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(More customer reviews)This book inspired me to write my first-ever review on Amazon (after being a customer since virtually day one). The reason I was so "inspired" is that this book has some real problems. If you are not a reasonably accomplished programmer in other languages/platforms, stay clear. Typos, omissions and flat-out wrong code abound. I downloaded the errata and that doesn't even cover it all. My book is full of notes. Chapter 16 seems to be particularly bad. For example, they have you enter:
newCard.question = thisQuestion;
When the correct code is:
[newCard setValue:thisQuestion forKey:@"question"];
The other problem I have with it is that the authors (particularly whoever wrote the first 14 to 15 chapters make horrible variable and object naming choices. Sometimes the only difference between the type and the instance is a difference in capitalization:
int Int;
Not an actual example (don't care to go through the book to find a real one) but they are all over the place.
An extension of this is when they use similar names for different things and get them confused. For example: "wrongCount" and "wrongCounter".
They also call out for editing the wrong files at times and even confuse prior chapters' projects with current projects. Probably a cut-and-paste thing while writing.
There's a real difference in style between the two authors. Starting around chapter 14/15 the tone and approach changes. The second author tells you to "right click" all the time...when Macs don't have but one mouse button. Lucky for me the first thing I do to a Mac is throw away the useless mouse and replace it with a Logitech trackball...so, in my case, right-clicking works just fine.
I am just getting past chapter 16 and I will finish the book but it made me so angry for wasting so much of my time that I had to post a review.
Should you buy it? I don't know. If you are an accomplished programmer you might look at the above problems as an opportunity to learn more because of having to debug the code and figure out where they screwed-up. That's how I am taking it. I don't like it because I wanted to push through this book quickly and move on to more advanced books, but you play the cards you are dealt. Happy debugging!
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours (2nd Edition) (Sams Teach Yourself -- Hours)
Sams Teach Yourself iPhone® Application DevelopmentSecond EditionJohn RayFigures and code appear as they do in XcodeCovers iOS 4.0 and up, and iPhone 4Additional files and updates available onlineIn just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build powerful applications for today's hottest mobile device: the iPhone! Using this book's straightforward, step-by-step approach, you'll master every skill and technology you need, from setting up your iPhone development environment to building great user interfaces, sensing motion to writing multitasking applications. Each lesson builds on what you've already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common iOS development tasks.Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge. By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion. Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks. Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them.Printed in full color—figures and code appear as they do in Xcode Covers iOS 4.0 and up Learn the features of Xcode 3.2 and Interface Builder Prepare your system and iPhone for efficient development Get started quickly with Apple's Objective-C and Cocoa Touch Understand the Model-View-Controller (MVC) development paradigm Design highly usable applications with interactive widgets and web-connected interfaces Use Table views to navigate structured data Build rotatable and resizable user interfaces Read and write data and create System Setting plug-ins Use the iPhone's media playback and recording capabilities Create map and location-based (GPS) services Sense motion and orientation with the iPhone's accelerometer and the iPhone 4 gyroscope Create universal applications that run on the iPhone and iPad Write background-aware multitasking applications Distribute your applications through the App Storehttp://teachyourselfiphone.com
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