tvOS Apprentice Updated for Swift 4 and tvOS 11

tvOS Apprentice is now fully up-to-date for Swift 4 and tvOS 11! By Chris Belanger.

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This Monday’s book release is the tvOS Apprentice, Third Edition.

The tvOS Apprentice teaches you everything you need to know to develop great apps for the Apple TV – whether you’re a seasoned iOS pro, or a web developer looking to leverage your skills to a new platform.

The book team has been working hard to bring this book fully up to date for Swift 4 and tvOS 11.

This will be a free update for existing tvOS Apprentice PDF customers — our way to say “thanks” to our readers for their support!

Don’t own the tvOS Apprentice yet? Read on to see how you can get a copy!

What is the tvOS Apprentice?

The book covers both of the ways you can make tvOS apps:

  • TVML apps: The first way to make apps is via TVML and TVJS – a new markup language and programming language created specifically for tvOS apps. Web developers will rejoice, and even native iOS developers will discover this is quite powerful, and can save a lot of development time.
  • Traditional apps: The second way to make apps is the traditional approach – coding apps in Swift or Objective-C, using frameworks from iOS like UIKit, AVFoundation, StoreKit, and more. iOS developers will discover this leverages your existing expertise and code, and allows you to make a fully custom user interface.

This book is a whopping 27 chapters and 536 pages, covering all aspects of tvOS development from beginner to advanced. Here’s what’s inside.

Section I: Architecture

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This section contains just one chapter, designed to give you a birds-eye view of how tvOS works and help you decide what to read next.

  1. Chapter 1, Architecture: The architecture chapter is the introduction to the technology behind Apple TV apps. This chapter will be your guide to help you decide your path through the rest of the book.

Section II: TVML Apps

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This section covers the basics for creating an app via the TVML approach. From the basics of Hello World through a real world example, by the end of this section you’ll know everything you need to create client / server apps for Apple TV.

  1. Chapter 2, Hello, TVML: Shows you how to set up a basic Hello World app using TVML and Javascript.
  2. Chapter 3, Beginning TVML: You’ll use basic TVML templates to manipulate the UI in a simple application.
  3. Chapter 4, Intermediate TVML: Building off of chapter 3, you’ll learn more complicated interfaces and templates.
  4. Chapter 5, TVJS: Start working in Javascript and learn to manipulate the TVML DOM.
  5. Chapter 6, Exploiting Native Functionality from TVML: Learn how to take advantage of native libraries and integrate them with your TVML app.

Section III: Traditional Apps

HeaderView

This section covers the basics for creating apps via the traditional approach. You’ll learn the new libraries created for Apple TV, and how the ported libraries from iOS can be used.

  1. Chapter 7, Hello, Traditional App: Learn how to set up a basic “Hello World” app using native libraries in Swift.
  2. Chapter 8, Basic Controls: Learn the basic controls your users can use to interact with your apps.
  3. Chapter 9, Stack Views: Stack Views are the backbone to the layout of your app – learn how to use them here.
  4. Chapter 10, Collection Views: See how easy it is to display a list of items in an engaging layout.
  5. Chapter 11, Navigation: Learn how to set up different forms of screen to screen navigation.
  6. Chapter 12, Focus: Apple TV uses a whole new Focus paradigm to show the user what control is currently selected – learn how this works and what it means for your apps.
  7. Chapter 13, Animation: Get ready to add some delightful animation to your tvOS apps.

Section IV: Advanced Frameworks

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This section covers some of the more advanced frameworks you’ll need for many TV app use cases. Whether you took the TVML approach or the Traditional approach, these frameworks will be important to understand to make your app stand out.

