iOS app development for dummies

575 Pages·2014·51.63 MB·English

by  Jesse Feiler

Computers/Application Development/Apple
Making Everything Easier!™
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Get started making apps for i O
Open the book and find: i
iPhone and iPad with this
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easy-to-use guide! • How to download and use S
the latest SDK A ment
There’s no time like the present to begin developing apps • How to use animation in p Develop
for the iPhone and iPad. Discover the Apple iOS SDK and your app’s views
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developer tools, and then dive right in to planning and • The differences between iPad

coding your app’s interface and functionality. This handy and iPhone apps D
guide leads you step-by-step through the app development • Tricks to fixing syntax errors as e
process, including designing interfaces, creating storyboards, you go v
and handling events, notifications, gestures, and more! • Using storyboards to create e
your UI l
• A primer — find out about the iOS development environment, o
how to design a great user experience, and how to build apps • Tips on navigating in the p
that get on the App Store Xcode® source editors
m
• Hands-on examples to jumpstart
• Dive right in — download the iOS SDK and get started with the
Apple developer tools your work e
n
• Step-by-step exercises to create
• Get universal — understand the key differences between iPad
real applications t
and iPhone applications, and how to make universal apps

• It’s all about the user — dive in to designing apps that work
intuitively and please the user Cover Image: Toolbox ©iStockphoto.com/
AndrewJohnson; Map ©iStockphoto.com/boris64; Learn to:
WiFi icon ©iStockphoto.com/Samarskaya; Rainbow
• The next level — find out about storyboard files, view controllers,
Flower © iStockphoto.com/chris_lemmens; Gear
interface objects, gesture recognizers, and a whole lot more Icon: Wiley • Download the iOS SDK and use Apple’s
developer tools
Visit the companion website at www.dummies.com/
• Build a universal app for the iPad®
extras/iosapplicationdevelopment for source code, all and iPhone®
Go to Dummies.com®
the figures from the book, and other information.
for videos, step-by-step examples,
• Make the most of the latest iOS
how-to articles, or to shop!
features in your app designs
Jesse Feiler is a developer, consultant, and author specializing in
Apple technologies. He is the creator of Minutes Machine for iPad,
$34.99 USA / $41.99 CAN / £24.99 UK • Provide a great user experience and
the meeting management app, and Saranac River Trail and is heard
make your app stand out in the crowd
regularly on WAMC Public Radio for the Northeast’s The Roundtable. ISBN:978-1-118-87105-8
53499
Jesse Feiler
9 781118871058 Feiler Author of iWork For Dummies®, 2nd Edition
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iOS App Development
by Jesse Feiler
iOS App Development For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013957974
ISBN 978-1-118-87105-8 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-87107-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-87110-2 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................. 1
A Bit of History .................................................................................................1
The iPhone stands alone .......................................................................2
Enter the App Store ...............................................................................2
The iPad joins the party ........................................................................3
The Plan for This Book ...................................................................................3
iOS and Xcode Game Changers ......................................................................4
About This Book ..............................................................................................5
Conventions Used in This Book .....................................................................5
Icons Used in This Book .................................................................................6
Foolish Assumptions .......................................................................................7
How This Book Is Organized ..........................................................................7
Part I: Getting Started ............................................................................8
Part II: Building RoadTrip .....................................................................8
Part III: Getting Your Feet Wet: Basic Functionality ..........................8
Part IV: The Model and the App Structure .........................................9
Part V: Adding the App Content ...........................................................9
Part VI: The Part of Tens .......................................................................9
Beyond the Book ...........................................................................................10
Where to Go from Here .................................................................................10
Part I: Getting Started ................................................ 11
Chapter 1: What Makes a Great iOS App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Figuring Out What Makes a Great iOS App .................................................14
Making your app work well ................................................................14
Handling networking, social media, and location ............................15
Designing a powerful and intuitive interface that disappears .......15
Using the iOS Platform to the Fullest ..........................................................16
Exploiting advantages of the system .................................................16
Accessing the Internet.........................................................................17
Knowing the location of the user .......................................................18
Tracking orientation and motion .......................................................18
Tracking users’ fingers on the screen ...............................................19
Playing content ....................................................................................19
Accessing information from Apple’s apps ........................................19
Copying, cutting, and pasting between apps ....................................20
Multitasking, background processing, and notifications................20
Living large on the big screen ............................................................21
Embracing Device Limitations .....................................................................21
Designing for fingers ............................................................................22
Balancing memory and battery life ...................................................22
iv
iOS App Development For Dummies
Why Develop iOS Apps? ................................................................................23
Developing with Apple’s Expectations in Mind .........................................24
Thinking About You, Apps, and Money ......................................................25
Enter the Cloud ..............................................................................................26
Developing an App the Right Way Using the 
Example App in This Book ........................................................................27
What’s Next ....................................................................................................27
Chapter 2: Getting to Know the SDK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Developing Using the SDK ............................................................................29
Using Xcode to Develop an App ..................................................................30
Creating an Xcode project ..................................................................31
Developing the app ..............................................................................31
The Workspace Window ...............................................................................33
Workspace areas ..................................................................................34
Displaying an area’s content ..............................................................36
The toolbar and Tab bar .....................................................................40
The Organizer window ........................................................................42
Chapter 3: The Nuts and Bolts of an Xcode Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Creating Your Project ...................................................................................45
Exploring Your Project .................................................................................50
