[vonseel]

I am an iOS beginner.

I have not read your post in-depth, I will, but I think it's probably wise to stick to learning UITableView well -- and understanding why I would want to implement something custom -- before avoiding the classes Apple provides.

That being said, I understood delegates, categories, and other Objective-C features much better after coding several applications first, reading a ton of open source code, and then reading relevant parts of Programming in Objective-C (Kochan). I first purchased his book before attempting to code for iOS, and found the pace too slow or concepts too unfamiliar, but after some practice and finding what I did not understand, it is much easier to look to documentation and textbooks for appropriate reference.

[girvo]

The OP didn't reimplement it to use it, it was done to explain. that's what I got out of it anyway.