Mac Application Development by Example

A comprehensive and practical guide, for absolute beginners, to developing your own App for Mac OS X.

Overview

• Start developing applications for Mac OS X.
• Learn how to take advantage of Mac features such as the iSight camera and the multi-touch trackpad.
• Use Xcode to its full potential to make tasks simpler.

In Detail

It's never been more important to have the ability to develop an App for Mac OS X. Whether it's a System Preference, a business app that accesses information in the Cloud, or an application that uses multi-touch or uses a camera, you will have a solid foundation in app development to get the job done.

Mac Application Development by Example takes you through all the aspects of using the Xcode development tool to produce complete working apps that cover a broad range of topics. This comprehensive book on developing applications covers everything a beginner needs to know and demonstrates the concepts using examples that take advantage of some of the most interesting hardware and software features available.

You will discover the fundamental aspects of OS X development while investigating innovative platform features to create a final product which take advantage of the unique aspects of OS X.

Learn how to use Xcode tools to create and share Mac OS X apps. Explore numerous OS X features including iCloud, multi-touch trackpad, and the iSight camera.

This book provides you with an illustrated and annotated guide to bring your idea to life using fundamental concepts that work on Mac.

What you will learn from this book

• The basic concepts and tools and how to use them to create an OS X application.
• Access information from the Internet from within a business app to enhance its functionality.
• Store and retrieve information from Apple’s iCloud server farm.
• Use the debugger to find and fix problems that cause an app to crash.
• Create a new System Preference that can change the fundamental way the Mac OS system behaves.
• Capture video from the iSight camera and save it as a Quicktime movie file.
• Implement a custom view and draw directly into it using the 2D drawing interfaces.
• Share your app with others in a Gatekeeper-aware and friendly manner.

Approach

This book is a beginners guide that teaches the topic using a learn by example method.

Who this book is written for

This book is for people who are programming beginners and have a great idea for a Mac OS X app and need to get started.

Robert Wiebe

Robert Wiebe was born in 1961. He has more than 30 years experience designing, implementing, and testing software. He wrote his first App in 1979, as a high school student, using 6502 assembler code on an Ohio Scientific C2-4P computer with 8k RAM. More recently, he has focused on developing games and utilities for Mac OS X.

His interests include a vintage computer collection which includes many pre-IBM PC era microcomputers; Apple Macintosh computers starting with the SE/30 running Mac OS 7 through to the Macbook Pro running Mac OS X that he uses today.

He has developed many popular Mac OS X Apps including ShredIt X, NetShred X, Music Man, iVCD, and many more.

He has experience developing software in a number of industries, including mining, finance, and communications. He has worked for a number of employers including Motorola as a Senior Systems Architect developing two-way wireless data systems and Infowave Software as the Software Development Manager for their Imaging Division. After working for other people's companies, he founded his own companies, Mireth Technology and Burningthumb Software, which are his primary interests today.

He is also the author of Unity iOS Essential book (ISBN 978-1-849691-82-6).