Core Animation for Mac OS X and the iPhone

Author: Bill Dudney

http://www.pragprog.com/titles/bdcora/core-animation-for-mac-os-x-and-the-iphone

For a while, this was the only book on Core Animation out there, which made it extremely valuable.  The built-in documentation on Core Animation is a little sparse, and this is an extensive framework, so any additional documentation is very helpful.  The author writes well, and gives many examples of different kinds of animations that you can perform.

The organization of the book is such that he starts with simpler concepts first, involving animating Mac-based NSViews around, which might make you a little impatient to get into the heart of the framework.  Even though there is only one chapter devoted to the iPhone, almost all of the custom animation and layer concepts are identical between Mac and iPhone.