Difference between revisions of "About iPad iOS 6 Development Essentials"

Revision as of 21:13, 5 December 2012

In July of 2012, Apple released financial results for the previous quarter. Included in the information provided was the fact that Apple has, to date, paid out over $5.5 billion to third-party developers selling applications on the iOS App Store. At the launch of the iPad Mini in October 2012, Apple also revealed that total sales of the iPad now exceed 100 million units. When the latest iPad and iPad Mini went on sale shortly after the launch event, Apple sold 3 million devices in the first weekend alone. The iPad is, by just about any measure, an enormous success. This success translates into a vast potential marketplace for those willing to invest the time and effort into developing compelling and high quality applications. The goal of this book is to make it possible for you to stake a claim in this new and rapidly growing market.

The iOS 6 SDK

When details of iOS 6 were first announced at the Apple World Wide Development Conference in June, 2012 it seemed, on the surface at least, that the iOS 5 edition of this book would not need to be significantly updated for iOS 6. After gaining access to the pre-release versions of the iOS 6 SDK and working with the new features, however, it quickly became clear that whilst there are areas that have not changed since iOS 5, there is much more to the new features of iOS 6 than it had at first appeared. In actual fact, 23 new chapters had to be written to cover the new features of iOS 6 and every code example updated to reflect the changes made to Objective-C.

How you make use of this book will depend to a large extent on whether you are new to iOS development, or have worked with iOS 5 and need to get up to speed on the features of iOS 6. Rest assured, however, that the book is intended to address both category of reader.

For New iOS Developers

If you are entirely new to iOS development then the entire contents of the book will be relevant to you.

Beginning with the basics, this book provides an outline of the steps necessary to set up an iOS development environment. An introduction to the architecture of iOS 6 and programming in Objective-C is provided, followed by an in-depth look at the design of iPad applications and user interfaces. More advanced topics such as file handling, database management, in-app purchases, graphics drawing and animation are also covered, as are touch screen handling, gesture recognition, multitasking, iAds integration, location management, local notifications, camera access and video and audio playback support. New iOS 6 specific features are also covered including Auto Layout, Twitter and Facebook integration, event reminders, App Store hosted in-app purchase content, collection views and much more.

The aim of this book, therefore, is to teach you the skills necessary to build your own apps for the iPad. Assuming you are ready to download the iOS 6 SDK and Xcode, have an Intel-based Mac and some ideas for some apps to develop, you are ready to get started.

For iOS 5 Developers

If you have already read iPad iOS 5 Development Essentials, or have experience with the iOS 5 SDK then you might prefer to go directly to the new chapters in this iOS 6 edition of the book. As previously mentioned, if you have already read iPad iOS 5 Development Essentials, you will find no fewer than 23 new chapters in this latest edition.

Chapters included in this edition that were not contained in the previous edition are as follows:

• The Basics of Modern Objective-C (iPad)
• An Introduction to iPad Auto Layout in iOS 6
• Working with iPad iOS 6 Auto Layout Constraints in Interface Builder
• An iPad iOS 6 Auto Layout Example
• Implementing iPad iOS 6 Auto Layout Constraints in Code
• Implementing iPad Cross-Hierarchy Auto Layout Constraints in iOS 6
• Understanding the iPad iOS 6 Auto Layout Visual Format Language
• An Overview of iPad iOS 6 Collection View and Flow Layout
• An iPad iOS 6 Storyboard-based Collection View Tutorial
• Subclassing and Extending the iPad iOS 6 Collection View Flow Layout
• An Overview of iPad iOS 6 Application State Preservation and Restoration
• An iOS 6 iPad State Preservation and Restoration Tutorial
• Integrating Maps into iPad iOS 6 Applications using MKMapItem
• An Example iOS 6 iPad MKMapItem Application
• Using iOS 6 Event Kit to Create iPad Date and Location Based Reminders
• Integrating Twitter and Facebook into iPad iOS 6 Applications
• An iPad iOS 6 Facebook Integration Tutorial using UIActivityViewController
• iPad iOS 6 Facebook and Twitter Integration using SLRequest
• Making Store Purchases with the SKStoreProductViewController Class (iPad)
• Building In-App Purchasing into iPad iOS 6 Applications
• Preparing an iPad iOS 6 Application for In-App Purchases
• An iPad iOS 6 In-App Purchase Tutorial
• Configuring and Creating App Store Hosted Content for iPad iOS 6 In-App Purchases

In addition, the chapter entitled Using Xcode Storyboarding with iOS 6 (iPad) has been updated to include coverage of the new segue unwinding feature of iOS 6 and An Overview of iPad iOS 6 Table Views and Xcode Storyboards has been modified to introduce the new iOS 6 model for reusing Table View cells.

Finally, all the code examples have been updated to reflect the changes to Objective-C including the removal of the viewDidUnload: method, literal syntax for number, array and dictionaries and default property synthesis.

Source Code Download

The source code and Xcode project files for the examples contained in this book are available for download at http://www.ebookfrenzy.com/code/ipadios6.zip.

Errata

Whilst we make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the content of this book, it is inevitable that a book covering a subject area of this size and complexity may include some errors and oversights. Any known issues with the book will be outlined, together with solutions at the following URL:

http://www.ebookfrenzy.com/errata/ipad_ios6.html