The iPhone Developer's Cookbook

Erica Sadun has written, coauthored, and contributed to about three dozen books about technology, particularly in the areas of programming, digital video, and digital photography. An unrepentant geek, Sadun has never met a gadget she didn’t need. Her checkered past includes run-ins with NeXT, Newton, iPhone, and myriad successful and unsuccessful technologies. When not writing, she and her geek husband parent three adorable geeks-in-training, who regard their parents with restrained bemusement.

    Preface xvii

    Acknowledgments xxi

    About the Author xxii

 

1 Introducing the iPhone SDK 1



    Apple’s iPhone SDK 1

    Assembling iPhone Projects 2

    iPhone Application Components 4

        Application Folder Hierarchy 4

        The Executable 4

        The Info.plist File 4

        The Icon and Default Images 6

        XIB (NIB) files 6

        Files Not Found in the Application Bundle 7

        Sandboxes 7

    Platform Limitations 8

        Storage Limits 8

        Data Access Limits 8

        Memory Limits 8

        Interaction Limits 9

        Energy Limits 9

        Application Limits 9

        User Behavior Limits 10

    SDK Limitations 10

    Programming Paradigms 11

        Object-Oriented Programming 11

        Model-View-Controller 11

    Building an iPhone Application Skeleton 18

    The Hello World Application 19

        The Classes 19

        The Code 20

        A Note About Sample Code and Memory Management 20

    Building Hello World 23

        Create an iPhone Project 23

        Running the Skeleton 24

        Customize the iPhone Project 24

        Editing Identification Information 25

        Using the Debugger 26

    Apple’s iPhone Developer Program 28

        Development Phones 28

        Application Identifiers 29

    From Xcode to Your iPhone: The Organizer Interface 30

        Projects and Sources List 30

        Devices List 31

        Summary Tab 31

        Console Tab 31

        Crash Logs Tab 31

        Screenshot Tab 32

        About Tethering 32

        Testing Applications on Your iPhone 32

        Compiling for Distribution 33

    Using Undocumented API Calls 34

    Ad Hoc Distribution 35

    Summary 36

 

2 Views 37

    UIView and UIWindow 37

        Hierarchy 37

        Geometry and Traits 39

        Gestures 42

    Recipe: Adding Stepwise Subviews 42

        Reorienting 44

    Recipe: Dragging Views 45

        UITouch 46

        Adding Persistence 48

    Recipe: Clipped Views 51

        Balancing Touches with Clipping 53

        Accessing Pixel-by-Pixel Values 54

    Recipe: Detecting Multitouch 56

    UIView Animations 59

        Building UIView Animation Blocks 59

    Recipe: Fading a View In and Out 60

    Recipe: Swapping Views 62

    Recipe: Flipping Views 64

    Recipe: Applying CATransitions to Layers 66

        Undocumented Animation Types 67

        General Core Animation Calls 68

    Recipe: Swiping Views 69

    Recipe: Transforming Views 72

        Centering Landscape Views 74

    Summary 74

 

3 View Controllers 77

    View Management 77

        Core Classes 77

        Specialized Classes 78

        Creating a UIViewController 79

    Working with Interface Builder to Build Views for

    UIViewControllers 81

        Temperature Conversion Example 81

        Loading XIB Files Directly 90

    Navigation Controllers 91

        Setting Up a Navigation Controller 91

        Pushing and Popping View Controllers 92

        The Navigation Item Class 92

    Recipe: Building a Simple Two-Item Menu 93

    Recipe: Adding a Segmented Control 95

    Recipe: Adding a UIToolbar to a Navigation Bar 97

    Recipe: Navigating Between View Controllers 100

        Popping Back to the Root 102

        Loading a View Controller Array 102

    Tab Bars 103

    Summary 106

 

4 Alerting Users 107

    Talking Directly to Your User Through Alerts 107

        Logging Your Results 108

        Building Alerts 109

        Displaying the Alert 110

    Recipe: Creating Multiline Button Displays 110

    Recipe: Autotimed No-Button Alerts 112

    Recipe: Soliciting Text Input from the User 113

    Recipe: Presenting Simple Menus 115

    “Please Wait”: Showing Progress to Your User 117

    Recipe: Invoking the Basic Undocumented UIProgressHUD 117

    Recipe: Using UIActivityIndicatorView 119

    Recipe: Building a UIProgressView 121

    Recipe: Adding Custom, Tappable Overlays 123

    Recipe: Building a Scroll-Down Alert 127

    Recipe: Adding Status Bar Images 131

    Adding Application Badges 132

    Recipe: Simple Audio Alerts 134

        Vibration 136

    Summary 136

 

