This book is excellent. The explanations are short and very clear. The author makes cocoa really easy to learn, step by step. There are good and instructive exercices he calls challenges.
You can really get to work right after reading this book and completing the so called challenges. And it will certainly be a handy reference book.
A must have.

It's the best book i know for programming on Mac OSX !

Thanks from Berlin Germany !

Honestly, I was quite apprehensive because I'm a newbie to programming, with just a passing knowledge of Objective-C (gained from online resources). However, after going through 80% of the book (and looking forward to the next few chapters), I can say that this is definitely a great resource for any beginner who wants to learn how to write Cocoa programs. At the same time, concepts which I first found difficult to comprehend in Apple's online documentation became much easier to understand after they were discussed in the book.

IMHO, anyone interested to become a Mac developer should read this amazing book + Apple's great online documentation. I guess the only way to improve it would be to include sections on iPhone development for the 4th edition. Thanks for a great book Mr. Hillegass, and for making Cocoa fun to learn! =)

The author is probably the only professional Cocoa instructor, and if not the only, at least the one that's been so the longest. As such, his book is absolutely amazing. The instruction takes you through everything you need to know to start writing your own Cocoa applications. The pace in which he introduces topics is just right. It's structured to make you question things, then he immediately answers any question you might have had. And by the end of the book, you're also taught how to teach yourself anything else you may find yourself needing to know about the Cocoa frameworks. The beginning of the book is also a great crash course in Objective-C, that is, if you already know another OO-language. This gets my highest review, a first for an instructional material.

A great book to get used to mac programming using ObjC and cocoa. A building stone before being thrown in the forums and other dedicated sites (including exhaustive Apple documentation).

Really a great book when you aim to develop applications on the mac platform. Of course this book is not perfect (too short probably, some part should be developped, ...) but remains nonetheless the best book (and the only one updated for MacOS 10.5) on the subject available to date.

I've been programming for over 15 years and I wanted to start programming for both the MacOS and iPhone so I needed a good starting point. I've read a few others books on this subject but I was eagerly awaiting the release of this edition(3rd) for the updated sections on XCode and Objective-C 2.0. Definatly the best book on the subject. If you want to learn mac programming and iphone programming(pretty similar) this book will get you started. The one major thing I didn't like(personally but it might help others) was the fact that the same app was used for the second half of the book, I usually don't like when authors do that because it makes it impossible to jump around the book.

Who this book is for:
- People who understand the fundamentals of programming.
- People who want to start programming on the MacOS or iPhoneOS.
- People with zero or very little experience with Mac programming

Who this book is NOT for:
- People without any programming experience. The book does not explain what an array is or how memory works;both of which are needed if you're going to be a serious programmer. If you want to start programming on the Mac get a 'C' basics book first to get the fundamentals down first.
- People with Mac experience might find this book slow all though it does offer new stuff it's bloated with "Begginer" info.

If you have zero programming experience whatsoever and want to dip your toes in the shallow end of the Cocoa pool then I can see how picking this book up might seem like a watershed experience for you. Aside from that, I'm not sure who its target audience is as there is little congruence between its accolades and its content.

There is nothing, repeat, NOTHING, in here that is not in Apple's free tutorials and documentation. While I too strongly prefer physical objects I can hold and highlight to web pages on a screen, the fact that you get little more than a brief glance at what little material is actually covered will drive you to the electronic docs in the end anyway. What was the point again? Oh, right, Hillegass needs money since he's not really producing marketable software anywhere that I can see.

I was "taught" Cocoa by former NeXT employees much like Mr. Hillegass while doing time at Apple, and while none of them wore goofy looking hats in order to assert their wholly contrived notions of in-your-face individuality, all of the expats I encountered shared some uncannily common traits:

1. They'd never actually used OS X let alone written any commercial software for it, yet there they were telling Mac developers how to do their jobs. I'm sure this has changed since then and at least a few of them have actually had an opportunity to use a Mac once or twice.

2. They don't like learning anything new and will vehemently defend the quality of any random piece of garbage they wrote back in 1988 regardless of how terrible it is.

3. Any time their code is actually proven to be terrible they will fall back on the "fixing it now would be impossible because I'm the only one who really understands it and I don't have time" method of preserving job security.

4. They (not so) secretly think they're better than anyone at Apple who didn't come over on the buyout Mayflower despite the fact that their company and all of its products failed miserably.

I won't say that any of the code in here is downright terrible--while it does tend to lack any notion of error handling, very little of it actually DOES anything so how bad can it be?--but I will say that the UIs Hillegass slaps together violate both Apple HIG and common sense in more ways than you could ever want to shake a stick at, making me wonder whether he's still too busy raging against the machine to follow any pesky "rules" or just legally blind.

