Learning iPhone Programming

567 Pages·2010·13.05 MB·English

by  Alasdair Allan

Learning iPhone Programming
Alasdair Allan
Editor
Brian Jepson
Copyright © 2010 Alasdair Allan
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Preface
The arrival of the iPhone changed everything. Or, at the very
least, it changed the direction of software development for
mobile platforms, which is a pretty big thing. It spawned an
entire generation of copycat devices and shook an entire
multibillion-dollar industry to its knees. Despite this, it still fits
in your pocket.
Who Should Read This Book?
This book gives a rapid introduction to programming for the
iPhone and iPod touch for those with some programming
experience. If you are developing on the Mac for the first time,
drawn to the platform because of the iPhone, or alternatively
you are an experienced Mac programmer making the transition
to the iPhone, this book is for you.
What Should You Already Know?
The book assumes some knowledge of C, or at least passing
knowledge of a C-derived language. Additionally, while I do
give a crash course, some familiarity with object-oriented
programming concepts would be helpful.
What Will You Learn?
This book will guide you through developing your first
application for the iPhone, from opening Xcode for the first
time to submitting your application to the App Store. You’ll
learn about Objective-C and the core frameworks needed to
develop for the iPhone by writing applications that use them,
giving you a basic framework for building your own
applications independently.
What’s in This Book?
Here’s a short summary of the chapters in this book and what
you’ll find inside:
Chapter 1, Why Go Native?
This chapter discusses the need for native applications and
compares building native applications to building web
applications.
Chapter 2, Becoming a Developer
This chapter walks you through the process of registering as
an iPhone developer and setting up your work environment,
from installing Xcode and the iPhone SDK to generating the
developer certificates you’ll need to build your applications
and deploy them onto your own iPhone or iPod touch.
Chapter 3, Your First iPhone App
This chapter allows you to get hands-on as quickly as
possible and walks you through building your first Hello
World application, including how to deploy and run the
application on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Chapter 4, Coding in Objective-C
This chapter provides a crash course in the basics of the
Objective-C language, and if you’re familiar with another C-
derived language (and perhaps with object—oriented
programming), it should be enough to get you up and
running with Objective-C and the Cocoa Touch frameworks.
Chapter 5, TableView-Based Applications
The UITableView and associated classes are perhaps the
most commonly used classes when building user interfaces
for iPhone or iPod touch applications. Due to the nature of
the applications, these classes can be used to solve a large
cross section of problems, and as a result they appear
almost everywhere. In this chapter, we dive fairly deeply
into the table view classes.
Chapter 6, Other View Controllers
After discussing the table view controller in detail, we
discuss some of the other view controllers and classes that
will become useful when building your applications: simple
two-screen views, single-screen tabbed views, modal view
controllers, and a view controller for selecting video and
images.
Chapter 7, Connecting to the Network
This chapter discusses connecting to the Internet, browsing
the Web, sending email, and retrieving information.
Chapter 8, Handling Data
This chapter discusses how to handle data input, both from
the application user and programmatically, and how to
parse XML and JSON documents. The chapter also covers
storing data in flat files and storing data with the SQLite
database engine.
Chapter 9, Distributing Your Application
This chapter talks about how to add some final polish to
your application and walks you through the process of
building your application for distribution, either via ad hoc
distribution or for the App Store.
Chapter 10, Using Sensors
This chapter discusses how to determine what hardware is
available and illustrates how to deal with the major sensors
on the iPhone and iPod touch: the accelerometer,
magnetometer, camera, and GPS.
Chapter 11, Geolocation and Mapping
This chapter walks you through the process of building
applications that make use of the Core Location and MapKit
frameworks.
Chapter 12, Integrating Your Application
This chapter shows you some of the tricks to integrate your
application with the iPhone’s software ecosystem, how to
present user preferences with Settings Bundles, and how to
use custom URL schemes to launch your application. It also
discusses how to make use of the Media Player and Address
Book.
Chapter 13, Other Native Platforms
This chapter deals with the PhoneGap and MonoTouch
platforms for building native applications for the iPhone and
iPod touch that can be sold on the App Store. The chapter
then walks you through the installation process and building
your first Hello World application for both platforms.
Chapter 14, Going Further
This chapter provides a collection of pointers to more
advanced material on the topics we covered in the book, and
material covering some of those topics that we didn’t
manage to talk about in the book.
Conventions Used in This Book
The following typographical conventions are used in this book:
Italic
Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and
file extensions
Constant width
Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to
refer to program elements such as variable or function
names, databases, data types, environment variables,
statements, and keywords
Constant width bold
Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally
by the user
Constant width italic
Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied
values or by values determined by context
Note
This icon signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.
Warning
This icon signifies a warning or caution.