Good way to start developing for iPhone, given some experience in Cocoa on Mac

Question

Hi,

I have some experience of Objective-C/Cocoa programming on Mac and I'd like to start developing for iPhone/iPad with UIKit. (I just paid $99 to the mother ship.) What would be a nice way to start? I'd like to have your suggestions/recommendations. More specifically,

• Which book I should buy? Is there a nice book contrasting AppKit/UIKit differences?
• What are the most common pitfalls in UIKit for an AppKit programmer?

Please note I'm not asking what would be the best for a total newcomer to the Objective-C/Cocoa world. Maybe I should start humbly and start from scratch, but the general question of how to start programming for iPhone would be a duplicate here in SO :p

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I would get Beginning iPhone Development by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche. It might be a little slow for you, but you could always skim through it.

Answer 2

I'd recommend any of the following

• iPhone Developer Cookbook - Erica Sadun,
• iPhone SDK Programming - Bill Dudney
• iPhone Advanced Projects - (Assorted authors), published by Apress

Answer 3

The CS193P course on iTunesU gives you a good overview (iTunes Link). The first couple may be a bit slow for you if you have come Cocoa & Objective C but the rest should get you up and running.

Answer 4

The most common pitfall is to expect the iPhone to be able to do anything a regular computer can.

It can't. There are a lot of innocent, reasonable tasks that are rendered impossible by sandboxing, API design choices and the review process. In other words, the answer to "Can I do X on the iPhone?" is often "No". Do your research before embarking on an ambitious project.