Programming iOS 5, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9. Life Cycle of a Project

This chapter surveys some of the main stages in the life cycle of a project, from inception to submission at the App Store. This survey will provide an opportunity to discuss some additional features of the Xcode development environment. You already know how to create a project, define a class, and link to a framework (Chapter 6), as well as how to create and edit a nib (Chapter 7) and how to use the documentation (Chapter 8).

Choosing a Device Architecture

As you create a project, after you pick a project template, in the part of the dialog where you name your project, the Device Family pop-up menu offers a choice of iPhone, iPad, or Universal (meaning an app that runs on both iPhone and iPad natively, typically with a different interface on each type of device).

You are not tied forever to your initial decision, but your life will be easier if you decide correctly from the outset. The iPhone and iPad differ in their physical characteristics as well as their programming interfaces. The iPad has a larger screen size, along with some built-in interface features that don’t exist on the iPhone, such as split views and popovers (Chapter 22); thus an iPad project’s nib files and some other resources will differ from those of an iPhone project.

Historically, different types of device also ran different versions of the operating system: iOS 3.1.3 and before, plus iOS 4.0 and 4.1, were iPhone-only, while iOS 3.2.x was iPad-only. This made life very complicated ...