Cocoa and Objective-C: Up and Running

Chapter 11. The Final Word

You’ve made it to the end of the book. I’m thrilled, amazed, and impressed. Although I hope this is different from any programming book you’ve ever read, it’s still a lot of reading. So now that you’re here, what’s next? Hopefully, you’re going to go write some apps. To help you with that, I want to give you a few last pointers.

But first, a few essentials. The home base for this book is at http://cocoabook.com, and the official O’Reilly catalog page can be found at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596804794/. My personal site is http://theocacao.com, and I’m @scottstevenson on Twitter. You can email me at [e-mail].

The List

Being a Cocoa developer is about more than just writing a lot of code. There are a few key things you must know to make world-class apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch:

Presentation matters

Many developers come to Mac or iPhone from other platforms and miss this. I cannot possibly overstate how critical it is to have a well-designed user interface, application icon, and website. These things tell your users that you care about your software. Your audience appreciates quality user experiences by definition—that’s why they bought a Mac in the first place. If two apps occupy the same space with roughly the same features, the one with the better UI usually wins. Invest in the user experience.

Trust the frameworks

Another thing I see come up with some new Cocoa programmers is an inexplicable resistance to using the built-in frameworks. ...