Learning Cocoa with Objective-C: Developing for the Mac and iOS App Stores

by Paris Buttfield-Addison, Jonathon Manning, Tim Nugent

Overview

Get up to speed on Cocoa and Objective-C, and start developing applications on the iOS and OS X platforms. If you don’t have experience with Apple’s developer tools, no problem! From object-oriented programming to storing app data in iCloud, the fourth edition of this book covers everything you need to build apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

You’ll learn how to work with the Xcode IDE, Objective-C’s Foundation library, and other developer tools such as Event Kit framework and Core Animation. Along the way, you’ll build example projects, including a simple Objective-C application, a custom view, a simple video player application, and an app that displays calendar events for the user.

• Learn the application lifecycle on OS X and iOS
• Work with the user-interface system in Cocoa and Cocoa Touch
• Use AV Foundation to display video and audio
• Build apps that let users create, edit, and work with documents
• Store data locally with the file system, or on the network with iCloud
• Display lists or collections of data with table views and collection views
• Interact with the outside world with Core Location and Core Motion
• Use blocks and operation queues for multiprocessing

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491901397
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/24/2014
Edition description:	4
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Paris Buttfield-Addison is a mobile app engineer, game designer and researcher with a passion for making technology simpler and as engaging as possible.

He has written two books on game development and currently spends his time designing mobile products for millions upon millions of users while drinking too much coffee.

Paris has coded for everything from Qt to 6502 assembly to iOS and thinks digital watches are a pretty neat idea. He claims he will soon have a PhD.

Jon Manning is the co-founder of Secret Lab, an independent game development studio based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. He’s worked on apps of all sorts, ranging from iPad games for children to instant messenging clients. He’s a Core Animation demigod, and frequently finds himself gesticulating wildly in front of classes full of eager-to-learn iOS developers. Jon is the world’s biggest Horse_ebooks fan (https://twitter.com/Horse_ebooks), and can be found on Twitter as @desplesda.

Tim Nugent pretends to be a mobile app developer, game designer, PhD student, and now he even pretends to be an author. When he isn’t busy avoiding being found out as a fraud, he spends most of his time designing and creating little apps and games he won’t let anyone see. Tim spent a disproportionately long time writing this tiny little bio, most of which was spent trying to stick a witty sci-fi reference in, before he simply gave up. Tim can be found as @The_McJones on Twitter.

Table of Contents

Preface; Audience; Organization of This Book; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Safari® Books Online; How to Contact Us; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Cocoa Development Tools; 1.1 The Mac and iOS Developer Programs; 1.2 Getting Around in Xcode; 1.3 Developing a Simple Objective-C Application; 1.4 Using the iOS Simulator; Chapter 2: Object-Oriented Programming with Objective-C; 2.1 Object-Oriented Programming; 2.2 Memory Management; 2.3 The NSObject Life Cycle; Chapter 3: Foundation; 3.1 Mutable and Immutable Objects; 3.2 Strings; 3.3 Arrays; 3.4 Dictionaries; 3.5 NSValue and NSNumber; 3.6 Data; 3.7 Design Patterns in Cocoa; Chapter 4: Applications on OS X and iOS; 4.1 What Is an Application?; 4.2 The Application Lifecycle; 4.3 The Application Sandbox; Chapter 5: Graphical User Interfaces; 5.1 Interfaces in OS X and iOS; 5.2 MVC and Application Design; 5.3 Nib Files; 5.4 Constructing an Interface; 5.5 Building an App with Nibs and Constraints; 5.6 Core Animation; Chapter 6: Blocks and Operation Quotes; 6.1 Blocks; 6.2 Concurrency with Operation Queues; 6.3 Putting It All Together; Chapter 7: Drawing Graphics in Views; 7.1 How Drawing Works; 7.2 The Pixel Grid; 7.3 Drawing in Views; 7.4 Building a Custom View; Chapter 8: Audio and Video; 8.1 AV Foundation; 8.2 Playing Video with AVPlayer; 8.3 Playing Sound with AVAudioPlayer; 8.4 Working with the Photo Library; Chapter 9: Model Objects and Data Storage; 9.1 Key-Value Coding; 9.2 Key-Value Observing; 9.3 Notifications with NSNotification; 9.4 Preferences; 9.5 Working with the Filesystem; 9.6 Working with the Sandbox; Chapter 10: Cocoa Bindings; 10.1 Binding Views to Models; 10.2 A Single Bindings App; 10.3 Binding to Controllers; 10.4 Array and Object Controllers; 10.5 A More Complex Bindings App; Chapter 11: Table Views and Collection Views; 11.1 Data Sources and Delegates; 11.2 Table Views; 11.3 UITableView on iOS; 11.4 NSTableView on OS X; 11.5 Collection Views; Chapter 12: Document-Based Applications; 12.1 The NSDocument and UIDocument Classes; 12.2 Document Objects in MVC; 12.3 Kinds of Documents; 12.4 The Role of Documents; 12.5 Document-Based Applications on OS X; 12.6 Document-Based Applications on iOS; Chapter 13: Networking; 13.1 Connections; 13.2 Building a Networked Application; 13.3 Discovering Nearby Services; Chapter 14: Working with the Real World; 14.1 Working with Location; 14.2 Geocoding; 14.3 Locations and Privacy; 14.4 Device Motion; 14.5 Printing Documents; Chapter 15: Event Kit; 15.1 Understanding Events; 15.2 Working with Events; 15.3 Building an Events Application; 15.4 User Privacy; Chapter 16: Instruments and the Debugger; 16.1 Getting Started with Instruments; 16.2 Fixing Problems with Instruments; 16.3 Retain Cycles and Leaks; 16.4 Using the Debugger; Chapter 17: Sharing and Notifications; 17.1 Sharing; 17.2 Notifications; Chapter 18: Nonstandard Apps; 18.1 Command-Line Tools; 18.2 Preference Panes; 18.3 Status Bar Items; Chapter 19: Working with Text; 19.1 Internationalization and Localization; 19.2 Formatting Data with NSFormatter; 19.3 Detecting Data with NSDataDetector; Chapter 20: iCloud; 20.1 What iCloud Stores; 20.2 Setting Up for iCloud; 20.3 Testing Whether iCloud Works; 20.4 Storing Settings; 20.5 iCloud Storage; Colophon;