Book Review: The Business of iPhone App Development

Apress was kind enough to pass me a copy of this book, which I agreed to review in return.After the last book I reviewed, which was rather technical, I decided to go for a book with a tad more business angle. Personally, I was disappointed by this book, but that might not be the case for you.

Business of iPhone App Development covers exactly what the title promises: the whole process, beginning with the idea of an App over development to submitting it to the store. It's chopped up in 10 chapter, covering various steps of the process.

I'm not going into great detail explaining the content of the book. Instead, I'll write about what I didn't like. I think that should help you make a decision whether to get the book or not.

The reason why I didn't like this book is very simple: most of the information in this book can be obtained from the net or using common sense!

Let me elaborate: I think being able to obtain any information on the net these days is quite obvious. That doesn't mean you shouldn't buy this book. If you need a compact resource on topics like "Setting Up Xcode" or "Submission to the App Store", this book is definitely worth getting. If you have done this before, like me, you will be disappointed, because there's nothing new! If you are looking into more business-related topics, there's definitely topics worth reading. However, most of the technical content can be found in Apple's documentation or on stackoverflow.com. Since the book has a lot of technical chapters, I was a little bored revisiting information I already knew.

The more business-like chapters are definitely worth reading, especially if you are new to the whole App Store game. However, in my opinion a huge portion of the presented information are simple common sense! Using marketing channels like Twitter or Social Media like Facebook is standard these days and I believe there are no developers out there not knowing about those. However, some of the information seem like common sense, but it's great to have a resource to revisit from time to time, like e.g. App Store Rejection reasons. Another great chapter is "Protecting Your Intellectual Property", which you probably can't find anywhere else. It covers EULAs, licensing and trademarks.

Overall, Business of iPhone App Development encompasses a lot of information and the authors did a great job, trying to cover a lot of ground. However, I can only fully recommend this book to you, if you are new to the world of iPhone development. Otherwise, you might want to think about it twice.