Beginning iPhone 4 Development: Exploring the iOS SDK [Paperback]

Are you a programmer looking for a new challenge? Does the thought of building your very own iPhone app make your heart race and your pulse quicken? If so, this brand new edition of the bestselling Beginning iPhone 3 Development is just the book for you.

Updated from the ground up for Apple’s latest development tool set, Xcode 4, and for the iOS 4 SDK, many of the discussions in the original book have been clarified to make some of the more complex topics easier to understand. In addition, all of the projects have been rebuilt from scratch using the Xcode 4 templates.

Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, Beginning iPhone 4 Development: Exploring the iOS SDK offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone and iPod touch programming. The book starts with the basics, walking you through the process of downloading and installing Apple's free iPhone SDK, and then stepping you though the creation of your first simple iPhone application. From there, you’ll learn to integrate all the interface elements iPhone users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. You’ll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. The confusing art of table building will be demystified, and you’ll see how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You’ll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using SQLite, iPhone’s built-in database management system. In addition, you’ll also learn about Core Data, an important persistence mechanism that has just been added with SDK 3.

And there’s much more! You’ll learn to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES, add multitouch gestural support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the camera, photo library, accelerometer, and built-in GPS. You’ll discover the fine points of application preferences and learn how to localize your apps for multiple languages.

• The iPhone 4 update to the best-selling and most recommended book for Cocoa touch developers
• Packed full of tricks, techniques, and enthusiasm for the new SDK from a developer perspective
• Written in an accessible, easy-to-follow style

What you'll learn

• Everything you need to know to develop your own best-selling iPhone and iPad apps
• Best practices for optimizing your code and delivering great user experiences
• How to create “universal” apps for both iPhone and iPad

Who this book is for

Anyone who wants to start developing for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Table of Contents

1. Welcome to the Jungle
2. Appeasing the Tiki Gods
3. Handling Basic Interaction
4. More User Interface Fun
5. Autorotation and Autosizing
6. Multiview Applications
7. Tab Bars and Pickers
8. Introduction to Table Views
9. Navigation Controllers and Table Views
10. iPad Interface
11. Application Settings and User Defaults
12. Basic Data Persistence
13. Background Processing
14. Drawing with Quartz and OpenGL
15. Taps, Touches, and Gestures
16. Where Am I? Finding Your Way with Core Location
17. Whee! Gyro and Accelerometer!
18. iPhone Camera and Photo Library
19. Application Localization
20. Where to Next?

Dave Mark is a long-time Mac developer and author and has written a number of books on Macintosh development, including Learn C on the Macintosh, The Macintosh Programming Primer series, and Ultimate Mac Programming. His blog can be found at www.davemark.com.

Jack Nutting has been using Cocoa since the olden days, long before it was even called Cocoa. He's used Cocoa and its predecessors to develop software for a wide range of industries and applications including gaming, graphic design, online digital distribution, telecommunications, finance, publishing, and travel. When he's not working on Mac or iPhone projects, he's developing web applications with Ruby on Rails. Jack is a passionate proponent of Objective-C and the Cocoa frameworks; At the drop of a hat, he will speak at length on the virtues of dynamic dispatch and runtime class manipulations to anyone who'll listen (and even to some who won’t). He blogs from time to time at www.nuthole.com.