Objective-C for Absolute Beginners: iPhone, iPad and Mac Programming Made Easy

by Gary Bennett, Brad Lees, Mitchell Fisher

It seems as if everyone is writing applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, but how do they all do it? It’s best to learn Objective-C, the native language of both the iOS and Mac OS X, but where to begin? Right here, even if you’ve never programmed before! Objective-C for Absolute Beginners will teach you how to write software for your Mac, iPhone, or iPad using Objective-C, an elegant and powerful language with a rich set of developer tools. Using a hands-on approach, you’ll learn to think in programming terms, how to use Objective-C to build program logic, and how to write your own applications and apps. With over 50 collective years in software development and based on an approach pioneered at Carnegie Mellon University, the authors have developed a remarkably effective approach to learning Objective-C. Since the introduction of Apple’s iPhone, the authors have taught hundreds of absolute beginners how to develop Mac, iPhone,and iPad apps, including many that became popular apps in the iTunes App Store.

Genres: Programming, Technology

309 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Nic · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for beginners with a few provisos. There are exercises at the end of each chapter. They can be quite advanced and the answers aren't included in the book and don't appear to be on the website - people are frequently asking for them but the author never replies to their questions. Webinairs are available but since the book was issued 2011 and readers are worldwide these may not be the best option.

The book is generally clear and typos can be deciphered. I do feel like you need to be a bit more than an absolute beginner to complete some of the exercises. Using Alice for the first 4 chapters seems like a good intro.

[Alessandro Pellizzari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Letto a spizzichi, a tempo perso, principalmente perché non ho un Mac per testare sul campo. Mi è sembrato approfondito al punto giusto (cioé nè troppo, nè troppo poco) per un libro introduttivo al solo linguaggio, quindi niente Cocoa e particolarità di Mac OSX o di iOS. Forse un po' scarso il capitolo sul debugging, e praticamente solo una "brochure pubblicitaria" quello su Preferences e Core Data.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it wasn't a terrible book. It has a bunch of typos which are listed on the website (which I learned of after finishing the book) and at times it was hard to follow why something was being done.

[David Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this was a good introduction to Obj-C.

[Joshua Rolph]

yeah, didn't help me one bit.