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.