Pro Multithreading and Memory Management for iOS and OS X: with ARC, Grand Central Dispatch, and Blocks

If you want to develop efficient, smooth-running applications, controlling concurrency and memory are vital. Automatic Reference Counting is Apple's game-changing memory management system, new to Xcode 4.2. Pro Multithreading and Memory Management for iOS and OS X shows you how ARC works and how best to incorporate it into your applications. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) and blocks are key to developing great apps, allowing you to control threads for maximum performance.

If for you, multithreading is an unsolved mystery and ARC is unexplored territory, then this is the book you'll need to make these concepts clear and send you on your way to becoming a master iOS and OS X developer.

• What are blocks? How are they used with GCD?
• Multithreading with GCD
• Managing objects with ARC

What you’ll learn

• How to use blocks
• How blocks work and how they are implemented
• Details about GCD
• How and when to use GCD
• To understand ARC technology and how to use it

Who this book is for

This book is for professional OS X and iOS application programmers. In particular, it's for those who want to develop highly responsive applications with concurrent programming.

Table of Contents1. Life before Automatic Reference Counting

2. ARC Rules

3. ARC Implementation

4. Getting Started with Blocks

5. Blocks Implementation

6. Grand Central Dispatch

7. GCD Basics

8. GCD Implementation

Appendix A. Example of ARC, Blocks and GCD

Appendix B. References