Books by Alasdair Allan

This book is where your adventures with Bluetooth LE begin. You'll start your journey by getting familiar with your hardware options: Arduino, BLE modules, computers (including Raspberry Pi!), and mobile phones. From there, you'll write code and wire circuits to connect off-the-shelf sensors, and even go all the way to writing your own Bluetooth Services. Along the way you'll look at lightbulbs, locks, and Apple's iBeacon technology, as well as get an understanding of Bluetooth security--both how to beat other people's security, and how to make your hardware secure.

Get a rapid introduction to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch programming. With this easy-to-follow guide, youll learn how to develop your first marketable iOS application, from opening Xcode to submitting your product to the App Store. Whether youre a developer new to Mac programming or an experienced Mac developer ready to tackle iOS, this is your book.Youll learn about Objective-C and the core frameworks hands-on by writing several sample iOS applications, giving you the basic skills for building your own applications independently. Packed with code samples, this book is refreshed and updated for iOS 6 and Xcode 4.Discover the advantages of building native iOS appsGet started with Objective-C and the Cocoa Touch frameworksDive deep into the table view classes for building user interfacesHandle data input, parse XML and JSON documents, and store data on SQLiteUse iOS sensors, including the accelerometer, magnetometer, camera, and GPSBuild apps that use the Core Location and MapKit frameworksIntegrate Apples iCloud service into your applicationsWalk through the process of distributing your polished app to the App Store

Build your own distributed sensor network to collect, analyze, and visualize real-time data about our human environmentincluding noise level, temperature, and people flow. With this hands-on book, youll learn how to turn your project idea into working hardware, using the easy-to-learn Arduino microcontroller and off-the-shelf sensors.Authors Alasdair Allan and Kipp Bradford walk you through the entire process, from prototyping a simple sensor node to performing real-time analysis on data captured by a deployed multi-sensor network. Demonstrated at recent OReilly Strata Conferences, the future of distributed data is already here. If you have programming experience, you can get started immediately.Wire up a circuit on a breadboard, and use the Arduino to read values from a sensorAdd a microphone and infrared motion detector to your circuitMove from breadboard to prototype with Fritzing, a program that converts your circuit design into a graphical representationSimplify your design: learn use cases and limitations for using Arduino pins for power and groundingBuild wireless networks with XBee radios and request data from multiple sensor platformsVisualize data from your sensor network with Processing or LabVIEW

What really sets the iPhone apart from laptops and PCs is its use of onboard sensors, including those that are location-enabled. This concise book takes experienced iPhone and Mac developers on a detailed tour of iPhone and iPad hardware by explaining how these sensors work, and what they're capable of doing.With this book, you'll build sample applications for each sensor, and learn hands-on how to take advantage of the data each sensor produces. You'll gain valuable experience that you can immediately put to work inside your own iOS applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This book helps you focus on:Camera: learn how to take pictures and video, create video thumbnails, customize video, and save media to the photo albumAudio: use the media picker controller and access the iPod music library in your own application, and enable your app to record and play sampled audioAccelerometer: write an application that uses this sensor to determine device orientationMagnetometer: learn how this sensor verifies compass headingsCore Motion: use this framework to receive motion data from both the accelerometer and the vibrational gyroscopeThis short book is part of a collection that will, along with new material, be compiled into a larger book, iOS Sensor Programming. The other books in this collection are Augmented Reality in iOS, Geolocation in iOS, and iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino.

Take advantage of iPhone and iPad sensors and advanced geolocation technologies to build state-of-the-art location applications. In this concise hands-on guide, author Alasdair Allan (Learning iOS Programming) takes you deep inside Apples Core Location framework, Map Kit, and other iOS tools, using illustrative examples and sample Objective-C code. Learn how to build location-aware apps for both iPhones and iPads, using code that detects hardware features and then adjusts your apps behavior.If youre a programmer with iOS experience, or a Mac developer familiar with Objective-C, this book helps you get off to a solid start in location-based app development.Youll learn about:Core Location: Understand the significant-change location service and geo-fencing capabilitiesMap Kit: Embed maps into your applications viewsMagnetometer: Use the on-board sensor as a digital compassGeocoding capabilities: Translate geographic coordinates into place names, and vice versaHeat maps: Get a code walkthrough for displaying these maps on top of a standard MapKit viewThird-party SDKs: Add unique geo-location capabilities to your app from SkyHook Wireless, MapBox, and other providers