While this level of slop might be perfectly excusable in a teenager's blog about TkInter or something, the post-buyout Interface Builder draws all these pretty blue lines on the screen for you so you know when window elements are properly aligned; lines which you really have to go out of your way to ignore. You're not putting on a slideshow for a bunch of guys from a Bangalorean trade school here, you're preparing materials for publication in a book you plan on charging a lot of money for. How about you at least pretend to care for showmanship's sake rather than foster horrendously bad habits amongst those who mysteriously find you worthy of emulation? Writing a lame, overpriced book certainly isn't a crime, but this one in particular can be directly blamed for much of the nonsense that makes every Cocoa-centric mailing list and discussion board completely unreadable due to the manner in which both it and its author are marketed.

And as for that exciting all new material in the exciting all new 3rd edition, it's like a really, really bad joke (not to be confused with the numerous other really, really bad jokes which liberally pepper Hillegass' prose [yeah you're no Elaine Boosler there, buddy]). Especially the chapter on CoreAnimation which will teach you nothing more than the fact that there's a class called CALayer that can maybe do some kinda cool stuff if you can manage to think up a slightly less contrived example than the author did after spending what must have been nearly 10 minutes pilfering Apple's documentation (did I mention that it's free yet? Because it is.).

Now I do have to admit that I am truly envious of Mr. Hillegass' ability to schmooze so effectively that lazy people actually believe his watered down version of the information they all have sitting right in front of them is worth its weight in gold. The day he writes a book on exploiting others' weaknesses for profit I'll be the first in line to buy a signed copy because I have absolutely none of these clearly valuable people skills. Until then I would suggest that he focus on taking his final challenge himself and produce a brand new Cocoa application that other people actually use if he wants to be seen as an authority figure on the subject. WebObjects doesn't count.

If you have zero programming experience whatsoever and want to dip your toes in the shallow end of the Cocoa pool then I can see how picking this book up might seem like a watershed experience for you. Aside from that, I'm not sure who its target audience is.

There is nothing, repeat, NOTHING, in here that is not in Apple's free tutorials and documentation. While I too strongly prefer physical objects I can hold and highlight to web pages on a screen, the fact that you get little more than a brief glance at what little material is actually covered will drive you to the electronic docs in the end anyway. What was the point again? Oh, right, Hillegass needs money since he's not really producing marketable software anywhere that I can see.

I was "taught" Cocoa by former NeXT employees much like Mr. Hillegass while doing time at Apple, and while none of them wore goofy looking hats in order to assert their wholly contrived notions of in-your-face individuality, all of the expats I encountered shared some uncannily common traits:

1. They'd never actually used OS X let alone written any commercial software for it, yet there they were telling Mac developers how to do their jobs. I'm sure this has changed since then and at least a few of them have actually had an opportunity to use a Mac once or twice.

2. They don't like learning anything new and will vehemently defend the quality of any random piece of garbage they wrote back in 1988 regardless of how terrible it is.

3. Any time their code is actually proven to be terrible they will fall back on the "fixing it now would be impossible because I'm the only one who really understands it and I don't have time" method of preserving job security.

4. They (not so) secretly think they're better than anyone at Apple who didn't come over on the buyout Mayflower despite the fact that their company and all of its products failed miserably.

Now I won't say that any of the code in here is downright terrible--very little of it actually DOES anything so how bad can it be?--but I will say that the UIs Hillegass slaps together violate both Apple HIG and common sense, making me wonder if he isn't in fact legally blind. While this level of slop might be excusable with other tools, Interface Builder draws pretty blue lines on the screen for you so you know when window elements are properly aligned; lines which you really have to go out of your way to ignore. You're not putting on a slideshow for a bunch of guys from a Bangalorean trade school here, you're preparing materials for publication in a book you plan on charging a lot of money for. How about you at least pretend to care for showmanship's sake rather than foster horrendously bad habits amongst those who mysteriously find you worthy of emulation? I personally blame this book for much of the nonsense that makes every Cocoa-centric mailing list and discussion board completely unreadable.

And as for that exciting all new material in the exciting all new 3rd edition, it's like a really, really bad joke (not to be confused with the numerous other really, really bad jokes which liberally pepper Hillegass' prose [yeah you're no Elaine Boosler there, buddy]). Especially the chapter on CoreAnimation which will teach you nothing more than the fact that there's a class called CALayer that can maybe do some kinda cool stuff if you can manage to think up a slightly less contrived example than the author did after spending what must have been nearly 10 minutes pilfering Apple's documentation (did I mention that it's free yet? Because it is.).

