You might be thinking to yourself, "Why do I have to learn another method when there are so many ways already available to us?" So, in this section and on the following pages, we will see why Core Data is the preferred way to store data on iOS and the Mac OS platform.

The first thing you need to know is that Core Data is not another method of data persistence per se; it is actually an abstraction over SQLite, plists, and so on. This means that you can actually use Apple's Core Data API to save your data into the persistent store just by using the Core Data API without needing to write plist-specific or SQLite-specific code if you choose to store your data as plists or SQLite respectively. This abstraction layer illustrates the basic concept of why Core Data is so powerful.

Now that you have your mind blown, the abstraction layer means that you can just use the Core Data APIs, and the abstraction layer will handle all the storage-specific code for you as all this high-level...