Introducing the iOS 7 Feast

Finally – the NDA for iOS 7 has been lifted!

iOS 7 delivers one of the most exciting set of changes that we’ve seen so far as developers. The new design direction means a massive disruption in the App Store is underway. Customers will be looking for apps that “fit in” with the new iOS 7 style and make use of the new technology.

This means tons of great opportunity for you – the type only seen every 3 to 5 years.

That’s why ever since the first day of WWDC, the Tutorial Team and I have been hard at work researching all of the new APIs and distilling them into a form that makes it quick and easy for you to get up to speed.

And for the third year in a row, we are running a massive celebration for the occasion. We are happy to introduce this year’s iOS 7 Feast!

The iOS 7 Feast consists of the following seven courses:

• Optional appetizer: Beginning Sprite Kit Tutorial
• Second course: iOS Games by Tutorials
• Third course: iOS 7 by Tutorials
• Fourth course: The iOS 7 and iOS Games by Tutorials Bundle
• Fifth course: iOS Apprentice Part 1 Updated for iOS 7
• Sixth course: iOS 7 Tutorial Month
• Dessert: iOS 7 Feast Giveaway

During the iOS 7 Feast, you’ll learn about all of the new APIs introduced in iOS 7 through easy to understand tutorials – designing for iOS 7, using NSURLSession, making games with Sprite Kit, the new Text Kit API, UIKit Dynamics, and much more.

Plus we have over $8,000 in giveaways for some lucky readers – our most epic giveaway yet!

Optional Appetizer: Beginning Sprite Kit Tutorial

As a gamer, one of the most exciting new additions in iOS 7 for me is Apple’s brand new 2D game framework: Sprite Kit.

Sprite Kit makes it incredibly easy to make 2D games and comes with its own built in texture packer, particle designer, physics engine, action system, and much more.

We think you are going to love it, so I’ve written a beginning Sprite Kit tutorial to show you the basics. Hint: it involves a certain ninja going pew-pew! :]

This tutorial is currently scheduled to run later this month. But what if you want it right now?

All you have to do is retweet this post to help get the word out! If/when the post reaches 100 retweets, we will immediately post the beginning Sprite Kit tutorial to whet your appetite. Just click the button below!

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Second Course: iOS Games by Tutorials

If you really want to learn how to make iOS games, a measly appetizer isn’t enough. You want the full course, and you’ve got it with iOS Games by Tutorials!

Here’s the trailer for the book, in case you haven’t seen it already:

In iOS Games by Tutorials, you will make five complete, fun, and polished games by hands-on tutorials – like a zombie action game, a space shooter game, and a top-down racing game!

iOS Games by Tutorials is for all levels of iOS developers:

• Beginner Developers will love the book because it shows you how to make five complete, fun, and polished games via easy to understand tutorials.
• Intermediate Developers will love the book because it has hands-on challenges to give you extra practice, and you’ll learn all the extra bits you need to know to actually make a game – like UIKit integration, Game Center, and Performance.
• Advanced Developers will love the book because the it covers advanced material you won’t find anywhere else. We have chapters on adding Juice to your game, displaying your game on a TV with AirPlay, and even making your own 2D game art!

Today we are releasing version 0.9 of the book, which includes 20 chapters and 649 pages. There are a few chapters left – they’ll be coming soon!

We have worked our butts off on this book and really poured our hearts into it. Our goal is for this to be the best game programming book you’ve ever read – so we really hope you enjoy!

Third Course: iOS 7 by Tutorials

All you non-game developers out there might be feeling a little neglected at the moment.

But don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about you! For the third year in a row, we have made a new book that makes it quick and easy to get up-to-speed with all the newly released iOS APIs: iOS 7 by Tutorials!

Here’s a quick preview of what’s inside this year’s book:

• Designing for iOS 7: Before you dive into the code, special guest designer and Apple design award winner Jeremy Olson will teach you how to design your apps to fit in well with the new iOS 7 style.
• UIKit Dynamics: Learn how to create user interfaces that feel real by adding physics behaviors like gravity, attachments (springs), and forces.
• Custom View Controller Transitions: Learn how to use your own custom animations when switching between view controllers in your apps.
• Text Kit: Learn how to support dynamic type in your apps, use exclusion paths, add dynamic text formatting, and even create your own eBook reader.
• Transitioning to iOS 7: Learn the nuts and bolts of taking an app designed in the skeuomorphic iOS 6 style and converting it to the new minimalistic iOS 7 style.
• What’s New in Xcode 5: Get a quick overview of the new features in the Xcode development environment itself, like asset catalogs and image slicing.
• What’s New in Objective-C and Foundation: Get a quick overview of new language features like modules, and important new Foundation APIs you should be aware of.
• Unit Testing in Xcode 5: Xcode 5 includes a new unit testing framework called XCUnit. Learn how to use it to add unit tests to your apps.
• Beginning Source Control in Xcode 5: Learn how to maintain your project under source control in Xcode 5, use advanced features like branching and merging, and integrate with GitHub.
• Beginning Continuous Integration in Xcode 5: Learn how to set up a continuous integration server, create a simple automated bot to build and run your project, make a web-based scoreboard, and automatically distribute your builds to TestFlight.
• Networking with NSURLSession: Learn how to write networking code with the new NSURLSession suite of classes, which are a great alternative to NSURLConnection and other similar third-party networking libraries.
• Multitasking: Learn how to keep your app’s data up to date, download large files, and get notified of remote updates silently in the background with new multitasking APIs in iOS 7.
• JavaScriptCore Framework: Learn how you can mix JavaScript with your native code in real time from your apps.
• AirDrop: Learn how to share data in an even simpler way with Apple’s new AirDrop support, built right into a UIActivityViewController.
• Peer-to-Peer Connectivity: If you want even more control, learn how to drop down into the peer-to-peer connectivity framework, which gives you complete control of the process of discovering and sharing information with nearby devices.
• Inter-App Audio: Learn how to connect the audio output of one app to the audio input of another app to create a suite of connected audio apps.
• What’s New in AVFoundation: Learn about the new bar code detection, video zooming, and speech synthesis capabilities in AVFoundation.
• What’s New in MapKit: Learn about the new directions, snapshot, and camera features in MapKit.
• What’s New in Core Location: Learn how to make an iOS app that acts as a beacon broadcasting a location, and a companion app to use the beacon.
• What’s New in PassKit: Learn how to make your passes look great in the new iOS 7 style, as well as using advanced features like QR codes, beacon activation, and much more.
• Bonus: Introduction to iAd: We also have a bonus chapter for you about integrating iAd into your apps, whether it be banner ads, interstitials, or pre-roll video ads.

Today we are releasing version 0.9 of the book, which includes 27 chapters and 823 pages. There are two chapters that we cannot yet include in the book (Continuous Integration) because they cover aspects of OS X Mavericks, which is still under NDA. When that lifts, we’ll release the final two chapters.

The best part of this book is you won’t have to pull out your hair anymore trying to deal with poor documentation or a lack of sample code trying to figure out how all this stuff works. We’ve done the hard work for you have tons of practical examples and code that you can use right in your own apps!

We think you’re going to love the book, and we hope to see some amazing iOS 7 apps from all of you.