Now I do have to admit that I am truly envious of Mr. Hillegass' ability to schmooze so effectively that lazy people actually believe his watered down version of the information they all have sitting right in front of them is worth its weight in gold. The day he writes a book on exploiting others' weaknesses for profit I'll be the first in line to buy a signed copy because I have absolutely none of these valuable people skills. Until then I would suggest that he focus on taking his final challenge himself and produce a brand new Cocoa application that other people actually use if he wants to be seen as an authority figure on the subject. WebObjects doesn't count.

I was first introduced to the world of COCOA and Objective C programming in Aaron Hillegass' second edition and have been looking forward to the third edition for new material on Xcode 3, Objective-C 2 and Core Animation, etc. I was not disappointed.

The third edition has retained the best of the 2nd edition and adds valuable new material on all the essential topics. Well done Aaron! I'd love to attend one of your courses at BNR ( [...] ) but your new book is the next best thing :)

I am just starting on Cocoa programming and Objective-C and Aaron's book is one very useful guide. I recommend it 100% to everyone who wants to learn fast.

This book is a great book for teaching beginners Cocoa. It gives a broad overview of the development environment and strategies. The updated material for the third edition probably isn't enough to warrant the purchase if you've read the previous versions though. If you are already an advanced developer, you probably won't learn too much new here either.

If you're new to OS/X development, a bit of search will quickly point to this book as the definitive resource for learning Cocoa programming. Having purchased it, I understand why. The book definitely meets all my expectations. It's not meant to be a reference (for that go the Apple's developer site), it takes you through most of the basic Cocoa features and techniques in a very well laid out manner. The 2nd edition was already renowned, so will be the 3rd.

I've gone over the previous revision to this book, and while I did find it the best book on Cocoa/ObjC, I still felt like the Mac world kept moving forward while the book was left behind - things changed too much, and some things were not relevant anymore. These are obviously, things that were introduced in Leopard, but even Tiger features didn't always look the same (interface builder screenshots for example).

This third edition is a massive update to virtually any aspect of the topics being covered. From the garbage collector, to CoreData, to CoreAnimation, properties, Objective C 2.0 in general - It's all there.

Hillegass goes a great length to try to explain the "Why?" and not just the "How?". This is very important if you want to turn a developer into a creative spirit and not just a dumb robot.

All in all, this is a must-have for any new/slightly experienced Cocoa developer. Amazon has a terrific price on it too, so the deal is actually sweeter.

I found this book to be an ideal technical book - I actually sat and read it from cover to cover in one sitting.

The depth is just right, and the topics that I was having difficulty with were well explained.

I have been recommending this book to all the interested programmers I know.

I must admit that I never actually finish many technical books. They typically run out of steam and are rife with filler material.

I can honestly say that I eagerly did every exercise and challenge in this book. The level was perfect for someone like me who has dabbled in Cocoa but never really taken the time to learn it.

While I don't feel that I am a proficient Cocoa developer just yet, I do feel confident that I armed with the knowledge to figure out most problems.

Thanks Aaron for a great book.

This book is great for the beginner, or those who have been out of the Cocoa game for a while. Its chapters are organized into a college course like structure. A great addition to any OS X developer's library.

This latest edition left me confused and frustrated. So many of the instructions are incomplete, unclear, and in some cases misleading. Why can't someone write a clear concise book on cocoa and object-c programming. One can find multiple tomes on C#, Pearl, Python, Ruby, Java, etc., etc. But only a handful on cocoa and object-c.

This book is just not worth the price...

If you want to learn Cocoa this is the book to have. Recently updated for Leopard and the new Xcode tools, the book has been refined over the years as the basis of the Big Nerd Ranch courses. It is progressive, easy to follow and comprehensive. I've purchased most all of the available books on Cocoa and have also purchased each successive Edition of this book. I highly recommend this book and the accompanying classes at the Big Nerd Ranch.

Mark Lucas
Prinicipal Scientist
RadiantBlue Technologies Inc.

This book is worth its weight in gold. Apple's online documentation is not bad, but often leaves a little to be desired for details or options other than a standard, mundane sort of example.

The code examples are _extremely_ useful. In 2 hours with this book I was able to finish a project at work that I had been trying to figure out for weeks. Google hadn't turned up what I needed. Apple's online API hadn't turned up what I needed (or I hadn't known where to look). Definitely worth it as a reference, as well as a learning tool.

I have all 3 versions of Hillegass' book, and this is the best by far. It has been fully updated to cover XCode 3 and Objective-C 2.0. It also contains introductory material for libraries like Core Data & Core Animation. As well as new material, the old content has been edited and the focus seems even better than previous versions.

While the coverage isn't very deep on any topic, it is the only book available that is current with Cocoa and is therefore the best option for getting up to speed on Mac OS X development.

