Jump into application development for today’s most remarkable mobile communications platform, the Pragmatic way, with iPhone SDK Development. This Pragmatic guide takes you through the tools and APIs, the same ones Apple uses for its applications, that you can use to create your own software for the iPhone and iPod touch. Packed with useful examples, this book will give you both the big-picture concepts and the everyday “gotcha” details that developers need to make the most of the beauty and power of the iPhone OS platform.

Out of Print

This book is currently out of print.

About this Book

  • 576 pages
  • Published:
  • Release: P2.0 (2010-01-25)
  • ISBN: 978-1-93435-625-8

Packing the power of desktop applications into a small mobile device, the iPhone SDK offers developers the ability to create dynamic, visually-appealing, and highly-capable mobile applications. However, harnessing that power means learning new tools, new APIs, and even a whole new programming language.

iPhone SDK Development is a Pragmatic guide that takes you beyond the first steps of developing applications for the iPhone. We’ll move you quickly through the introductory material to get you started developing applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Once you’ve been introduced to the tools and the basics, you’ll learn the APIs and techniques needed to succeed on the platform:

  • Use the XCode IDE to manage your source code, images, sounds, database files, and other application resources, building your app and deploying it onto your own device for testing.
  • Develop your user interface the visual, code-free way, and then wire it to your code with Interface Builder.
  • Master the iPhone’s unique user interface components, including tables, tab bars, navigation bars, and the multi-touch interface.
  • Connect your iPhone to the outside world with networking and to other phones with Bonjour and Game Kit.
  • Exploit the power of data modeling with Core Data, or interact directly with the SQLite database API.
  • Distinguish your application from others by taking advantage of the first-class support for images, animation, audio, and video.
  • Make use of the iPhone’s unique mobile APIs, like geolocation, Map Kit, the compass, and the motion-sensing accelerometer.
  • Use XCode’s powerful performance and debugging tools to eliminate memory leaks, zombies, and other hazards.

With more than 50 sample programs (updated for iPhone SDK 3.0), explorations of the big picture, and an eye to the little details that you’ll need, iPhone SDK Development goes beyond basic developer docs to help you succeed on today’s most important mobile platform.

Contents and Extracts

Full Table of Contents

Introduction

  • Hello iPhone
  • iPhone Development Fundamentals
  • View Controllers
  • Table Views excerpt
  • Navigation
  • Tab Bar Controllers
  • File I/O
  • Preferences
  • The SQLite Database
  • Core Data excerpt
  • Connecting to the Internet
  • Peer-to-peer Networking excerpt
  • Video Playback
  • iPod Library Access
  • Playing and Recording Audio
  • Core Audio
  • Events, Multi Touch and Gestures
  • Drawing in Custom Views
  • Drawing Images and Photos
  • Core Animation
  • Accelerometer
  • Address Book
  • iPhone Location API
  • Map Kit excerpt
  • Application Integration
  • Debugging
  • Performance Tuning
  • Before and After

About the Author

Bill Dudney is a software developer and entrepreneur currently building software for the Mac. Bill started his computing career on a NeXT cube with a magneto-optical drive running NeXTStep 0.9. Over the years Bill migrated into the Java world where he worked for years on building cool enterprise software. But he never forgot his roots and how much fun it was to write software that did cool things for normal people. Bill is back to AppKit to stay. You can follow him on his blog at http://bill.dudney.net/roller/objc.

Chris Adamson is a writer, editor, developer and consultant specializing in media software development. He is the author of “QuickTime for Java: A Developer’s Notebook” (O’Reilly) and co-author of “Swing Hacks” (O’Reilly) and has served as Editor for the developer websites ONJava and java.net. He maintains a corporate identity as Subsequently & Furthermore, Inc. (http://www.subfurther.com/) and writes the [Time code]; blog at http://www.subfurther.com/blog .

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Comments and Reviews

  • I have selected this title to be the textbook for our new iPhone Development Certificate at my college. This is already one of the most popular courses we have ever offered. Thanks, once again, for creating such high-quality books from the top people.

    —Eric Knapp IT Instructor

  • Even in beta, this book is a must-have resource for any iPhone developer.

    —Mike Carter Hypertron