As I travel around teaching on mobile development and explaining what my students and I have accomplished in developing applications for various mobile devices, I am regularly asked, “How do I get started”, and “What books would you recommend?”

There are many okay books on the market to get started with iPhone programming.  I reviewed MANY books as I was preparing to teach my Mobile Computing class (we start with iPhone programming the first semester, then move to other platforms the second semester).   Most of them are written from a programmer’s perspective, and not appropriate for someone who wants to learn the basics of iPhone or mobile computer programming.

What’s the difference?
A programmer’s perspective assumes you already know about the intricacies of the specific programming language you will be working with and focuses on explaining the API (Application Programming Interface). No time is spent detailing how to get started with the specific language that is used or how to get everything up and running.  In other words, they are designed for experienced programmers who are already familiar with the language in use.

Books written for a student or someone getting started, spend time going over the basics of the language, help you get the SDK (Software Developers Kit) install and configured, and assume that you are not an experienced programmer.

I teach my classes from the second perspective.  Most of the people that I speak with are interested in the second method.

I have found two excellent books for iPhone development (by the same authors):

and

by Dave Mark & Jeff LaMarche.

Both are well done, have a great supporting website and active developer community that are working through the books.  If your looking to get started on iPhone/iPod Touch/ or iPad development, these are great tools.

My preference is still to do my mobile app development with Corona SDK (see my book under the books tab), but if you want/need to do native app development for iOS, these are two of the best books that I have found.