The project ...........................................................................................50
The Project editor ................................................................................50
The Project navigator ..........................................................................53
Setting Your Xcode Preferences ..................................................................57
Building and Running Your Application .....................................................59
Building an app ....................................................................................61
The iPad’s Split views ..........................................................................63
The Log navigator ................................................................................64
Running in the Simulator ..............................................................................66
Interacting with your simulated hardware .......................................66
Making gestures ...................................................................................67
Uninstalling apps and resetting your device ....................................68
Living with the Simulator’s limitations .............................................69
Using Asset Catalogs .....................................................................................70
Adding the Image and Sound Resources and an App Icon .......................74
Part II: Building RoadTrip ........................................... 77
Chapter 4: Storyboards and the User Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Introducing the Storyboard ..........................................................................80
Telling your story ................................................................................81
Working with object graphs ...............................................................83
Defining What You Want an App to Do: The RoadTrip App ....................84
Creating the Application Architecture ........................................................88
What You Add Where ....................................................................................89
v
Table of Contents
Using Frameworks .........................................................................................90
Using Design Patterns ...................................................................................91
The iOS design patterns ......................................................................92
The Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern ..........................92
Working with Windows and Views ..............................................................95
Looking out the window......................................................................95
Admiring the view ................................................................................96
The kinds of views you use.................................................................97
View Controllers — the Main Storyboard Players ..................................101
What About the Model? ..............................................................................104
It’s Not That Neat .........................................................................................105
Taking a Look at Other Frameworks .........................................................106
The Foundation framework ..............................................................106
The CoreGraphics framework ..........................................................106
Even more frameworks .....................................................................107
Understanding the MVC in the Project .....................................................107
Chapter 5: Creating the RoadTrip User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Creating Your User Interface in the iPad Storyboard .............................111
It’s about the view controller ...........................................................112
Using Interface Builder to add the user elements .........................113
Working within the Utility Area .................................................................115
Inspector and Quick Help pane ........................................................115
Library pane .......................................................................................116
Understanding iPad Navigation .................................................................117
Adding a New View Controller ...................................................................121
Danger Will Robinson ........................................................................128
Adding an identifier to the view controller ....................................129
View Layout ..................................................................................................130
Adding the User Interface Objects ............................................................131
Autosizing with Auto Layout ............................................................136
Adding the Test Drive button ...........................................................141
Massaging the Template Code ...................................................................144
Getting Rid of Warnings ..............................................................................148
Creating the iPhone User Interface ...........................................................148
Chapter 6: The Runtime, Managing Memory, and
Using Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Stepping Through the App Life Cycle .......................................................152
UIApplicationMain .............................................................................153
Handling events while your application is executing ...................158
Knowing what to do when the normal processing of your
application is interrupted .............................................................160
An overview of the view controller life cycle .................................163
Working within the Managed Memory Model Design Pattern ...............164
Understanding memory management .............................................165
Using reference counting ..................................................................165
vi
iOS App Development For Dummies
Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) ......................................................167
Working with variable types according to ARC .............................169
Understanding the deadly retain cycle ...........................................170
Observing Low-Memory Warnings ............................................................172
The didReceiveMemoryWarning method .......................................172
The applicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning: method ..................172
The UIApplicationDidReceiveMemoryWarningNotification:
notification ......................................................................................173
Picking the right memory-management strategy for 
your application .............................................................................173
Customizing the Behavior of Framework Classes ...................................174
Subclassing .........................................................................................174
The Delegation pattern .....................................................................175
Understanding Declared Properties ..........................................................176
What comprises a declared property .............................................176
Using dot syntax ................................................................................177
Setting attributes for a declared property......................................178
Writing your own accessors .............................................................180
Accessing instance variables with accessors ................................181
Hiding Instance Variables ...........................................................................181
Chapter 7: Working with the Source Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Navigating in the Xcode Source Editors ...................................................183
Using the Jump bar ............................................................................186
Organizing your code using the #pragma mark statement ..........190
Using the Xcode Source Editor ..................................................................190
Using Live Issues and Fix-it ...............................................................192
Compiler warnings .............................................................................193
The Issue navigator ...........................................................................193
Accessing Documentation ..........................................................................195