I'm only a couple chapters in, but I just wanted to point out that the book is already obsolete; Interface Builder has apparently been changed a bit in that when you add a connector from an NSObject (i.e. a Button) to a custom object (i.e. programmatic code), the book says to Control-Drag the NSObject to the custom object and then select a method from the resulting pop-up panel. Well, there is no resulting pop-up panel. In the current (latest) XCode, all of the connectors are made going the other way from the custom object's outlets list. In the same way as you would drag the custom object's outlet to a text field, you can now just drag the custom object's method to an NSObject as the "event handler". It's a lot more consistent this way, but it's different from what's in the book, and it had me stumped for several minutes until I figured it out just by clicking and dragging things. I noticed flipping ahead and peeking at what's to come later in the book that this connector thing occurs repeatedly, so be wary.

That said, I'm having a fun time with this book and with discovering Mac OS X coding using this book as a tutorial. I'm quickly reminded of what it was like to learn Visual Basic -- Objective-C is nothing like Visual Basic, but, assuming prior knowledge of C (pointers, etc), the process of getting started with Xcode and Cocoa is about as easy, and frankly I'm quite surprised.

On the other hand, I'm also disappointed by how dependent Cocoa seems to be upon visual designers and drag-and-drop even for code bindings ("connectors"). Once I complete the book, I'll be curious to discover the feasibility of dynamically generating UI layouts programmatically; designing UI layouts using mouse-driven drag-and-drop of connectors doesn't feel natural to me, I'm used to writing event handlers in C# in code. Somehow it feels like I'm not a coder when I drag-and-drop.

But I'm still brand new to OS X coding and even Visual Studio has optional drag-and-drop coding support, it's still too soon to weigh in.

I'm enjoying the book, though, and it's certainly true to its promises--it uses the idioms of the Cocoa community indeed, although sometimes I keep muttering, "oh, so that's sorta kinda like _____ in .NET, okay. A little bit weird in the approach but same function, got it." I wish the author pointed this stuff out just a bit more but I manage.

The book is highly recommended so far. :) I'll update this review once I get closer to completing it.

Concise, well organized, accurate, and beautifully written. An absolute joy to read. THE book for Cocoa programming.

This is the book I have been waiting for!

I am a recent convert to Macs. Ever since I fell in love with my Mac (now two Macs actually), I have yearning to do some experimental application development on it. I should also add that I have extensive programming experience on Windows.

Anyway, I downloaded Xcode, went to numerous websites, saw YouTube video all to try and understand how to create apps for the Mac. Yes, I was able to create an application with some buttons on it that updated a text box. But anything beyond that just didn't make any sense.

Then I ordered this book. I had to wait a couple months as it hadn't been released yet. But boy, was it worth the wait. I got so into the book, I ended up doing a semi-cursory pass of the entire book in about 2 hours. Then I went through the chapters again, reading chapters in-depth and experimented with the code side-by-side. I am happy to say - I finally get it. There are still questions I have, but I feel that I have a much better shot of finding answers in Apple's documentation as well as the numerous Cocoa-related websites.

Note that while the book does teach you the basics of Objective-C, it's not meant to be a complete reference. But between what I read in the book, Wikipedia and Apple's excellent introduction to Objective-C 2.0 PDF, you should be all set.

To summarize, just order this book if you are new to the world of Mac programming but still don't "get it". You will be glad you did.

This book is too high-level and not descriptive enough. Could be a good intro but doesn't really help to do some real-world tasks.

I'm new to Cocoa/Objective-C but have a fairly extensive background in software development in a variety of different languages. What I needed to get me started was something that gave a broad overview of the Cocoa Framework and some simple examples of how the Interface Builder and code fit together. This book did a great job of doing this. Unlike "Learning Cocoa with Objective-C" (a book I really struggled with) this book isn't really tutorial based and doesn't try and take you through how to build some big whiz-bang application. It's the sort of book that helps get you started developing your own application and whenever you have a question like "I wonder how to setup a NSTableView delegate" there's a very good chance that there'll be an example of doing just that in the book. After a few days with this book I was confident enough to start my own development, and haven't looked back since.

The author employs an good teaching technique that leads step by step to understanding the workings of Cocoa and XCode. I am familiar with the Object Oriented Programming concept and that helped to understand the material covered. The hands-on exercises cover all the basics and are short and relatively easy. I also like the "tone" employed by the author. It's friendly, supportive and plain English.
There is some miss-match between the current version of Cocoa (2.0)/XCode (3.0) and the book, especially where it concerns Interface Builder and the illustrations. But it was fairly easy to figure out. Except for some chapters, like Creating Interface Builder palettes.
Overall I highly recommend this book, while I also hope that the author posts some addendum on the internet that shows the book's examples using the current version of the software.