Can anyone recommend a complete ObjC/Cocoa or Cocoa-Touch tutorial?

Question

I went though "Become an Xcoder", which was very useful, but it ended very abruptly, just as I started to understand about ObjC's syntax, and about Inlets/Outlets and such in Interface Builder.

I've looked around, and found a bunch of tutorials that cover writing an application, but these either seem to be "Open Interface Builder, add a text label, change the text and click Run", or "Open IB, add this, this and this, add these inlets/outlets. Now here is a hundred lines of ObjC to copy and paste. Click compile and you're done". There was no middle ground.

Basically, I would love a tutorial that actually shows how you arrive at the end code, and shows how to make something beyond "Hello world".

Ideally it would be centered around the iPhone Cocoa Touch stuff (but there will be far more Cocoa tutorials around, and the two systems are pretty similar) - either would be incredibly useful!

(Please don't discuss the iPhone-SDK NDA. It's really not intended to prevent bloggers and such posting tutorials..)

[Update] I bought the Aaron Hillegass/Cocoa Programming book. It's extremely useful, and is very relevant to iPhone programming - for one, none of the code in the book depends on the ObjC2.0 garbage collection which is the biggest difference between programming for the phone vs regular Cocoa.

Answer 1

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7571/cocoa-and-objective-c-resources

Personally, I recommend the Hillegass book. You can stop about halfway through if you are more interested in Cocoa Touch than OS X desktop apps.

Answer 2

O'Reilly has a good book - it's a little way down on this list from Amazon This list has grown significantly since I last looked - wish I had more input.

Answer 3

Here's an extensive Objective C tutorial: http://www.otierney.net/objective-c.html.

Answer 4

I second the recommendation for the Hillegass book for Cocoa (haven't found a great resource for touch yet, as I haven't progressed that far.)

The Apple Objective-C documentation has been very good for me as well: The Objective-C 2.0 Programming Language

Answer 5

Here's a nicely written quickstart guide for C programmers - http://cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec/

Answer 6

Scott Stevenson has a lot of good Cocoa tutorials on CocoaDevCentral.

Of course these cover Cocoa, not Cocoa Touch, because the latter is under NDA.

Answer 7

You should not suppose (if you were) that using IB is not "the end code." Although everything IB does could be done with explicit Cocoa calls, the dynamic linkage to the IB bundles is a real part of the system model, not just some sort of "training wheels."

I have found Hillegass' book to work on all three essential levels:

• cut-and-paste "sorcerer's apprentice magic"
• explanation of why the cut-and-paste stuff works
• reference to learn/recall the two or three bits that enable you to do something new or bigger

Answer 8

iPhone SDK Articles really got me started with iphone dev. Sadly no updates during the last couple of weeks.

Lessons from Molecules for those new to OpenGL on the iPhone

The IPhone's gaming mettle describes the hardware of the iPhone

Answer 9

It seems that there are iPhone books ready to be published, however they seem to be held up by Apple's NDA.

As an aside, I've been looking forward to this book for some time as well: Core Animation

Answer 10

The "Hello World"-style tutorial provided in the Dev Center seems to be closer to the middle ground that you seek, even if you say you don't want a "Hello World" example:

Your First iPhone Application

It strives to illustrate the fundamentals of all Cocoa development using as few lines of code as possible. It also provides explanations throughout of why the code is written as it is (and sometimes provides alternatives), and gives numerous references to background material.

Answer 11

Here's a great tutorial on How to build an RSS reader

Also, the Hillegass book is one of the best books on Cocoa.

Answer 12

Use http://www.iPhoneKicks.com (links site) this is just a bookmarking site. But you can find best tutorial links for iPhone SDK development.

Answer 13

This is another vote for Hillegass' book, I've read each of the three editions and they're all good. It's one of the most relevant Cocoa tutorials too.

Answer 14

The course materials for Stanford's CS193P course, "iPhone Application Programming" are all online for free here. I'm currently working my way through the lessons, and I'm finding the class assignments very valuable indeed.

Answer 15

I'm also liking the Stanford CS193P class. I've made it through the first four lectures and the introductory assignments. What I like about the class, compared to the the books, is that it gives you a nice foundation on Obj-C before getting into interface builder/Cocoa.

Additionally, the homework assignments are very well thought-out. They do a terrific job giving you tasks that are just outside of the scope of what they've lectured on, causing you to have to read the documentation.

Answer 16

iTunes U, iPhone Application Programming

The video from the CS193P class.

Answer 17

I really love this beginner's tutorial by Andy Matuschak, the author of Sparkle:

Getting Started With Cocoa: A friendlier approach

Answer 18

refer this site www.mayurdharukiya.com