Review: iOS 26 Programming for Beginners – The Importance of Solid Foundations

The 10th edition of a classic has just landed on my desk: "iOS 26 Programming for Beginners" by Ahmad Sahar. For a technical book to reach its tenth revision is a milestone worthy of respect, especially in an ecosystem that changes as rapidly as Apple's.

This new edition arrives updated for Xcode 26, Swift 6, and the latest iOS 26 APIs. However, upon opening it, many will ask the same question: Why does it still teach UIKit and Storyboards instead of jumping straight into SwiftUI?

After reading it, I believe the answer defines the true value of this book.

Learning to Walk Before You Run

We live in the era of immediacy and SwiftUI. We want declarative interfaces that come together with just two lines of code. But the reality of professional development is that to understand the "magic" of modern frameworks, you must first understand what happens behind the scenes.

This book makes a brave pedagogical decision: it bets on the fundamentals. It teaches you how to build the "JRNL" app using UIKit and the MVC pattern. Is this "old" technology? No, it is fundamental technology.

• It teaches you the real lifecycle of views.
• It forces you to understand memory management and communication between controllers.
• It prepares you to maintain the code of millions of applications that already exist on the App Store and are not written in SwiftUI.

Classic Meets New

The interesting thing about this edition is that, although the interface is built traditionally, the rest of the book embraces the innovations of 2026. It is not a book anchored in the past:

1. Swift 6 and Concurrency: The handling of the language is completely up to date.
2. Liquid Glass: The author explains how to adapt our apps to Apple's new fluid design language.
3. Apple Intelligence: Section 4 introduces how to integrate Foundation Models and writing tools into your app. It is fascinating to see these cutting-edge technologies integrated into a classic architecture.

Is This Book for You?

If your goal is to copy and paste code to have an app ready by tomorrow, perhaps this is not the book for you.

But if your goal is to train as an iOS software engineer, this book is an excellent starting point. It is the equivalent of learning to drive with a manual transmission: it is harder at first, but it gives you control and an understanding of the vehicle that will serve you forever.

My Conclusion

This book will give you rock-solid foundations. You will learn to program in Swift and understand iOS architecture like a professional. However, keep in mind that development at Apple is a continuous journey: this book is the mandatory first step to laying the groundwork, so that later, when you make the leap to SwiftUI, you will understand perfectly what you are doing and why.

It is a recommended read for those who don't just want to "make apps," but want to understand how they work.

You can purchase a copy of the book through Amazon at the following address.

I hope you liked it and found it enlightening. 

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