key to capitalizing on these opportunities is to have the right tools in place to help scale operations. In his Day 3 Keynote at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York [June 10-13, 2013], Intel's Rob Crooke will describe the range of products that Intel provides to support different usa...
Quantum Corp., a proven global expert in data protection and Big Data management, has announced that Senior Vice President of Cloud Solutions Henrik Rosendahl will present a session exploring the future of cloud data protection and the impact of data reduction technologies on cloud storage at the 12th International Cloud Expo. The conference takes place June 10-13 at the Javits Center in New York City. Rosendahl will explore trends in cloud-based backup and disaster recovery (DR) and how curre...
One of the cloud’s biggest draws is the capability to virtualize computing resources, allowing it to be consumed with the click of a mouse. But behind that simple click is an enormous infrastructure challenge that has recently been cited as a major cause for slower enterprise adoption. Enterprises can better prepare for this shift and take full advantage of future computing benefits. Between architecture design and migration planning, the road can be long, so what do you do with your talent? I...
In the old world of IT, if you didn't have hardware capacity or the budget to buy more, your project was dead in the water. Budget constraints can leave some of the best, most creative and most ingenious innovations on the cutting room floor. It’s a true dilemma for developers and innovators – why spend the time creating, when a project could be abandoned in a blink? That was the old world. In the new world of IT, developers rule. They have access to resources they can spin up instantly. A hyb...
INetU, the industry's experts in complex hosting and a global provider of business-centric managed cloud and application hosting, has announced that Cloud Architect Rich Hand will be presenting "Private Cloud, Public Cloud - Is There a Third Option?" at the 12th International Cloud Expo taking place June 10-13, 2013 in New York City. As more enterprise IT departments move into the cloud, many executives are evaluating whether to adopt a Public or Private cloud. The cost benefits of the Public ...
“I’m careful when using terms like Big Data, because it can mean so many things to different people,” explained Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at 451 Research, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “There is huge value in analytics that companies can use to pull intelligence from a collection of data sources that are available in their businesses. The inexpensive storage that cloud services can offer make a great environment to pull together siloed data.” Cloud Co...