Xcode Treasures: Master the Tools to Design, Build, and Distribute Great Apps

Learn the critical tips and techniques to make using Xcode for the iPhone, iPad, or Mac easier, and even fun. Explore the features and functionality of Xcode you may not have heard of. Go under the hood to discover how projects really work, so when they stop working, you'll know how to fix them. Explore the common problems developers face when using Xcode, and find out how to get the most out of your IDE. Dig into Xcode, and you'll discover it's richer and more powerful than you might have thought.

Get a huge productivity boost by working with Xcode instead of against it. Instead of hacky code fixes and manual processes, once you know the the why and how of Xcode's process, you'll discover that doing things Xcode's way makes your app development more elegant and less aggravating.

Explore the major features of Xcode: project management, building UIs with storyboards, code editing, compiling apps, fixing bugs and performance problems, unit- and UI testing, and source code management. Go beyond the basics and explore tasks that professionals deal with when they're working on big projects. Create storyboards that many developers can work on at once, even as projects grow to hundreds or thousands of files. Find the tools that make the code editor pleasant to work with, even in long coding sessions. Discover the right way to find and fix bugs when you have lots of code that's not always playing nicely together. Dig into specific and little-discussed features that help developers on Apple's other platforms: macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. When you're ready to distribute your app, learn how Apple's code-signing system really works. Find out when to let Xcode handle it automatically, and how to do it manually when needed.

Discover how much easier and more fun iOS development is when you know the secrets of the tools.

What You Need:

This book requires Xcode 9 and a Mac running macOS High Sierra (10.13.2) or later. Additionally, an iOS device is recommended for on-device testing but not required.

Chris Adamson is the co-author of iPhone 10 SDK Development (Pragmatic Programmers) and Learning Core Audio (Addison-Wesley Professional). He's also a freelance iOS and Mac developer, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also writes the Time.code() blog at subfurther.com/blog and hosts livestreams at invalidstream.com. Over the years, he has managed to own fourteen and a half Macs.