Synopses & Reviews
What people are saying about Building iPhone Apps w/ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
"The future of mobile development is clearly web technologies like CSS, HTML and JavaScript. Jonathan Stark shows you how to leverage your existing web development skills to build native iPhone applications using these technologies."
--John Allsopp, author and founder of Web Directions
"Jonathan's book is the most comprehensive documentation available for developing web applications for mobile Safari. Not just great tech coverage, this book is an easy read of purely fascinating mobile tidbits in a fun colloquial style. Must have for all PhoneGap developers."
-- Brian LeRoux, Nitobi Software
It's a fact: if you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you already have the tools you need to develop your own iPhone apps. With this book, you'll learn how to use these open source web technologies to design and build apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch on the platform of your choice-without using Objective-C or Cocoa.
Device-agnostic mobile apps are the wave of the future, and this book shows you how to create one product for several platforms. You'll find guidelines for converting your product into a native iPhone app using the free PhoneGap framework. And you'll learn why releasing your product as a web app first helps you find, fix, and test bugs much faster than if you went straight to the App Store with a product built with Apple's tools.
- Build iPhone apps with tools you already know how to use
- Learn how to make an existing website look and behave like an iPhone app
- Add native-looking animations to your web app using jQTouch
- Take advantage of client-side data storage with apps that run even when the iPhone is offline
- Hook into advanced iPhone features -- including the accelerometer, geolocation, and vibration -- with JavaScript
- Submit your applications to the App Store with Xcode
This book received valuable community input through O'Reilly's Open Feedback Publishing System (OFPS). Learn more at http://labs.oreilly.com/ofps.html.
Synopsis
Is it possible for JavaScript programmers to learn the iPhone SDK and live to tell the tale? Technology guru Danny Goodman did, and with this book he leaves a well-marked trail for you to follow. An authority on JavaScript since its inception, Goodman understands the challenges you face with the SDK. He introduces Objective-C and Cocoa Touch in a context you'll readily understand, and shows you how to test iPhone code snippets as you go.
Why bother with Apple's tools? After all, you could bypass them and just build web apps for the iPhone. But web apps can't access an iPhone's music library, address book, camera, accelerometer, or multi-touch events. Nor can you sell web apps in the App Store. If you're a web developer and really want to take advantage of the iPhone, the SDK is your tool -- and this is your book.
- Create a test workbench app that you can use throughout the development process
- Understand how iPhone OS frameworks compare to third-party web frameworks
- Become familiar with the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern
- Learn how iPhone data types, pointers, and memory management are different from JavaScript
- Compare Objective-C language fundamentals and their JavaScript equivalents
- Get a recipe-driven reference for programming with Objective-C and Cocoa Touch
Synopsis
Is it possible for JavaScript programmers to learn the iPhone SDK and live to tell the tale? Technology guru Goodman did, and with this book he leaves a well-marked trail for Web developers to follow.
Synopsis
iOS 4, Apple's advanced mobile operating system, has introduced new and improved features to the iPhone/iPad SDK, including multitasking, the accelerometer, mapkit, push notifications, in-app purchasing and iAd. Originally developed for the iPhone, the system has since been shipped on the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV.
iOS 4 in Action, a completely updated edition of iPhone and iPad in Action, goes beyond the basics of iPhone OS development, to provide readers with everything they need to create fully-functional, store-ready apps. Completely illustrated and easy to pick up, this book contains an array of sample apps to help readers learn from the ground up, one step at a time. Readers will then be shown how to apply this new skill set toward more advanced projects.
Synopsis
Is it possible for JavaScript programmers to learn Apple's iOS 4 SDK and live to tell the tale? Technology guru Danny Goodman did, and with this book he leaves a well-marked trail for you to follow. An authority on JavaScript since its inception, Goodman understands the challenges you might face in creating native iOS apps with this SDK, and introduces Xcode, Objective-C, and Cocoa Touch in a context you'll readily understand.
Why bother with the SDK when you can simply build web apps for Apple's iOS devices? Web apps can't access an iPhone's music library, camera, or iOS system software for maps, audio, and more. Nor can you sell web apps in the App Store. If you want to take full advantage of the iPhone and iPad, iOS 4 SDK is your tool -- and this is your book. Includes full coverage of iOS SDK 4.2.
