The Best Cocoa Framework Books of All Time

The best-selling introduction to Cocoa, once again updated to cover the latest Mac programming technologies, and still enthusiastically recommended by experienced Mac OS X developers. “Cocoa® Programming for Mac® OS X is considered by most to be the de-facto intro-to-OS X programming text.”. —Bob Rudis, the Apple Blog. “I would highly recommend this title to anyone interested in Mac development. Even if you own the previous edition, I think you’ll find the new and revised content well worth the price.”. —Bob McCune, bobmccune.com.

If you’re developing applications for Mac OS X, Cocoa® Programming for Mac® OS X, Fourth Edition,is the book you’ve been waiting to get your hands on. If you’re new to the Mac environment, it’s probably the book you’ve been told to read first. Covering the bulk of what you need to know to develop full-featured applications for OS X, written in an engaging tutorial style, and thoroughly class-tested to assure clarity and accuracy, it is an invaluable resource for any Mac programmer. Specifically, Aaron Hillegass and Adam Preble introduce the two most commonly used Mac developer tools: Xcode and Instruments. They also cover the Objective-C language and the major design patterns of Cocoa. Aaron and Adam illustrate their explanations with exemplary code, written in the idioms of the Cocoa community, to show you how Mac programs should be written. After reading this book, you will know enough to understand and utilize Apple’s online documentation for your own unique needs. And you will know enough to write your own stylish code. Updated for Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7, this fourth edition includes coverage of Xcode 4, blocks, view-based table views, Apple’s new approach to memory management (Automatic Reference Counting), and the Mac App Store. This edition adds a new chapter on concurrency and expands coverage of Core Animation. The book now devotes a full chapter to the basics of iOS development.

Covering the bulk of what you need to know to develop full-featured applications for OS X, this edition is updated for OS X Yosemite (10.10), Xcode 6, and Swift. Written in an engaging tutorial style and class-tested for clarity and accuracy, it is an invaluable resource for any Mac programmer. The authors introduce the two most commonly used Mac developer tools: Xcode and Instruments. They also cover the Swift language, basic application architecture, and the major design patterns of Cocoa. Examples are illustrated with exemplary code, written in the idioms of the Cocoa community, to show you how Mac programs should be written.

After reading this book, you will know enough to understand and utilize Apple’s online documentation for your own unique needs. And you will know enough to write your own stylish code. This edition was written for Xcode 6.3 and Swift 1.2. At WWDC 2015, Apple announced Xcode 7 and Swift 2, both of which introduce significant updates that (along with some changes to Cocoa for OS X 10.11) affect some of the exercises in this book. We have prepared a companion guide listing the changes needed to use Xcode 7 to work through the exercises in the book; it is available at https://github.com/bignerdranch/cocoa-programming-for-osx-5e/blob/master/Swift2.md.

Updated for OS X 10.9 Mavericks, iOS 7, and Xcode 5. Programming in Objective-C is a concise, carefully written tutorial on the basics of Objective-C and object-oriented programming for Apple's iOS and OS X platforms. The book makes no assumptions about prior experience with object-oriented programming languages or with the C language (which Objective-C is based upon). Because of this, both beginners and experienced programmers alike can use this book to quickly and effectively learn the fundamentals of Objective-C.

Readers can also learn the concepts of object-oriented programming without having to first learn all of the intricacies of the underlying C programming language. This unique approach to learning, combined with many small program examples and exercises at the end of each chapter, makes Programming in Objective-C ideally suited for either classroom use or self-study. This edition has been fully updated to incorporate new Objective-C features and technologies introduced with Xcode 5, iOS 7, and Mac OS X Mavericks. “The best book on any programming language that I’ve ever read. If you want to learn Objective-C, buy it.”―Calvin Wolcott. “An excellent resource for a new programmer who wants to learn Objective-C as their first programming language―a woefully underserved market.”―Pat Hughes.