What this book covers

Chapter 1, UITableView Touch-up, covers UITableView, which is the core of many iOS applications. Most developers that attempt to learn iOS will start by implementing a table view. This chapter is intended to provide a warm-up for the next chapters while also providing in-depth information about UITableView and its internals.

Chapter 2, A Better Layout with UICollectionView, explores UITableView's super-powered sibling, UICollectionView. This chapter covers implementing a collection view and writing a custom layout object for it.

Chapter 3, Creating a Detail Page, explains that when you build apps, you'll need to make them work on many different screen sizes. This chapter will show you how to use AutoLayout to create beautiful, adaptive layouts.

Chapter 4, Immersing Your Users with Animation, shows how the best apps set themselves apart with beautiful and subtle animations. In this chapter, you will learn the best animation techniques, and to top it off, you'll learn how to create custom transitions between view controllers.

Chapter 5, Understanding the Swift Type Systemfocuses on the different data types Swift uses, how they relate to each other, and how to decide what type is best for certain use cases.

Chapter 6, Writing Flexible Code with Protocols and Generics, moves on from learning about the type system's basic concrete types; it's also important to learn about abstractions that make your code more flexible, robust, and future-proof. This chapter will show you how you can improve your Swift code with the right abstractions and principles.

Chapter 7, Improving Application Structure, teaches you how to apply the lessons learned from the previous two chapters to improve an app you've already worked on.

Chapter 8, Adding Core Data to Your App, explains that many apps need to store data in a database. This chapter introduces Apple's Core Data framework as a way to include a database for user data in your app.

Chapter 9, Fetching and Displaying Data from the Network, shows you how you can access data and resources over a network connection and display the results to the user.

Chapter 10, Being Proactive with Background Fetch, explains that iOS allows apps to refresh and load data in the background. You will learn how to implement Background Fetch and you will briefly be introduced to Dispatch Groups.

Chapter 11, Syncing Data with CloudKit, covers how to store data in the cloud with CloudKit. It also covers a scenario where CloudKit is used as online storage, while Core Data is used to persist data locally.

Chapter 12, Using Augmented Realitydemonstrates how you can use Apple's groundbreaking ARKit framework to build an augmented reality experience.

Chapter 13, Improving Apps with Location Services, covers several ways that apps can implement location tracking to enhance and improve a user’s experience.

Chapter 14, Making Smarter Apps with CoreML, teaches everything you should know about the CoreML framework. Readers will implement a machine learning model that recognizes dominant objects in a scene. This chapter also covers CreateML to augment existing models with more specific training data.

Chapter 15, Tracking Activity Using HealthKit, explains how to access a user's health information and how you can implement an app that tracks a user's workouts and stores them in the Health app.

Chapter 16, Streamlining Experiences with Siri, shows you how to integrate the SiriKit APIs in your own applications. This enables you to integrate your app deeply into the iOS platform. It also covers the new Siri shortcuts that allow users to quickly perform actions in certain apps.

Chapter 17, Using Media in Your App, explains how to play back audio and video, take photos, and apply interesting filters to images that users take with your app.

Chapter 18, Implementing Rich Notifications, is a walk-through of everything you need to know about providing a great notification experience for your users. It covers both the UI extension and the content extension.

Chapter 19, Instant Information with a Today Extension, shows that developers can add widgets to the Notification Center to disclose quick information to users; this chapter will teach you how.

Chapter 20, Exchanging Data with Drag and Drop, takes you through how to augment an app to allow users to drag contents from your app to other apps and vice versa.

Chapter 21, Improved Discoverability with Spotlight and Universal Links, explores how you can make an iOS index for your app's contents to make it available through the powerful Spotlight search index.

Chapter 22, Extending iMessage, shows how to build a simple sticker pack and app for iMessage.

Chapter 23, Ensuring App Quality with Tests, focuses on testing, which is an often-overlooked aspect of developing an app. You will learn how to set up tests for your application.

Chapter 24, Discovering Bottlenecks with Instruments, explains how to profile your app's performance with instruments. You also learn how to implement and use your own instrument tools.

Chapter 25, Offloading Tasks with Operations and GCD, covers apps that perform increasingly complex tasks. You will learn how to ensure that complex or slow tasks don't freeze your user interface.

Chapter 26, Submitting Your App to the App Store, explains how to distribute your app to beta testers through TestFlight and how to submit your app for review in order to publish it to the App Store.