Core iOS Developer's Cookbook, The (Developer's Library)

I use this eBook for reference and will often consult it for a second or third opinion on the design of a particular feature.

The Core iOS Developer’s Cookbook is a fantastic go-to resource for when you need a solid implementation of a feature (a “recipe”, as they call it), combined with a description of how that code actually works. This book provides up-to-date recipes for iOS 7 when many code repositories – admittedly some of them my own – lag behind the times and are no longer relevant. More dangerously, a lot of code on GitHub and answers on Stack Overflow have not just become outdated, but are now *incorrect*, leading to possibly dangerous code. However, this book features only modern code samples and examples.While this is admittedly not a book on how to structure large application codebases at a high level, the concepts of how to use the different frameworks described in the book are solid. The book successfully conveys how different components – views, controls, gesture recognizers, controllers, and more – fit together in a modern iOS application. I even find myself questioning some of my own practices when confronted with these well-structured examples. Kudos.What I really like about this recipe-style book is that it offers answers to questions that I’ve seen other developers ask. “How do I have a multiline button label?” It’s not a difficult question to answer, but there are many opinions – some incorrect or outdated. It’s really refreshing to see an up-to-date, responsible description of how to accomplish common tasks. It’s also really impressive how the recipes build off of one another. While this is not strictly a reference book, it can be used to work up experience and familiarity with iOS frameworks.Something I found lacking in general was the use of visuals. There were plenty of screenshots demonstrating the recipe after the fact, but I would have liked to see more visual descriptions when introducing new concepts, particularly in the sections describing view geometry, autolayout and view controller hierarchies.Sometimes, I saw parts of the book that I disagreed with. Take prefixing category methods on existing UIKit and Foundation classes: the book says “you should prefix these”, but then doesn’t do it themselves. That’s a shame, since it would’ve been a great and easy way to introduce readers to the concept and reinforce that this is the correct thing to do. In the short section describing how to detect retina displays, there is a code snippet provide to check the scale property on the main screen to 2.0f. While this will work with any app compiled for iOS 7, it’s not very future-proof. Newer devices have retina screens with scales larger than 2.0f – a better comparison would have been checking for being greater than zero, but I digress.The chapter on accessibility was a welcome change to most iOS developer resources, who ignore the topic altogether. Very refreshing and a fantastic demonstration of how easy it is to make iOS apps accessible to everyone.The autolayout chapter is relatively brief, but this is already a fairly long book and the chapter *does* provide recipes for common uses. Consider using a library like FLKAutolayout after you learn the basics. Erica Sadun has another book on autolayout which is fantastic.I really like this book. It covers fundamental concepts like view geometry and touch interaction in fantastic detail, but also provides introductions to very complex frameworks like Core Data and AVFoundation. All the while, it tries to prevent developers from making common mistakes; readers benefit from the authors’ experiences. While the book is targeted for iOS 7, most of the concepts it discusses are fundamental to developing modern iOS applications, so even with iOS 8 out, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to a friend today.Full disclosure: the publisher did provide me with a copy of this book on the condition that I write an honest review; this review is my own uncensored opinion. I have also collaborated with Rich Wardwell on another book by this publisher.

Overall I think this is a great resource for most developers out there (I'll exclude the well seasoned developers). I liked the authors' style of writing and appreciated the overall layout of the book. I've spent a lot of time reading through books ranging from BNR's books to NSHipster and Effective Objective-C 2.0. Those were all fantastic books and probably better for learning the intricacies of Objective-C (of course, this isn't an Objective-C book but an iOS development book). But in terms of building out your skill set and giving you breadth, this book is the clear winner.What I liked:1. This book did an excellent job laying the core tools we all use in building apps (hence the name I suppose). After making it through this book you have a very strong foundation on how build a fairly sophisticated app. You may not be able to sit down and code without referencing Apple's docs or the book, but you'll certainly be able to think up a design and know what steps you need to take to get there.2. I really appreciated the chapters on Core Data and networking. There is enough material in each of those topics for their own books, but this did a great job of giving you and overview so you know what's at your disposal and how to use them.3. The overview of collection views was great; this is an area I haven't dabbled in yet and it gave a lot of new ideas.What I didn't like:1. I felt the author's made excessive use of the define preprocessor, while I understand there is a time and place for this approach, I try to avoid it when possible2. This is kind of a toss-up, but I almost wish the examples were a little longer. All the recipes give you snippets of code which is great for referencing, but for learning the material I think building a project throughout each chapter would have been more helpful. On the other hand though, using these snippets is better for reference after you've made it through the book (which is maybe why the authors chose this approach).I would definitely recommend buying this. I wouldn't recommend this as your first book on learning iOS development, but after you've been through a book or two (BNR, for example) and are ready to really start building up your skills, this is an essential resource.

For me, this is a fabulous book. When searching for expanded details on a topic, I find that many iOS programming books spread themselves a little thinly, probably because they have to cover such a wide range of material, whereas 'cookbook' style books go deeper, but coverage can be a little narrow. That is not the case here. This book does follow a recipe style format, but provides a great deal more than that, with lots of valuable background and context. For example, the chapter on Text Entry alone is some 39 pages long. A very useful book indeed.

新しい版が出る度に購入しています。この版からは、初歩的な内容は別の本となり、この本では中級者以上の方向けの説明と、レシピを充実させたものになりました。iOS7からの内容にも目配りされており、現在自分で行っているプログラム作業で非常に助かっています。数あるiOSプログラミングの英語の本の中でも、おすすめできる一冊だと思います。