This attitude is perplexing to me. a) If you have internet access, why would you need to buy a book? b) Unless you're a strict Prolog or ML enthusiast, Objective C is similar enough to what you already know that you could probably be productive inside a weekend or two.
Also, learning a new language or library that's different enough from what you know that it takes more than a few hours to be comfortable (generally) makes you a better programmer.
Sorry, I do realize you were mostly trying to pile onto the IPhone cost tally, but I'm always surprised to see other programmers imply that learning new things is inherently hard and undesirable.
a) Because I stare at a computer screen ~10 hours a day at work. When I am reading in the evening I prefer to have a book, which I can underline and scribble in.
b) Every programmer over time develops tiny helpful apps that make life bearable, having to rewrite all those apps / utilities in a fresh new language is a burden that I would like to avoid.
c) Admittedly I am a bit more aggrieved than most people because my languages of choice are lisp, scheme and python.
I prefer to read from books but the information in most programming books is out of date very fast. For this reason, I prefer learning languages from the web.
Also, learning a new language or library that's different enough from what you know that it takes more than a few hours to be comfortable (generally) makes you a better programmer.
Sorry, I do realize you were mostly trying to pile onto the IPhone cost tally, but I'm always surprised to see other programmers imply that learning new things is inherently hard and undesirable.