Foundation iPhone App Development

Taking a hands-on learning approach, Foundation iPhone App Development: Build An iPhone App in 5 Days with iOS 6 SDK quickly enables existing programmers to become familiar and comfortable coding Objective-C using Xcode 4.5, Storyboarding and the iOS 6 SDK to create apps for the iPhone. Nick Kuh, an experienced, Apple award-winning developer, will teach readers how to build an iOS 6 iPhone app from start to finish in 5 days.

During a 5-day process you will learn how to build a professional, custom-designed, object-oriented iPhone App. You’ll start with a PhotoShop PSD design and an app idea. Then, throughout the remainder of the book, Nick will guide you through each stage of building the app. But it’s you who will build the app. You will learn how to think like an app developer, how to turn an idea into a beautiful iPhone app.

In addition to the code and programming practices introduced, the book includes numerous tips, tricks and lessons learned to help new iPhone App developers succeed on the App Store: SEO, in-app marketing approaches and how to win more 5 star reviews.

The 5-day learning process is divided into the following key stages:

• Day 1 begins with the initial planning, paper prototyping and Photoshop design phases of an app idea. You’ll learn how to provision your iOS apps for deployment to your iPhone. By the end of your first day you’ll get to learn on the job, creating an Object-Oriented Black Jack Game that implements the Model View Controller paradigm in Objective C.
• Day 2 is all about Storyboarding: creating and connecting all of the user interface views of our app.
• Day 3 begins with table views and data population. By the end of the third day you’ll be knee-deep in Core Data: building a data model and creating an editable, persistent data storage solution for your app.
• By Day 4 you’ll be learning how to communicate with Facebook using Apple’s new Social framework introduced in iOS 6.
• Day 5 kicks off with code and methods to add in-app social network marketing to your app. With your completed app you’ll then learn how to submit an App to Apple alongside numerous tips and tricks to improve your chances of success and visibility in this unique marketplace.

From start to finish, this book inherits Nick’s tried and tested methods to build beautiful native iPhone Apps efficiently. After reading and using this book, you’ll come away with a core iOS development process and coding concepts that can be re-used and applied to your own iPhone app projects. Moreover, you’ll gain an understanding of how to architect your own apps, write reusable code and implement best practices for faster productivity and maybe even make some money, too.

What you’ll learn

• How to develop with Xcode, write Objective-C and work with the latest iOS SDK
• Why and how to create Navigation Hierarchies and Table View Controllers, for making life easier
• How to design, plan and develop an iPhone app from the initial app idea to App Store submission
• How to Storyboard and implement a custom-designed User Interface
• How to work with Core Data to build an offline caching solution
• How to implement asynchronous HTTP API calls to download and display images
• How to use the new iOS Appearance APIs for custom design implementation and make beautiful apps
• How to increase your app’s chances for success in the App Store

Who this book is for

This book is for existing programmers—programmers who have already mastered another object oriented language and wish to become proficient programming Objective C for writing iPhone Apps using Xcode.

Table of Contents

Day 1: Objective C, Xcode and iOS SDK Foundation work
Chapter 1: Design and Planning of our App:
Chapter 2: Provisioning our App for Development
Chapter 3: Setting Up Our Xcode Project
Chapter 4: Objective-C and Xcode: Developing a Blackjack Game

Day 2: Storyboarding the User Interface
Chapter 5: iPhone App Navigation, Views and View Controllers
Chapter 6: Views, Controls, Camera, Action!

Day 3: Working with Data
Chapter 7: Table Views, Arrays and Dictionaries – Oh My!
Chapter 8: Data Persistence with Core Data
Chapter 9: iOS Skinning: Make Your Apps Lickable

Day 4: Importing Birthdays from the Address Book and Facebook
Chapter 10: Importing Birthdays from the Address Book
Chapter 11: Working with the Facebook SDK
Chapter 12: Settings and Local Notifications

Day 5: The Finishing Touches
Chapter 13: Before You Launch: Increasing Your Chances of App Store Success
Chapter 14: Submitting our App