Rating:  - You need to read the forums
If you are confused by the reviews here, you really need to go read the forum posts ( look for the "Customer Discussions" links below these reviews).
Personally, I wouldn't do this - too geekish for me, and if I were going to get into it, I'd go the "official route". The author made a very good point about this in the forum:
quote
It clears up a lot of confusion if you look at the Apple SDK as the "AppStore SDK", rather than a form of official SDK. The "AppStore SDK" as it is today summarizes what Apple will probably allow you to do in official AppStore applications. What you can technically do hasn't changed - it's just what Apple will "allow" you to do if you want to get on AppStore.
endquote
So if your interest is developing your own apps that you either aren't selling or at least won't be selling through the official store, this is fine. I thought it was well written, and although I can't follow it fully , it seems to lead you into the subject well.
I do harbor other feelings about this. While I think Apple is very smart in how they've opened this up while keeping it firmly under their control, I still think that Apple and the world would be better off it it were really open. In that respect, I applaud the author and hope that thousands of developers embrace this and force Apple to relinquish control.
Rating:  - very concise and to the point!!! a must read!!!
iPhone Open Application Development is meant for hard core developers.
The writing style is very concise and to the point, not much BS. If you don't understand certain parts of the book, you can always Google.
I'm from Java background, but picking up Objective-C and trying out some samples in the book do not seem to be super difficult for me. I also got the toolchain built successfully by following the steps in the book, although there was one error in the LLVMOBJDIR setting but can you find the solution in iphone dev google group.
You don't need to wait for Apple's official SDK 2.0 release in order to build iphone applications. And the most important thing is: you can run your application on your iphone w/o bricking it (as comparing to what Apple's beta SDK will do to you). And it's totally FREE!
Highly recommend this book to any serious iPhone/iPod touch developers.
The samples in the book along can last for quite a long time.
Rating:  - Not what you might think it is
I returned this book, since I bought it after Apple's iPhone SDK was released, I assumed that would be the topic of the book. This book is for the development of Jailbroken iPhones. I'm sure I would have learned quite a bit from reading this book, but I'm just more interested in using Apple's official SDK, since my iPhone is no longer Jailbroken and I don't plan on Jailbreaking again.
Rating: - This book is a lifesaver and a great resource
As a programmer who creates interactive demos for visions of the future, it is very important for me to be on the bleeding edge of mobile and multimedia technologies. Such technologies include the release of Flash player 9.0.115.0 (with HD support), Flash Lite 3.0, Flash Media Server 3 (ActionScript has been key for me in its portability), and lately the iPhone open toolchain (due to the coolness factor of the iPhone).
When it comes to the Mac platform, I've only just begun getting my hands dirty. I got my first Mac a year ago and was surprised with the ease in which I was able to get started with the toolchain from the instructions in this book. The setup was extremely easy, but the most benefit of this book comes from chapter 3, which describes UIKit, the framework which handles most of the UI elements on the iPhone. This chapter was incredibly descriptive and helped me to better visualize how my app is put together.
For a programmer who needs to be able to get things done yesterday, this book really helped me earn a lot of brownie points at work. Coupled with the helpful nature of the author (who is available via IRC), I find this book an excellent resource.
Rating:  - Get Apple's free iPhone programming PDF instead...this is outdated material
The biggest problem with this book is that it addresses programming for the 1.1.4 iPhone firmware and was written prior to the official iPhone SDK being released. As a result it is already outdated with respect to many of the frameworks and APIs that aren't available in the official 1.2/2.0 firmware release and will most likely also be outdated in terms of the open toolchain, which is already changing to adapt to the SDK. So while the book has been helpful for me in getting up to speed with iPhone development pre-SDK (I have a draft PDF from O'Reilly), it is of little to no use now given the resources Apple has already made available for free at the iPhone Dev Center.
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