ABOUT THIS BOOKxviii
Roadmap
Part 1 covers the groundwork needed to get started in iOS development. In chapter 1,
you’ll get to develop your first Hello World app, but we’ll also cover some of the core
areas and concepts of iOS development. Chapter 2 covers the development environ-
ment, including Xcode for editing the code and user interface along with other con-
cepts and tools.
Chapter 3 begins part 2 with your first real app project: PicDecor. In this chapter
you’ll learn about view controllers and displaying images as well as how to interface
with sending email. You’ll see how to design the UI, and how to connect it to the code
you’re writing.
Chapter 4 builds on what you learned in chapter 3 about view controllers by show-
ing you table view controllers and how to access the address book.
Chapter 5 continues with access to images through the photo album and the cam-
era and how to manipulate those images. Also, in chapter 5 you’ll see how to display a
map and the user’s location and store data for later retrieval and display.
The Settings Bundle is the official way to have a user manage app settings and is
covered in chapter 6. Also covered are playing MP3s and detecting motion (particu-
larly shaking) of the device. Chapter 7 goes further in playing audio, allowing the user
to make playlists and play them via the iPad framework. This includes covering Core-
Data for database design and for storing app data.
Push notifications and in-app purchase both use external server interaction for
their functionality and are covered in chapter 8 for our Rock, Paper, Scissors game.
Chapter 9 continues the game with GameCenter interaction including leaderboards
and achievements.
Chapter 10 could be called the “iChapter” as it covers using the iTunes
API to
search music, designing for the iPad, and advertising using iAds.
Finally, chapter 11 covers the more recent additions to iOS. Specifically, it covers
the collection view, Social Framework, reminders, and UI state restoration.
Code conventions
There are many Objective-C code examples in this book edited with Xcode. Source
code in listings and text is in a
fixed-width
font
like
this
to separate it from ordi-
nary text.
Writing code for a book is challenging compared with writing code that isn’t going
to be published for the world to see. Restrictions on line length, readability, and con-
ciseness encouraged decisions I might not have made otherwise. You will find that I
may have added a method to a class that might not make the most sense, or named
some variables in less-than-perfect ways. Please concentrate on the content over form
in those cases.
As all aspects of mobile, websites, documentation, tools, and so on change regu-
larly, some images in the book may not match what you see online and elsewhere.
However, the concepts are likely to remain, and the variance you might see shouldn’t
cause confusion.