This wasn't too bad of a read:

http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-Editi...

But, if you're not talking discrete components and just want something to act as more of a controller, these boards are pretty friendly:

http://beagleboard.org/ (slightly more advanced embedded controller)

http://arduino.cc/ (pretty basic and awesome community)

http://www.raspberrypi.org/ (never played with one, but another popular option)

Read:

http://www.josetteorama.com/hardware-hacking-for-ios-program...

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/Ext...

You might want to come out to a SFHN event (https://www.facebook.com/groups/gosfhn/)

and Hackendo (http://hackendo.techendo.co/)

Does anyone have any suggestions for books/learning materials related to the pre requisites mentioned in the article, specifically Microprocessor programming? I've tried to find some in the past but having no prior EE experience I find even some of the basics challenging.

I have experience with C, but don't really know where to start with the lower level stuff.

I'm thinking I should start with a simple book like Electrical Engineering 101 (http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-Schoo...). Once I have a grasp on some EE basics I might be able to step into the Microprocessor programming a bit better, knowing a bit of what's happening behind the scenes.

Any thoughts/suggestions?