iPhone® Application Development All-In-One For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Looking Behind the Screen

In This Chapter

• Seeing how applications actually work

• Understanding how to use the fundamental design patterns

• Doing Windows (even if you say you don't)

• Exploring an app with a view

• Manipulating view controllers

• Listing the frameworks you can use

One thing that makes iPhone software development so appealing is the richness of the tools and frameworks provided in the Apple's iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK). The frameworks are especially important; each one is a distinct body of code that actually implements your application's generic functionality — gives the application its basic way of working, in other words. This is especially true of one framework in particular: the UIKit framework, which is the heart of the user interface.

In this chapter, you find out about most of the iPhone's user interface architecture, which is a mostly static view that explains what the various pieces are, what each does, and how they interact with each other. This chapter lays the groundwork for developing the DeepThoughts app's user interface, which you get a chance to tackle in Book III.

Using Frameworks

A framework offers common code providing generic functionality. The iPhone OS provides a set of frameworks for incorporating technologies, services, and features into your apps. For example, the UIKit framework gives you event-handling support, drawing support, windows, views, and controls you can use in your app.

A framework is designed to easily integrate your code ...