Sams Teach Yourself iOS 5 Application Development in 24 Hours, 3rd Edition

This book is excellent for the Xcode beginner. I haven't so much as coded anything in about 10 years and wanted to write an app, and I'm certainly not a pro but at least now I know the basics and can figure out the rest with more advanced tutorials online. This book covers all of the basics of writing apps in iOS and walks you through them step-by-step. It also has introductory chapters on how to get set up as a developer, which is also important. The book also lets you know what other resources are available for bringing your apps to a higher level of complexity.