iOS 8 by Tutorials Now Available!

Note from Ray: Happy Wednesday – it’s book release day during the iOS 8 Feast!

This year at WWDC, Tim Cook declared iOS 8 the most significant change for developers since the introduction of the original iPhone OS SDK.

Not only does iOS 8 introduce an entirely new programming language—Swift—but it also introduces a wide range of new technologies and APIs, that allow entirely new classes of apps to be developed.

From Adaptive UI to App Extensions to Cloud Kit and Scene Kit, there’s a ton to learn to keep your iOS skills up-to-date. And as always, the Tutorial Team is here to help!

So today, we are happy to release perhaps the most anticipated of our new Swift books: iOS 8 by Tutorials!

About iOS 8 by Tutorials

iOS 8 by Tutorials is for intermediate to advanced developers, who already know the basics of iOS and Swift development but want to learn the new APIs introduced in iOS 8.

12 members of the Tutorial Team on this site have teamed up to divide and conquer all of this new material, distilling it into practical examples and an easy-to-learn form.

This way, rather than banging your head against the wall trying to learn these topics by scouring through boring API references, you can learn iOS 8 the easy way via tutorials, in the style you know and love from this site!

iOS 8 by Tutorials is a whopping 30 chapters and 775 pages. Let’s take a quick look at what’s inside.

Section I: Adaptive Layout

In this section, you’ll learn a completely new approach to building user interfaces for iOS 8; ones that are completely independent of device, screen size, resolution or device orientation.

You’ll be introduced to trait collections, size classes and universal storyboards, each of which will not only help you build the best interfaces for the current crop of iOS devices, but for future ones as well.

Here’s a quick overview of the chapters in this section:

1. Chapter 1, Introducing Adaptive Layout: Before you dive into any code, you’ll be given an overview of what Adaptive Layout is and the reasons why you should give serious consideration to this new design paradigm.
2. Chapter 2, Beginning Adaptive Layout: You’ll learn how to use Interface Builder to create user interfaces that seamlessly adapt to different devices, resolutions and orientations.
3. Chapter 3, Intermediate Adaptive Layout: You’ll take Adaptive Layout to the next level and learn about self-sizing table view cells, installable views, trait collections, and size-class dependent assets.
4. Chapter 4, Adaptive View Controller Hierarchies: Adaptive Layout affects not only your views, but view controllers as well. In this chapter you’ll learn about UISplitViewController, which is now available on iPhone, and how to upgrade a legacy application to take advantage of it.
5. Chapter 5, Transition Coordinators: You’ll learn about the significant upgrades to transition coordinators, which were first introduced in iOS 7, and how to implement the new layout transitions as well.
6. Chapter 6, Introducing Presentation Controllers: You’ll dig into iOS 8 approach of presenting view controllers and how the new APIs natively support adaptive layouts.
7. Chapter 7, Custom Presentations: Building on Chapter 6, this chapter shows you how to add polish to your apps with custom presentations.

Section II: App Extensions

App Extensions are one of the most anticipated features of iOS 8; they let you extend your app’s content and functionality throughout the rest of the OS. Such extensions allow you to present custom functionality in other apps and gives users the power of your applications when and where they need it most.

Once you’ve completed the following seven chapters you’ll no doubt wonder how you ever survived without App Extensions – both as a developer and as a user.

Here’s a quick overview of the chapters in this section:

8. Chapter 8, Introducing Extensions: Get a quick overview of what App Extensions are, their API, some of the limitations imposed by Apple, and an overview of how to add one to an existing app.
9. Chapter 9, Today Extensions: You’ll learn how to create Today Extensions, the iOS equivalent of desktop widgets. They’re a great way to provide immediate and up-to-date information to your users.
10. Chapter 10, Share Extensions: You’ll see how to craft extensions that let users share content directly to your web service from within whichever app they’re using at the time.
11. Chapter 11, Action Extensions: Build exciting extensions that let users view, transform, or manipulate content within the context of the host app. Think Google Translate, but in real-time, in-place, without ever leaving the web page.
12. Chapter 12, Photo Editing Extensions: Does your app offer photo filters, or some other kind of photo manipulation functionality? Ever wish you could provide that same functionality to other third-party apps, or even Apple’s stock apps? Well now you can! You’ll learn how to create extensions to do exactly this.
13. Chapter 13, Document Provider Extensions: Learn how to build extensions that allow users to send and receive files between apps. You’ll also learn how to present cloud storage services as if they were the local file system. Document Providers allow iOS apps to share, edit, and update each other’s files.
14. Chapter 14, Keyboard Extensions: You’ll replace the system keyboard with one of your own; iOS is now open to the world of intelligent swipe, Emoji, and animated GIF keyboards.

Section III: Major New Features

In this section, you’ll learn about the biggest and most important new features and frameworks in iOS 8 not already covered in this book.

You’ll cover Apple’s entry into the BaaS (Backend as a Service) sector, a new and highly performant way to render 3D content in your app, a much improved way to access and manipulate users’ photos, how to render your custom views and controls in Interface Builder and much, much more.

Here’s a quick overview of the chapters in this section:

15. Chapter 15, Beginning CloudKit: You’ll learn what CloudKit is, why you should use it and gain a solid overview of the CloudKit convenience APIs.
16. Chapter 16, Intermediate CloudKit: You’ll take a deeper dive into CloudKit, learn about the lower-level APIs that allow fine-grained control of your data as well as some of the limitations of the API and how best to work around them.
17. Chapter 17, Beginning Scene Kit: Scene Kit has been available on OS X since 2012, but it’s now debuted in iOS 8 as well. Take advantage of this battle- tested framework to add 3D visualizations to your UIKit based apps.
18. Chapter 18, Intermediate Scene Kit: You’ll learn how to introduce physics to your 3D visualizations, how to import 3D models and take advantage of the amazing Scene Kit support in Xcode 6.
19. Chapter 19, Beginning Photos: The Assets framework has often been the Achilles’ heel of developers when working with photos on iOS. Apple has changed all of this by introducing a brand spanking new and modern framework, which aims to remove all the pain points of working with Assets. You’ll learn the basics of it in this chapter.
20. Chapter 20, Intermediate Photos: Here you’ll take a closer look the new Photos framework, explore all four corners of the API, and learn about such things as asset caching and change requests.
21. Chapter 21, Beginning Live Rendering: Interface Builder now renders custom views and controls just as if they were Apple’s own – finally! You’ll learn how to set up Live Rendering, how to expose your custom controls’ properties and then delve into creating custom controls using CALayer.
22. Chapter 22, Intermediate Live Rendering: You’ll learn how to mix your custom views and controls with Apple’s stock controls for the purposes of Live Rendering, and you’ll see how Live Rendering can seriously speed up the development process.
23. Chapter 23, Handoff: You’ll discover what Handoff is, see how it works, gain a solid overview of the API, and learn how to add this near-magical functionality to your iOS apps.
24. Chapter 24, Beginning WebKit: Apple has finally replaced UIWebView! You’ll get to experience the long-awaited and modern WebKit as you create a bespoke web browser.
25. Chapter 25, Intermediate WebKit: The new WebKit framework is useful beyond simply loading up web pages. You’ll learn how to hook into the page loading process to execute custom JavaScript, which allows you to bend any web page to your will.