I like this book a lot. It is written in a very clear cookbook style, with 12 major chapters and well over 100 individual recipes, each one-to-five pages long. Each recipe includes clear code snippets, and the full source code is available on GitHub. (Unfortunately, a typographical error in the book points the reader to the wrong repository, one for another of the author’s books. She has placed a forwarding link near the start of that repo’s readme file, but it is still momentarily confusing. I can only hope and assume that the book’s next edition will fix this error.)

The division of code between the book and online is done very nicely. The book contains enough to enable the developer to quickly copy the relevant lines into his application, while the GitHub repository wraps the code with the basic graphical user interface (GUI), error checking, and app scaffolding needed to run each recipe as a standalone app.

The recipes are in these general areas:

• device-specific information (model type, orientation, external screens, and so on);
• document and data sharing;
• core text (strings, fonts, and attributes);
• geometry (drawing, viewing, velocity, and so on);
• networking (security, servers, and OAuth);
• images (image processing and display);
• camera (photos, flash, face detection, sampling, and so on);
• audio (playing, looping, recording, and picking);
• address book (viewing, filtering, and modifying);
• location (geocoding, directions, and map annotation);
• Game Kit (Game Center and multiplayer support);
• Store Kit (purchases, receipts, and testing); and
• push notification (provisioning/registration, clients, and sending notifications).

While it is unlikely that any individual user will need all of these recipes, this book will pay for itself very quickly if you need even one or two of them. It is fairly easy to find what you are looking for in this book, since it has a relatively complete index and the table of contents is very well laid out, with the division into chapters aiding the search.

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