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5 Responses to “The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone 3.0 SDK”

1. Added by Aaron on July 26th, 2010 at 11:10 pm

   I am new to iPhone programming and wish this book had been available a year ago when I started down this path. For people who are starting out, I would buy this book after you’ve worked through Mark and LaMarche’s Beginning iPhone Development published by Apress. The only way to really learn a programming language/paradigm is to work through writing your own code. With a book like this, you can quickly find snippets from recipes that move you beyond the basics for your own programs.

   Compared to other computer “cookbooks” (such as those published by O’Reilly, for example), this one has much more background material than recipes. Think of it as a book on iPhone programming with lots of examples. People who are more interested in recipes than learning about the iPhone SDK might be disappointed, but I can’t see how. I have yet to find something I don’t like about this book.

   Finally I also appreciated Ms. Sadun’s writing style. The book is very readable, and I think she understands that people new to programming technologies can be overwhelmed by new concepts and new nomenclature. Simple, straight forward language means that people who are experienced programmers won’t be weighed down a lot by overly wordy explanations, while newbys like me will gain a lot by putting new concepts into simple terms.

   Rating: 5 / 5

2. Added by Jeffery Jones on July 26th, 2010 at 11:38 pm

   Being a new iPhone developer, I had begun my study of the craft with the help of a couple Objective-C books and the experience of developing and publishing a small and simple app. I was ready to take on some bigger ideas and needed some help with discovering the best practices for the common things app developers seek to do. I made the mistake of trying to find a couple good beginner books to get a leg up. What I found was that there are dozens of somewhat remedial iPhone development resources that all offer good information that only take you just beyond “Hello World”. I really wanted something meatier that was still accessible to a newer developer. I found that in this book.

   Though I’ve only had for a couple days, I’m already thrilled with how chock full of practical and usable recipes are here. I love the author’s tendency towards programmatic solutions as opposed to using IB and templates. I’m looking forward to dog-earing pages and using the heck out of this. I wish I had an electronic copy as well.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. Added by CodeFree on July 27th, 2010 at 2:04 am

   I first LOVED the first edition of this book. I like how she dealt with all sorts of interesting and off the road stuff. At first I was disappointed with this book because it did not have the hackery of the first edition but when I finished it , the book was so well written and had such interesting topics that it is my favorite iPhone book. I have read and re-read it several times. Also , Erica is the rare bird that actually checks and rechecks her work. The examples and writing should be the gold standard all computer books should be written too.
   Rating: 5 / 5

4. Added by David Fisher on July 27th, 2010 at 3:52 am

   I’m a college professor looking for a book to use in my iPhone programming course. This would be a very poor choice for a new student. The book teaches poor iPhone programming style and isn’t written for people new to the platform. I felt like I was tricked by the other positive reviews. I honestly think this author and a few other authors made a pack to give positive reviews for each other’s book. There are better options for people new to iPhone programming. Keep looking.

   For example: Who puts hundreds of lines of code into the main.m file? Are you joking? Apple says everywhere to follow a suggested programming style. This should be 100% of main.m every time…

   #import
   
   int main(int argc, char *argv[])
   
   {
   
   NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
   
   int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, nil);
   
   [pool drain];
   
   return retVal;
   
   }

   Learn it. Love it. Use it.

   btw I’ve been watching Matt Stroker’s videos available on iTunes U from the University of Utah. They are free and a much better introduction. (Obviously the Stanford iTunes U iPhone videos are good too.)
   Rating: 2 / 5

5. Added by Anthony Lawrence on July 27th, 2010 at 6:08 am

   It can be very frustrating trying to step into the iPhone/iPad world. There are plenty of “Hello World” examples, but after that it starts getting very confusing very quickly.

   Worse, some of what you’ll find is out of date – the SDK is a constantly moving target and even if it were not, there are so many different ways to accomplish the same goal that it’s very hard to know what the best approach is for your particular project(s).

   I suppose this book is already out of date. I’m still going to recommend it, because it really helped clear up some things I was very confused about.

   The author doesn’t recommend this as a rank beginners book. You’ll need some “Hello, world” experience first and perhaps a bit more. However, I’d recommend buying this at the same time as you buy those getting started books because the first hundred and fifty pages or so really will help you understand things the beginners books don’t mention at all.

   I read the negative reviews and I understand that there may be flaws here from the viewpoint of more experienced or more pedantic reviewers. That’s OK – Erica’s book helped me and I’m quite sure it would help others.

   By the way, because I’ve reviewed so many books and maintain a large technically oriented website, I often get books like this free as reviewer copies. This isn’t one of those: I paid for it and definitely feel that it was worth the price.
   Rating: 4 / 5

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