Learning iPhone Programming by Alasdair Allan

Summary: Learn iPhone programming

Learning iPhone Programming is well organized and easy to read book. In first two chapters, it is explained why should we move to creating native applications and how to start the development process. There are few interesting remarks, especially in “Becoming a Developer” chapter. After explaining how to start development, readers are shown how to build very simple – “Hello world” like application, and deploy it on the iPhone/iPod (this will require paid iPhone Developer membership). This is a good start because it lets you feel what Objective-C and what coding within XCode is all about. Further chapters guide you through most common topics you can encounter when starting coding. However, Objective-C and Mac OS X specific topics (MVC) are covered not too deeply – I’d recommend here additional reading (Hillegass) and some books related to Objective-C (e.g. Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running). One of the drawbacks is that book doesn’t cover iOS 4 and iPhone 4 version and doesn’t mention iPhone 4 (e.g. Table 10-1). In general, I like the style of the book, but I would recommend it as a companion book rather then the only source of knowledge. There is another quite interesting position related to iPhone programming – Head First iPhone Development.

Product page:

O’Reilly: Learning iPhone Programming
Amazon (in Books): Learning iOS Programming: From Xcode to App Store
Amazon (Kindle): Learning iPhone Programming: From Xcode to App Store
Safari Books Online: Learning iPhone Programming