Core Data

Now in Beta

Learn the Apple Core Data APIs from the ground up. You can concentrate on designing the model for your application, and use the power of Core Data to do the rest. This book will take you from beginning with Core Data through to expert level configurations that you will not find anywhere else.

Core Animation

Now in print and shipping

Have you seen Apple’s Front Row application and Cover Flow effects? Then you’ve seen Core Animation at work. It’s about making applications that give strong visual feedback through movement and morphing, rather than repainting panels. This comprehensive guide will get you up to speed quickly.

More from our Apple Orchard:


News from the Pragmatic Programmers

Greetings!

Fall is Apple-picking time, and we’ve got a lot of great Apple Mac OS X and iPhone goodies for you to pick from: books, betas, screencasts, and training courses. Core Data: Apple’s API for Persisting Data under Mac OS X is now available in beta, and Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces is now in print and shipping.

For those of you having trouble reading this email, this newsletter is available online at:

media.pragprog.com/newsletters/2008-10-29.html

Core Data, now in Beta

Core Data walks you through developing a full featured application based on the Mac OS X Core Data APIs. You’ll discover how Core Data contributes to Cocoa applications, as well as some of the pitfalls and issues surrounding the current implementation.

Core Data takes an unusual approach to explaining Core Data by focusing on a single application throughout the book. You’ll start by building an application from scratch and as you learn new principals and abilities of Core Data. We won’t gloss over any important details—you’ll get it all.

We’ll explore not only how to get everything working properly, but also how to take advantage of shortcuts thanks to the flexible and customizable nature of the API. By the end of Core Data, you’ll have built a full-featured application, gained a complete understanding of Core Data, and learned how to integrate our application into OS X.

Finally, at the end of the book you’ll see numerous recipes that are useful in non-mainstream situations, or even in places where you wouldn’t have thought to use Core Data before.

Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone, now in Print and Shipping

Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone: Creating Compelling Dynamic User Interfaces is now in print and shipping.

Mac OS X Leopard introduces a fantastic new technology that makes writing applications with animated and cinematic user interfaces much easier. We’ll explore this new technology by starting with the familiar concepts you already know from the pre-Leopard development kits.

Then we’ll see how they apply to the new frameworks and APIs. We’ll build on your existing knowledge of Cocoa and bring you efficiently up to speed on what Core Animation is all about.

With this book in hand, you can add Core Animation to your Cocoa applications, and make stunning user interfaces that your user’s will be showing off to their friends.

iPhone Screencasts

Have you ever wanted to watch over the shoulder of an expert as he builds an iPhone application? Well, now you can! We’ve produced a series of screencasts (video tutorials) titled Writing Your First iPhone Application. In these screencasts, you can follow along as Bill Dudney incrementally builds an application similar to the iPhone contacts manager.

You’ll learn, in a visual way, how to write a real iPhone application from scratch using Xcode, Interface Builder, and the iPhone SDK. Along the way, you’ll also learn how to streamline your development process and pick up various tricks of the trade.

To help you get started on the right foot, be sure to check out the 20-minute free episode, Getting Started with Xcode and Interface Builder. In that episode, Bill shows you how to build the simplest of iPhone apps (a Hello World app). More important, he shows you how it works—from how Nib files are loaded to wiring up interface controls, and all the way through a button push running code that you write.

You get approximately 3 hours of guided instruction by an iPhone development expert for only $25. These videos are DRM-free and available as both QuickTime and iPod/iPhone formats, so you can watch them when and where it’s convenient for you. All the source code is also available, and more iPhone screencasts are on the way!

Cocoa and iPhone Training

The Pragmatic Studio, our training company partner, is now offering hands-on developer workshops on Cocoa and iPhone taught by Pragmatic authors Daniel Steinberg and Bill Dudney. In these Studios, you’ll learn in a significantly different way than reading the books.

Studio is a highly collaborative learning environment with hands-on programming exercises, peer-to-peer discussions, and time to answer questions related to what you’ve read or heard. By attending a Studio you’ll get the most up-to-date developer training around. Both courses are being taught this fall in Denver, with more dates and locations to be announced soon.

Thanks for your continued support,

Andy & Dave
www.PragProg.com