Reviews for Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours

1. Great Book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   I'm really enjoying this guide to iPhone app development. I'm pretty much a beginner (I'm used to macs and have a little experience of applescript), and this book is great. It gives a step by step guide to the architecture of the programming environment and useful tips as to how best to construct your apps.
   Recommended

2. Very useful for a newcomer to the iPhone

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12rd, 2010

   Excellent grounding in creating apps, with clear worked examples and good, readily understandable explanations of the concepts involved. Recommended to anyone needing a kick-start in iPhone app development.

3. Losing the will...

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2010

   I have to agree with the other reviews that this book is good for the first half, then goes wrong!
   
   I may amend my current 3 star rating with time, but at the moment I cannot go any higher.
   
   Currently, I'm at Chapter 15 and up to around 12-13, I felt I was doing ok. I'm a seasoned programmer (PHP and Javascript) so had a decent handle on what was going on up to a point. There were a few typos, but nothing major and in fact it helped a couple of times to have to really look at the code and fix a problem caused by the writers.
   
   Chapters 14-15 though have totally lost it for me. So many typos (even referring to the wrong program examples currently being worked on).
   
   All the code I've typed in so far refuses to work (and yes, I've checked/double checked and even started afresh) - but the worse thing is the book is no longer explaining what SHOULD happen, so you dont know if the code should do what you think or not. I.e. Part of chapter 15 is to create settings for an app, which I've done by following the code, but they do not update my app when I change them.
   
   You assume it SHOULD do, but it does not explicitly say in the book that when you run the code, the settings should change the app. Really frustrating.
   
   In fact, it making me lose the will to type out any further code from the book as I just do not know if it is worth it.
   
   Its hard to recommend this book... on one hand, it does give you a nice introduction to starting out on the iPhone coding scene, but on the other, its as if the writers gave up quality control half-way through :(
   
   MORE: Onto chapter 16 now and the book has gone a bit farcical. Its just skimming over details and not explaining anything. One of the big problems is that the author is not even telling you where to put the code (i.e. into which file), its just sloppy and lazy and making this such harder work than it needs to be. I'd rather less examples and a more fuller explanation of what is going on, rather than 'type this in and see if it works' type of attitude. Not really learning, its just copying from a book.

4. Excellent, well written, presented and quick.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, March 12nd, 2010

   I have to say this is the second book I've tried to pick up iPhone development. The first was for 'Dummies' and I thought I had picked up enough to get started, regrettably not, nowhere near it. This book however is bloody good. It takes more than an hour for each tutorial but thats probably just me going over the articles time and again to ensure I have not misunderstood. It has enabled me to develop quite convoluted navigations using a number of different techniques in the same app (Tab Bar and Multi Views, Picker Views, Table Views and some animation). No way I could have done this with the last book. I should have bought this one first. If you want seriously detailed reference material go to Apple Documentation Centre. If you want something practical you can follow from the start and make quick progress, look no further than this book. Congrats to the authors.

5. Excellent beginners guide

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, March 12nd, 2010

   This book is an excellent beginners guide for putting together iPhone apps. I'd tried a couple of Obj C and iPhone SDK books before but couldn't really get into it. This book makes it easy and engaging and keeps you interested with many examples gradually introducing you to the key parts of the SDK. Suitable for complete beginners, but also deep enough in that it points you throughout to further resources and suggested activities to do on your own.
   
   There's some typos and the website link in one of the early tutorial apps doesn't seem to work properly, but finding the problems and figuring out what was wrong actually helped me understand the detail of what was going on, so even the typos helped in a way. Great book.