Customer Reviews
Absolutely fantastic - By: Matt Davenport, 27 May 2010 
Not too far into this book yet - about chapter 5. But I wanted to say how well written this book is compared to others. I have read 2 other iPhone books & cost lost a few chapters in! With this book I have gone from knowing nothing to fully understanding what I'm doingin about a night! I recommend this to everyone & anyone!
Excellent book - By: Marco Orosanob, 22 Apr 2010 Excellent book, it drives the reader along all the way from zero knowledge, to what is neededin order to implement a complete iPhone application.
It enables to grasp all the basics, from a single source,in a clear style. A must-read.
A good starting point - By: David Burton, 22 Apr 2010 
This really does start at the basics, & quickly explains things, including keyboard shortcuts & the like, to get you up & running developing user interfaces & simple applications for the iPhone.
When you first come to develop for the iPhone, you'll find it's rather different from what you're used to, & this guides you through those first baby steps, literally step by step. It stops to explain each piece of code that it asks you to put in, & then, having explained exactly what to do & why the first time, it then introduces the keyboard shortcuts that will speed things up, & doesn't keep explaining the same thing again & again.
The style is easy to read, & while Objective-C was an unfamiliar syntax at first, I quickly got a feel for why I needed to do things - it explained why something was added to the interface, why I needed a @synthesize keyword, when I need to allocate & release objects, & so on. It also explained alternative ways of doing things where they aren't used there but may be preferablein certain circumstances.
It's not really designed as a reference guide - it's designed as a series of tutorials to guide you through setting up various types of views, & with that aim it works very well, managing to introduce memory management elements without making it seem arcane & scary, which is an improvement over what the C++ books I'd previously read managed. It doesn't make a big thing of what's C, & what's specifically Objective-C. If you're more comfortable with C, C++, Java or C# then some of the syntax would be familiar, some unfamiliar, & better explanation of the more Smalltalk style pieces would be useful, but it's a minor complaint for what is a very good book for getting to grips with the basics.
Good, but hard to connect the dots for a beginner - By: A. Oliveira, 09 Apr 2010 
I'm a very experienced developer on Microsoft technologies, but as a real starter with Mac development, I touched a Mac for the first time a few days ago. It was hard to follow the initial chapters, because it assumes that you already have some experience with the tools & Objective-C, orin other cases just says to not worry & go ahead because it will be explained later. I would prefer a book with more juice & practical content. I had to get iPhonein Action from Manning & start reading read it from page 150 (SDK programming), only then I was prepared to go back to this book.
Good book, but not for beginners... - By: Callum Kerr, 24 Mar 2010 I know that it say's "Beginning iPhone 3 Development", it does but it assumes a working knowledge of Objective C programming. Before buying this book, get a hold of a book that starts you purely on beginning Objective C, then buy this book & sink your teeth into it.
It's well written, clear code examples & fantastic "build your own" sample apps. 100% recommended for anyone starting iPhone development!
Note: This book does not cover any aspects of the iPad.