  1. Chapter 14, User Input and the Controller: Learn how your app can interact with the new Apple TV remote.
  2. Chapter 15, Beginning Video Playback: One of the most common requirements for Apple TV apps will be to play video – learn how to do that here.
  3. Chapter 16, Advanced Video Playback: Learn about some of the more advanced topics in playing videos.
  4. Chapter 17, On Demand Resources: Learn how to use Apple’s easy to use storage system, so your app can download assets on the fly.
  5. Chapter 18, Beginning CloudKit: Learn how to use CloudKit on tvOS to store your app’s data.
  6. Chapter 19, Advanced CloudKit: Go further in depth with CloudKit with user specific storage and error handling.
  7. Chapter 20, In App Purchase: Monetize your app by allowing users to purchase digital goods.
  8. (New!) Chapter 21, Photos Framework: Integrate with the user’s Photo Library and Videos.
  9. (New!) Chapter 22, Multipeer Connectivity: Enable your Apple TV to communicate with other pieces of Apple hardware.
  10. Chapter 23, Native UI in TVML Apps: Learn how to augment the TVML-to-UIKit engine to create custom resources, TVML tags, and styling properties.

Section V: Design

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This chapter covers new design concepts introduced in tvOS. For your app to stand apart from the rest, you’ll need to understand these new design concepts well.

  1. Chapter 24, tvOS Design: Learn how to design your apps to fit in well with the tvOS ecosystem.
  2. Chapter 25, Creating Layered Images: Shows how to create a new kind of image specifically for the TV.
  3. Chapter 26, The Top Shelf: The Top Shelf is a new design concept that allows your app to show off specific content – learn how to use this in your apps.

Bonus Chapter

And that’s not all – on top of the above, we have a bonus chapter for you!

  1. Chapter 27, Javascript Crash Course: Developing TVML apps for tvOS requires some Javascript knowledge. If you’re new to Javascript, check here for a quick crash course.

About the Authors

Of course, our book would be nothing without our team of experienced and dedicated authors:

ChristineAChristine Abernathy is a Developer Advocate on the Open Source team at Facebook, with previous Developer Advocacy roles with Parse and Facebook Platform. Christine has a passion for developers and mobile technologies. Prior to Facebook, Christine headed up engineering at Mshift, a mobile banking software provider, delivering Android, iOS and mobile browser-based products.

Jawwad Ahmad is an author and a technical editor of this book. Jawwad is a freelance iOS Developer that dove into Swift head first and has not looked back. He enjoys mentoring and teaching and was the original founder of the NYC iOS Study Group Meetup and later on the Atlanta iOS Study Group Meetup. He’s worked for companies as large as The New York Times, and as small as GateGuru, a 6 person startup.

Chris Belanger is the Book Team Lead and Lead Editor for raywenderlich.com. He was a developer for nearly 20 years in various fields from e-health to aerial surveillance to industrial controls. If there are words to wrangle or a paragraph to ponder, he‘s on the case. When he kicks back, you can usually find Chris with guitar in hand, looking for the nearest beach. Twitter: @crispytwit.

EricCEric Cerney is an author of this book. Eric is an iOS Software Engineer in San Francisco. After being acquired by Capital One, he likes to spend his days at work hanging out with Samuel L. Jackson and asking everyone “What’s in your wallet?”. Lately, his main focuses have been on Swift, gaining a deeper knowledge of programming languages at the core, and of course, the Apple TV. You can find him hiding in the shadows on Twitter at @ecerney.

JoshGJoshua Greene is an author of this book. Joshua is a passionate iOS developer who loves creating elegant apps. When he’s not slinging code, he enjoys martial arts, Netflix, and spending time with his wonderful wife and daughter. You can reach him on Twitter at @jrg_developer.

MichaelKMichael Katz is an author of this book. Michael envisions a world where mobile apps always work, respect users’ privacy, and integrate well with their users’ life. When not coding, he can be found with his family playing board games, brewing, gardening, and watching the Yankees.

KelvinLKelvin Lau is an author of this book. Kelvin is a physicist turned Swift iOS Developer. While he’s currently entrenched with iOS development, he often reminisces of his aspirations to be part of the efforts in space exploration. Outside of programming work, he’s an aspiring entrepreneur and musician.

Adrian Strahan is an author and a technical editor of this book. Adrian is a freelance iOS developer, Product Owner and Scrum Master. He’s worked with iOS since 2010 and specializes in mobile- and web-based application development. He lives in the South West of England and spends what little spare time he has building with Lego.