5 Basic Tables 139

    Introducing UITableView and UITableViewController 139

        Creating the Table 140

        What the UITableViewController Does 141

    Recipe: Creating a Simple List Table 142

        Data Source Functions 142

        Reusing Cells 143

        Font Table Sample 143

    Recipe: Creating a Table-Based Selection Sheet 145

    Recipe: Loading Images into Table Cells 149

    Recipe: Setting a Cell’s Text Traits 151

    Removing Cell Selections 152

    Recipe: Creating Complex Cells 153

    Recipe: Creating Checked Selections 155

    Recipe: Deleting Cells 157

        Creating and Displaying Remove Controls 157

        Dismissing Remove Controls 158

        Handling Delete Requests 158

        Swiping Cells 158

        Adding Cells 159

    Recipe: Reordering Cells 161

    Recipe: Working with Disclosures 162

    Summary 164

     

6 Advanced Tables 165

    Recipe: Grouping Table Selections 165

        Building a Section-Based Data Source 166

        Adding Section Headers 170

    Recipe: Building a Section Table with an Index 171

    Recipe: Custom Cell Backgrounds 172

        Customizing the Table View 176

    Recipe: Creating Alternate Blue and White Cells 177

    Recipe: Framing Tables 179

    Recipe: Adding Coupled Cell Controls 180

    Recipe: Building a Multiwheel Table 182

        Creating the UIPickerView 183

    Recipe: Using the UIDatePicker 186

        Creating the Date Picker 186

    Recipe: Creating Fully Customized Group Tables 189

        Creating Grouped Preferences Tables 189

    Summary 195

 

7 Media 197

    Recipe: Browsing the Documents Folder by File Type 197

        Locating Documents 198

    Loading and Viewing Images 200

    Recipe: Displaying Small Images 201

    Recipe: Using a UIWebView to Display Images 203

        Displaying Web Pages with UIWebView 205

    Recipe: Browsing Your Image Library 206

    Recipe: Selecting and Customizing Images from the Camera Roll 209

    Recipe: Snapping Pictures with the iPhone Camera 212

    Working with iPhone Audio 214

    Recipe: Playing Audio with Celestial 215

    Recipe: Using the Media Player for Audio and Video Playback 217

    Recipe: Recording Audio 219

    Reading in Text Data 227

        Displaying Property Lists 227

    Recovering Media from Backup Files 228

    Summary 229

 

8 Controls 231

    Recipe: Building Simple Buttons 231

        The UIButton class 232

        Building Custom Buttons 233

        Glass Buttons 236

    Recipe: Adding Animated Elements to Buttons 236

    Recipe: Animating Button Responses 238

    Recipe: Customizing Switches 239

        Customizing UIAlertView Buttons 241

    Recipe: Adding Custom Slider Thumbs 242

        Adding Text to the Slider 246

    Recipe: Dismissing a UITextField Keyboard 246

    Recipe: Dismissing UITextView Keyboards 248

    Recipe: Adding an Undo Button to Text Views 250

    Recipe: Creating a Text View—Based HTML Editor 253

    Recipe: Building an Interactive Search Bar 255

    Recipe: Adding Callout Views 258

    Adding a Page Indicator Control 260

    Recipe: Customizing Toolbars 263

        Toolbar Tips 266

    Summary 267

 

9 People, Places, and Things 269

    Address Book Frameworks 269

        Address Book UI 269

        Address Book 270

    Recipe: Accessing Address Book Image Data 271

    Recipe: Displaying Address Book Information 273

    Recipe: Browsing the Address Book 274

        Browsing for (Only) E-Mail Addresses 277

        Adding New Contacts 277

    Core Location 278

        How Core Location Works 278

    Recipe: Core Location in a Nutshell 280

    Recipe: Reverse Geocoding to an Address 283

    Recipe: Accessing Maps Using Core Location Data 286

    Recipe: Accessing Core Device Information 288

    Recipe: Enabling and Disabling the Proximity Sensor 289

    Recipe: Using Acceleration to Locate “Up” 290

    Recipe: Using Acceleration to Move Onscreen Objects 292

    Summary 295

 

10 Connecting to Services 297

    Recipe: Adding Custom Settings Bundles 297

        Declaring Application Settings 297

    Recipe: Subscribing Applications to Custom URL Schemes 302

    Recipe: Checking Your Network Status 304

        Testing the Network Status 304

        Recovering a Local IP Address 305

        Querying Site IP Addresses 306

        Checking Site Availability 307

    Recipe: Interacting with iPhone Databases 308

    Recipe: Converting XML into Trees 311

    Recipe: Storing and Retrieving Keychain Items 313

            Storing Multiple Keychain Values 318

            Keychain Persistence 319

    Sending and Receiving Files 320

    Recipe: Building a Simple Web-Based Server 321

    Push Notifications 325

    Summary 326

 

11 One More Thing: Programming Cover Flow 327

    The UICoverFlowLayer Class 327

    Building a Cover Flow View 329

    Building a Cover Flow View Controller 331

        Cover Flow Data Source Methods 332

        Cover Flow Delegate Methods 333

    Summary 336

 

Index 357