---
title: 'Welcome Aboard: You''re Riding iOS on Rails!'
teaser: Announcing a new book on writing an API in Ruby on Rails for iOS apps.
tags: news,web,ios,books
author: Jessie Young
published_on: 2014-03-27
---

## Background

When I sat down to write my first <abbr title="Application Programming
Interface">API</abbr> with Rails, I was overwhelmed with the abundance of
options available to me. From ActiveModel::Serializers to JBuilder to Rabl to
simply calling `.as_json`, just choosing which library to use for rendering
<abbr title="JavaScript Object Notation">JSON</abbr> was a task in and of
itself.

A couple weeks and a Sinatra app later, our team was on its way to building a
solid, extensible, well-tested <abbr title="JavaScript Object
Notation">JSON</abbr> <abbr title="Application Programming Interface">API</abbr>
with Rails.

Half way through the project, Diana, an iOS developer, remarked to me: "Being
able to create an <abbr title="Application Programming Interface">API</abbr>
must be so cool! You want a new endpoint and then a few hours later - there it
is!"

My response: "Being able to create an iOS app must be so cool! You want a new
view and then a few hours later - there it is!"

And then a light went on: what if I, a Rails developer, could create both an API
and an iOS app that used that API?

And so an eBook was born.

## Introducing the Beta Release of iOS on Rails

[*iOS on Rails*] is a book for anyone with some Rails experience and little or
no iOS experience.

After reading *iOS on Rails*, you will be able to create a <abbr
title="JavaScript Object Notation">JSON</abbr> <abbr title="Application
Programming Interface">API</abbr> with Rails and an iOS app that interacts with
that API.

The book covers:

* Which tools we chose for rendering <abbr title="JavaScript Object
  Notation">JSON</abbr> endpoints and why
* How to test-drive development of your Rails <abbr title="JavaScript Object
  Notation">JSON</abbr> API
* How to create <abbr title="JavaScript Object Notation">JSON</abbr> endpoints
  for GET, POST, and PATCH requests
* How to create geocoded <abbr title="Application Programming
  Interface">API</abbr> endpoints
* How to set up your first iOS app in Xcode
* How to consume and use <abbr title="Application Programming
  Interface">API</abbr> endpoints in an iOS app

As with all our books, you get you all future updates we make. We even give you
access to the GitHub repository containing source code for a fully functioning
Rails app and a fully functioning iOS app.

[*iOS on Rails*]: http://iosonrails.net?utm_source=giantrobots&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=iosonrailsbeta