Book I introduces you to the iPhone world and gives you the fundamental background that you need to develop iPhone applications. You find out what makes a great iPhone application, and how an iPhone application is structured. You also find out how to become an "official" iPhone developer and what you need to do in order to be able to distribute your applications through Apple's App Store. You find out how to download the Software Development Kit (SDK) — and then you unpack all the goodies contained therein, including Xcode (Apple's development environment for the OS X operating system) and Interface Builder. (You'll soon discover that the latter is more than your run-of-the-mill program for building graphical user interfaces.) I show how everything works together, which should give you a real feel for how an iPhone application works.

Book II gives you a rundown on everything you need to know about Objective-C to write iPhone applications. Its focus is on the right way to structure your application — what's known as the program architecture. Having the right architecture results in an application that not only works but also can be extended to add new functionality (relatively) easily. And not only that, it enables you to easily track down and fix those pesky bugs that make their home in everyone's apps. I also show you how to deal with the mundane, but necessary, plumbing issues such as memory management and object initialization. You even find out some of the tricks that programmers use to extend frameworks to offer highly specific functionality.

With Objective-C basics behind you and a good understanding of the iPhone application architecture under your belt, it's finally time to have some fun doing something useful. In this minibook, I show you how to create an application that is simple enough to understand and yet demonstrates enough of the building blocks for creating a sophisticated app. I show you how an app fits into the user SDK-supplied frameworks that do all of the user interface heavy lifting on the iPhone. And because you design the app the right way from the start, you can plug it into the user interface with minimal effort by creating the interface in the Interface Builder (part of the SDK) and adding a few lines of code. No sweat, no bother. Putting this handy little app together will give you some practice at creating a useful utility application that allows your application's users to add preferences and settings. It's a great application to learn about iPhone development — it has enough features to be useful as an example, but simple enough not to make your head explode.

Bugs can show up in your application in different forms and wreak different kinds of havoc with your programming efforts. As the nearly immortal Mr. Spock (the one from the planet Vulcan) once said, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." And if Spock ever heard about Murphy's Law (that anything that could go wrong will go wrong), he'd probably reply, "Fascinating!" And yet, debugging is not considered fascinating — often it's something to put off until later, after the warnings and error messages pile up. (Perhaps you recall the classic Star Trek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles.") This book sets you on the illuminated path of self-debugging. You find out how to recognize bugs in the Xcode editor and, most importantly, what to do about them. You get all the details about how to use the Debugger to track bugs, how to set breakpoints in your code to stop execution and examine the gory details, how to detect memory leaks, and how to fine-tune your app with the Instruments application.

Book V introduces you to an iPhone application that contains lots and lots of functionality you can borrow for your app. I show you how to design an application with lots of data, views, and access to the Web. I don't go slogging through every detail, but I demonstrate almost all the technology you need to master if you're going to create a compelling application like this on your own. I also touch on a few advanced topics, such as creating self-configuring objects so you don't find your classes multiplying like rabbits.

Book VI shows you how to deal with data using property lists, the URL Loading System, and Core Data. You learn how to download data for your app from a Web server, so you can update the data at any time and add new information. You also get an in-depth look at using dictionaries to hold property list objects and application objects. This minibook also takes you on a march through an array using a new language feature of Objective-C 2.0 called fast enumeration — starting at the first data element and returning each element for processing — which is an essential function of many applications.

Book VII takes the RoadTrip app out to the ever-expanding galaxy of iPhone functionality. You find out how to use data from the Contacts app in your app, display the standard e-mail view inside your app to manage editing and sending e-mails, and Core Location to find out exactly where the iPhone is located. At the end of this minibook, you should be ready to go out and conquer the world with your app.

Because the application I develop in Books V–VII has lots of functionality, I won't be able to show you of all of the code in each of the books. But have no fear, because the listings for each minibook are available at www.dummies.com/go/iphoneappdevaio as well as on Neal's Web site at www.nealgoldstein.com.

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