Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK

Don't buy this book... 2010-09-08

Reviewer: S. Ratcliff-jones

The world has moved on from iPhone 3, so this book is now next to useless.

But it was never a book for beginners to the C++ world, and even the second edition was out of date before the iPhone 4 was released.

Numerous errors and inconsistencies in the code make this a frustrating exercise, and even by Chapter 7 there is no advice on debugging your code. Since the iPhone development environment is script-based (yuk... hasn't the world moved on from reliance on syntactical code yet?) any code you enter yourself is likely to include tiny typographical errors. Leave out a ; or a ] or a { or a . and your code will crash, leaving you scratching your head.

So many of these books rely on prerequisite information which is not made clear before you purchase. And this book should not include the word "Beginning" since, in reality, you already have to be quite familiar with the C language in one or other of its various forms...

I hope any future books from these authors will not be so poorly conceived.

Please and Thank You to Mark and LaMarche, I'm on my way! 2010-08-26

Reviewer: R. Liberal

I'm almost through this book (update for SDK 3) and I'm loving it. It is such a contrast to the iPhone Programming: Big Nerd Ranch Guide. While the content in both books tackle most of what you'd want to know to start developing your apps, Mark and LaMarche's book is just a whole class above in organization, clarity of explanations, and attention to detail both in code and guiding you through it.

One of the main things that helped me was the consistent organization of methods in the class by use of #pragmas, keeping your protocol methods together helped me become familiar very quickly with what I needed to do, eventually without having to look at the code in the book anymore.

For example, chapter 9 tackles dealing with Navigation Controllers; every example Mark begins coding your IBAction methods first, then your UIView methods, Table Data Source Methods, Table Delegate Methods, so on and so forth. By the end of the chapter you know exactly what to do for every view you build.

The language is clear and written in a friendly tone, without distracting from the main content.

If you're new to Objective-C/iPhone Development, you can't go wrong with this one.

Excellent - exactly what I needed. 2010-08-06

Reviewer: Don Jones

As a technology author myself, I can appreciate how difficult it is to approach a title like this. I think the authors nailed it.

I've been programming for more than 20 years, but primarily in Microsoft-centric languages and PHP. Nothing prepared me for Objective-C - and the numerous books I've picked up don't seem to explain things in a way I could grasp. "iPhone Development for Dummies" spent enough time on the basics of Objective-C that I was able to dive right into "Beginning iPhone Development." The authors don't belabor the Objective-C syntax; instead, they go through a series of step-by-step tutorials, mostly focused on the iPhone UI and features like location, that are exhaustive.

I have to say, if I'd seen one my site advising newcomers to "just read the Apple tutorials" I would have screamed. The Apple tutorials are stilted, entirely unrealistic, and difficult to adapt to other purposes. This book, however, provides line-by-line explanations for its tutorials, recognizing that the reader probably doesn't know all of Apple's unique terminology and language eccentricities. The book's examples don't see to be real-world, but they do succeed at emulating real-world requirements - meaning you can easily pick up these techniques and apply them to your own projects. In 10 hours, I'd started my project from scratch and achieved more than I'd done in two weeks of pounding on it alone (and using other books).

You won't find everything in here; the book doesn't purport to be comprehensive or all-inclusive. You will, however, find more than enough to get most projects off the ground and moving quickly. I'm impressed, and appreciative.

Best second book for starting development for de iPhone 2010-07-26

Reviewer: Ender J. Ocando Hung

This is the book #2 tha you have to read if you aré a 0 biginner , the first is form Dr. Rory Lewis "iPhone development for absolute biguinners

The best 2010-06-22

Reviewer: Josh King

I am a beginning iPhone developer coming from a c# and .net background. This book takes the extra steps necessary to make sure you understand every concept.