Getting Xcode help ............................................................................195
The Organizer window ......................................................................198
The Help menu ...................................................................................199
Finding and Searching in Your Project .....................................................199
Using the Find command to locate an item in a file ......................199
Using the Search navigator to search
your project or framework ............................................................200
Using the Symbol navigator ..............................................................201
You’re Finally Ready to Write Code! .........................................................202
Part III: Getting Your Feet Wet: Basic Functionality ... 203
Chapter 8: It’s (Finally) T ime to Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Checking for Network Availability .............................................................205
Downloading the Reachability sample ............................................205
Adding the code to check for reachability .....................................208
vii
Table of Contents
Exploring the Changes in iOS 7 ..................................................................211
The dated interface ...........................................................................211
Losing the content .............................................................................212
Setting the Master View Controller Title ..................................................213
Understanding Autorotation ......................................................................214
Writing Bug-Free Code ................................................................................215
Working in the Debug area and Debug navigator ..........................216
Managing breakpoints .......................................................................218
What you’ll find in the Debug area ..................................................222
What you’ll find in the Debug navigator .........................................223
Displaying variables in the Source editor .......................................224
Tiptoeing through your program .....................................................225
Chapter 9: Adding Outlets and Actions to Your RoadTrip Code . . . . 227
Using Custom View Controllers .................................................................228
Adding the custom view controller .................................................228
Setting up the TestDriveController in the MainStoryboard
for iPad ............................................................................................229
Understanding Outlets ................................................................................231
Adding Outlets .............................................................................................232
Opening the Assistant editor............................................................232
Creating the outlet .............................................................................234
The Connections inspector ..............................................................237
Working with the Target-Action Design Pattern ......................................239
Using the Target-Action pattern: It’s about controls ....................239
Adding an action ................................................................................241
How Outlets and Actions Work ..................................................................244
Update the iPhone storyboard file ..................................................244
Chapter 10: Adding Animation and Sound to Your App . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Understanding iOS Animation ....................................................................248
View geometry and coordinate systems .........................................248
Points versus pixels ...........................................................................248
A view’s size and position.................................................................249
Working with data structures ..........................................................250
Coordinating Auto Layout, Frames, and Constraints .............................250
Animating a View .........................................................................................251
Finally, More Code .......................................................................................252
Implementing the testDrive Method .........................................................252
Understanding Block Objects ....................................................................256
Rotating the Object .....................................................................................259
Working with Audio .....................................................................................261
Tracking Touches ........................................................................................269
Animating a Series of Images “In Place” ...................................................272
iPhone versus iPad ......................................................................................273
viii
iOS App Development For Dummies
Part IV: The Model and the App Structure .................. 275
Chapter 11: The Trip Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
What the Model Contains ...........................................................................277
Adding the Model Data ...............................................................................278
Using property lists ...........................................................................278
Adding a property list to your project ............................................280
Adding the First Two Model Classes .........................................................290
Understanding the Trip Interface ..............................................................292
Implementing the Trip Class ......................................................................294
Initializing objects ..............................................................................296
Invoking the superclass’s init method ............................................297
Initializing instance variables ...........................................................298
Returning self .....................................................................................299
Initializing the Destination Class ...............................................................300
Creating the Trip Object .............................................................................303
More Debugger Stuff ....................................................................................305
Chapter 12: Implementing the Master View Controller . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Setting Up a Custom View Controller for the iPad ..................................309
Adding a Background Image and Title ......................................................319
Updating the iPhone Storyboard File ........................................................321
Chapter 13: Working with Split View Controllers and
the Master View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
The Problem with Using a Navigation Controller in Detail View ...........323
Using a Navigation Controller in the Master View ..................................326
Adding a Gesture Recognizer .....................................................................330
The Split View Controller ...........................................................................333
The UISplitViewController delegate ................................................335
Localization ........................................................................................340
Back to the main feature ...................................................................340
Adding the Toolbar .....................................................................................346
Adding the button when the view controller is replaced .............350
A Few More Tweaks to the MasterViewController ..................................354
And (a Little Extra) One More Thing .........................................................355
Don’t Forget the iPhone ..............................................................................356
Chapter 14: Finishing the Basic App Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Extending the iPad Storyboard to Add More Functionality
to Your App ..............................................................................................358
Adding the Weather view controller ...............................................358
Adding the Events controller ...........................................................364
Adding the remaining controllers ....................................................367