iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Winner of a 2012 Jolt Productivity Award!

Updated and expanded to cover iOS 5 and Xcode 4.3, iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide leads you through the essential concepts, tools, and techniques for developing iOS applications. After completing this book, you will have the understanding, the know-how, and the confidence you need to tackle iOS projects of your own.

Based on Big Nerd Ranch’s popular iOS Bootcamp course and its well-tested materials and methodology, this best-selling guide teaches iOS concepts and coding in tandem. The result is instruction that is relevant and useful.

Throughout the book, the authors clearly explain what’s important to know and share their insights into the larger context of the iOS platform. This gives you a real understanding of how iOS development works, the many features that are available, and when and where to apply what you’ve learned.

Here are some of the topics covered:

• Xcode 4.3, Instruments, and Storyboards
• ARC, strong and weak references, and retain cycles
• Interfacing with iCloud
• Handling touch events and gestures
• Tool bars, navigation controllers, and split view controllers
• Localization and Internationalization
• Block syntax and use
• Background execution and multi-tasking
• Saving/loading data: Archiving and Core Data
• Core Location and Map Kit
• Communicating with web services
• Working with XML, JSON, and NSRegularExpression
• Using the Model-View-Controller-Store design pattern

Joe Conway is the senior iOS instructor at Big Nerd Ranch and has been consulting on the iOS platform since its creation. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he has been writing Objective-C and Cocoa code since the dawn of OS X. Joe wrote the materials for the exceptionally popular Big Nerd Ranch iOS Bootcamp course, on which this book is based.

Aaron Hillegass, a former employee of NeXT and Apple, has nearly two decades experience programming and teaching Objective-C, Cocoa, and more recently, iOS. In 2001, Aaron founded Big Nerd Ranch and began developing intensive courses that teach programming in a focused, distraction-free environment. Aaron is also the author of Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide and Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.