Preface

Welcome to iOS 14 Programming for Beginners. This book is the fifth edition of the iOS Programming for Beginners series, and has been fully updated for iOS 14, macOS 11.0 Big Sur, and Xcode 12.

In this book, you will build a restaurant reservation app called Let's Eat. You will start off by exploring Xcode, Apple's programming environment, also known as its Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Next, you will start learning the foundations of Swift, the programming language used in iOS apps, and see how it is used to accomplish common programming tasks.

Once you have a solid foundation of using Swift, you will start creating the user interface of the Let's Eat app. During this process, you will work with storyboards and connect your app's scenes together using segues.

With your user interface complete, you will then add code to implement your app's functionality. To display your data in a grid, you will use collection views, and to display your data in a list, you will use table views. You will also look at how to add basic and custom annotations to a map. You'll see how you can use JSON files to get actual restaurant data into your collection views, table views, and map. You'll enable users to add ratings, reviews, and photos for a particular restaurant, which you'll save using Core Data.

You now have a complete app, but how about adding the latest iOS 14 features? You'll start by modifying your app to work on both an iPhone and an iPad, as well as make it work on Apple Silicon Macs. Next, you will learn how to develop apps using SwiftUI, a great new way of developing apps for all Apple platforms. After that, you'll add widgets to display relevant information from your app on the Home Screen. Finally, you'll create an app clip for your app to provide specific app experiences when needed.

Finally, you'll learn how to test your app with internal and external testers and get it into the App Store.