Head First iPhone Development

Chapter 2. iPhone app patterns: Hello @twitter!

@grandmom please bring me some soda. I'm so over the milk. #babyrants

Apps have a lot of moving parts. OK, actually, they don't have any real moving parts, but they do have lots of UI controls. A typical iPhone app has more going on than just a button, and it's time to build one. Working with some of the more complicated widgets means you'll need to pay more attention than ever to how you design your app, as well. In this chapter, you'll learn about some of the fundamental design patterns used in the iPhone SDK, and how to put together a bigger application.

Author's note:

Head First does not take any responsibility for Mike's relationship problems.

Mike is back. He has a great girlfriend, Renee, but they've been having some problems. She thinks that he doesn't talk about his feelings enough.

A Twitter app is the way to go here. That would be perfect: I can just tweet about my feelings and then she'll be happy.

There's (about to be) an app for that.

Using some solid design and the basic controls included in the Interface Builder library, you can have Mike posting to Twitter in no time. But first, what should his tweets say?

Mike

First we need to figure out what Mike (really) wants

Mike isn't a complex guy. He wants an easy interface to talk to Twitter and he really doesn't want to have to type much.

Note

Here's what Mike handed you at the end of the night

Here's what I want:

• Not much typing

• Instant communication

• Easy to use

• My tweets like this: I'm ...