Core Animation: Simplified Animation Techniques for Mac and iPhone Development

Apple’s Core Animation framework enables Mac OS X, iPhone, and iPod touch developers to create richer, more visual applications–more easily than ever and with far less code. Now, there’s a comprehensive, example-rich, full-color reference to Core Animation for experienced OS X and iPhone developers who want to make the most of this powerful framework.

Marcus Zarra and Matt Long reveal exactly what Core Animation can and can’t do, how to use it most effectively–and how to avoid misusing it. Building on your existing knowledge of Objective-C, Cocoa, and Xcode, they present expert techniques, insights, and downloadable code for all aspects of Core Animation programming, from keyframing to movie playback.

Zarra and Long thoroughly review similarities and differences between Core Animation on the Mac and iPhone, helping you write code that can easily move between platforms. They also present a full chapter of innovative techniques and proven “rules of thumb” for optimizing Core Animation’s real-world performance.

Coverage includes:

• Taking full advantage of Core Animation’s lightweight layers and views
• Using keyframes to gain complete control over your animations
• Creating startling effects with Core Animation transforms
• Leveraging Core Image’s powerful filtering capabilities from within Core Animation
• Playing QuickTime movies using Core Animation’s QTMovieLayer
• Using the OpenGL layer to achieve greater control over movie playback
• Integrating advanced Quartz Composer visualizations into your user interfaces
• How to use helper layers to draw gradients, composite shapes, and replicate sublayers
• Adding mouse and keyboard user interaction points, and much more…

Marcus Zarra is the owner of Zarra Studios, LLC and the creator of seSales and iWeb Buddy. In addition, he is a coauthor of Cocoa Is My Girlfriend, a wildly popular blog covering all aspects of Cocoa development. Zarra has been developing software since the mid-1980s and has written software in all the major technological fields.

Matt Long has been in the software industry since 1996. He has developed software with a wide array of technologies and platforms in addition to OS X and the iPhone, including Unix, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft .NET. His experience on these other platforms makes him uniquely qualified to help other programmers who are themselves making the transition to the Mac OS X and iPhone using Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. In addition, he writes for the Cocoa Is My Girlfriend blog, which demonstrates usage of not only Core Animation but many other technologies related to Mac OS X and the iPhone.