Sample code is never a fixed target. It continues to evolve as Apple updates its SDK and the CocoaTouch libraries.
Get involved. You can pitch in by suggesting bug fixes and corrections as well as by expanding the code that's on offer.
Github allows you to fork repositories and grow them with your own tweaks and features, and share those back to the main repository. If you come up with a new idea or approach, let us know. We'd be happy to include great suggestions both at the repository and in the next edition of this cookbook.
The iPhone Developer's Cookbook is written for experienced developers who want to build apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. It helps to be already be familiar with Objective-C, the Cocoa frameworks, and the Xcode Tools.That said, if you're new to the platform, this edition of The iPhone Developer's Cookbook includes a quick-and-dirty introduction to Objective-C along with an intro to the Xcode Tools to help you quickly get up to speed.
Although each programmer brings different goals and experiences to the table, most iPhone developers end up solving similar tasks in their development work:
- "How do I build a table?"
- "How do I create a secure Keychain entry?"
- "How do I search the Address Book?"
- "How do I move between views?"
- "How do I use Core Location and the iPhone 3GS's magnetometer?"
- "How do I draw text around shapes?"
- "How do I use a Page View controller?"
And so on. If you've asked yourself these questions, then this book is for you. The iPhone Developer's Cookbook will get you up to speed and working with the iPhone SDK, offering you ready-to-use solutions for the apps you're building today.
For the sake of pedagogy, this book's sample code uses a single main.m file. This is not how people normally develop iPhone or Cocoa applications, or, honestly, how they should be developing them, but it provides a great way of presenting a single big idea. It's hard to tell a story when readers must look through five or seven or nine individual files at once. Offering a single file concentrates that story, allowing access to that idea in a single chunk.These examples are not intended as standalone applications. They are there to demonstrate a single recipe and a single idea. One main.m file with a central presentation reveals the implementation story in one place. Readers can study these concentrated ideas and transfer them into normal application structures, using the standard file structure and layout. The presentation in this book does not produce code in a standard day-to-day best-practices approach. Instead, it reflects a pedagogy that offers concise solutions that you can incorporate back into your work as needed.
Contrast that to Apple's standard sample code, where you must comb through many files to build up a mental model of the concepts that are being demonstrated. Those examples are built as full applications, often doing tasks that are related to but not essential to what you need to solve. Finding just those relevant portions is a lot of work. The effort may outweigh any gains.
In this book, there are exceptions to this one-file-with-the-story rule: the cookbook provides standard class and header files when a class implementation is the recipe. Instead of highlighting a technique, some recipes offer these classes and categories (that is, extensions to a preexisting class rather than a new class). For those recipes, look for separate .m and .h files in addition to the skeletal main.m that encapsulates the rest of the story.
For the most part, the examples for this book use a single application identifier: com.sadun.helloworld. This book uses one identifier to avoid clogging up your iOS devices with dozens of examples at once. Each example replaces the previous one, ensuring that your home screen remains relatively uncluttered.
If you want to install several examples at once, simply edit the identifier, adding a unique suffix, such as com.sadun.helloworld.tableedits. You can also edit the custom display name to make the apps visually distinct. Your Team Provisioning Profile matches every application identifier, including com.sadun.helloworld. This allows you to install compiled code to devices without having to change the identifier; just make sure to update your signing identity in each project's build settings.
You should be able to use your team provision to build and deploy these projects to the simulator or to devices. Before compiling, make sure you select a deployment target using the scheme pop-up menu at the top-left of the Xcode window.For the most part, the samples for this book use a single application identifier, com.sadun.helloworld. This book uses one identifier to avoid clogging up your iPhone with dozens of samples at once. Each sample replaces the previous one, ensuring that SpringBoard remains relatively uncluttered. If you want to install several samples at once, simply edit the identifier, adding a unique suffix, such as com.sadun.helloworld.table-edits. You'll want to edit the display name so you can tell instantly which project is which. Samples use the same icons and launch images as well.