- Learn the distinction between web app and iOS native app programming
- Create a workbench app to test code snippets throughout the learning process
- Get a structural view of an iOS app, and compare the process of building objects in Objective-C versus JavaScipt
- Discover how your code launches iOS apps and makes them user-ready
- Learn about iOS memory management details that are different from JavaScript, including pointers and data types
- Use Objective-C and Cocoa Touch to implement common JavaScript tasks
About the Author
Danny Goodman has been writing about personal computers and consumer electronics since the late 1970s. In 2006, he celebrated 25 years as a freelance writer and programmer, having published hundreds of magazine articles, several commercial software products, and three dozen computer books. Through the years, his most popular book titles - on HyperCard, AppleScript, JavaScript, and Dynamic HTML - have covered programming environments that are both accessible to non-professionals, yet powerful enough to engage experts. His Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Reference, now in its third edition, is an O'Reilly bestseller. To keep up to date on the needs of web developers for his recent books, Danny is also a programming consultant to some of the industry's top intranet development groups and corporations. Most recently, Danny has been programming applications for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch platform. As of March 2010, three of his apps, iFeltThat Earthquake, PhotoSize, and BeaconAid- HF, are available on Apple's App Store.
Danny was born in Chicago, Illinois during the Truman Administration. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in Classical Antiquity from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He moved to California in 1983 and lives in a small San Francisco area coastal community, where he alternates views between computer screens and the Pacific Ocean.
Table of Contents
Preface; What You Need to Start; What's in This Book; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; How to Contact Us; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Why Go Native?; 1.1 Using an App Offline; 1.2 More Access to the Hardware; 1.3 More Access to the Software; 1.4 What You Lose; 1.5 Taking the Plunge; Chapter 2: Welcome to the iOS SDK; 2.1 Hardware and OS Requirements; 2.2 Installing the SDK; 2.3 About iOS Developer Programs; 2.4 Inside the SDK; 2.5 Viewing Developer Documentation; 2.6 Loading Code Samples; 2.7 Setting the Project's Base SDK; 2.8 Trying the iOS Simulator; 2.9 Coming Up...; Chapter 3: Creating a Test Workbench; 3.1 Creating the Project in Xcode; 3.2 Building the User Interface; Chapter 4: Structural Overview of an iOS App; 4.1 Where It All Begins: APIs; 4.2 Frameworks; 4.3 Welcome to Class Files; 4.4 Using Xcode to Create DGCar Class Files; 4.5 Integrating the DGCar Class into Workbench; 4.6 Recap; Chapter 5: App Execution Flow; 5.1 Some C Language Roots in an iOS App; 5.2 An Introduction to Delegates; 5.3 iPhone App Development Design Patterns; 5.4 The Importance of Views; 5.5 Recap; Chapter 6: Central Objective-C Concepts: Pointers, Data Types, and Memory Management; 6.1 Pointers; 6.2 Data Typing; 6.3 Memory Management; 6.4 Recap; Chapter 7: C Language Fundamentals; 7.1 Variable Names; 7.2 Variable Scope; 7.3 Constant Values; 7.4 Functions; 7.5 C Structures; 7.6 C Arrays; 7.7 Enumerated Types; 7.8 Operators; 7.9 Program Flow Constructions; 7.10 Boolean Values; 7.11 Math Object Equivalents in C; 7.12 Inserting Comments; 7.13 Recap; Chapter 8: Objective-C/Cocoa Touch Fundamentals; 8.1 More About Classes; 8.2 Real Classes in Real Action; 8.3 Class Properties; 8.4 About NSString; 8.5 About NSArray; 8.6 About NSDictionary; 8.7 Arrays and Dictionaries in Action; 8.8 Recap; Chapter 9: Common JavaScript Tasks in Cocoa Touch; 9.1 Formatting Numbers for Display; 9.2 Creating a Date Object; 9.3 Calculating Dates; 9.4 Downloading Remote Files Asynchronously; 9.5 Reading and Writing Local Files; 9.6 Sorting Arrays; 9.7 Capturing User-Entered Text; 9.8 Validating Text Entry with Regular Expressions; 9.9 Using Regular Expressions for Text Search and Replace; 9.10 Dragging a View Around the Screen; 9.11 Recap; Getting the Most from Xcode Documentation; Common Beginner Xcode Compiler Errors; Error Messages; Warning Messages; Glossary; Colophon;