App Savvy

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions

Note

This signifies a tip, suggestion, or general note.

Out with the Old, in with the Apple

As you can see from my tweet in Figure 2, it’s hard to keep up with the pace of innovation at Apple. In fact, I had to consistently rewrite, edit, and update various parts of this book while it was in progress because of the frequent changes to Apple’s devices, software, and tools. While I’ve done my best to stay a step ahead of Apple, parts of this book are bound to become outdated.

Figure 2. One of my tweets during the writing of App Savvy, revealing my attempt to keep up with Apple

I’ve addressed this problem in a couple of ways. The first is that I wrote this book in a format that allows updates to some digital versions of it (e.g., O’Reilly eBook) and I plan to update the most significant changes and keep those versions as current as possible. On an ongoing basis, however, you should bookmark a special part of my website that is dedicated to keeping you app savvy: http://kenyarmosh.com/appsavvy. This site includes some complementary book materials that I’ve developed and I’ll refer to that URL throughout the book.

Terms

The following words and phrases are used in this book:

iPhone

“iPhone” is generalized to refer to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad unless noted otherwise.

App

“App” or “apps” is short for application or applications, respectively. Apps are available for download and installation from Apple’s App Store.

iPhone app

“iPhone app” is generalized to refer to iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad apps unless noted otherwise.

Third-party app

The term “third-party app” refers to all apps in the App Store. It is used only when comparing these apps to the Apple-provided apps such as Calendar and Mail.

iPhone developer

“iPhone developer” or “developer” refers both to the person(s) responsible for bringing an app to the App Store and to the person who possesses the programming abilities to write actual iPhone software code. The context will dictate which usage is being implied.

iPhone development

“iPhone development” or “development” refers both to the process of bringing an app to the App Store and to a specific task called “development” that is performed by the person who possesses the programming abilities to write actual iPhone software code. The context will dictate which usage is being implied.

Development team

Often, multiple people will be involved in the development process. Instead of the term “development team” or “team,” though, the word “you” will generally be used to represent all of these persons unless another team member is specifically referenced.

Customer

“Customer” and not “user” is the preferred way to describe a person who will download and use an app. The word “customer” will generally be used to refer to prospective and actual customers, of both free and paid apps.