If your resolutions for 2011 include teaching yourself to be a Mac or iOS developer, then Apple just gave you a very nice Christmas present.
According to a tip from our old friend Nik Fletcher at Realmac Software, Apple has recently put a number of Apple Developer Publications books into the iBookstore for free. This makes it simple to grab these books, which range from "The Objective-C Programming Language" to "iOS Application Programming Guide," for reading on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
As our resident developer and iOS guru-ette Erica Sadun points out, it's "kinda dumb" to have the books running on the device you're trying to develop for. It would be nice if Apple eventually made a version of iBooks available for Mac OS X.
At the present time, you can get a Mac-compatible