Android combines the ubiquity of cell phones, the excitement of open source software, and the corporate backing of Google and other Open Handset Alliance members. The result is a mobile platform you can’t afford not to learn. This second edition is completely updated for Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Android 1.6 (Donut).

Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform
Code • Errata • Discussions
272 pages, Nov 2009
ISBN: 978-1-93435-649-4

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About this Book

Please Note: If you purchased the eBook version of the first edition, you were automatically upgraded to the Second Edition. The paperback Second Edition is a separate purchase.

Android is a software toolkit for mobile phones, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It’s inside millions of cell phones and other mobile devices, making Android a major platform for application developers. That could be your own program running on all those devices.

Getting started developing with Android is easy. You don’t even need access to an Android phone, just a computer where you can install the Android SDK and the phone emulator that comes with it. Within minutes, “Hello, Android” will get you creating your first working application: Android’s version of “Hello, World.”

From there, you’ll build up a more substantial example: an Android Sudoku game. By gradually adding features to the game throughout the course of the book, you’ll learn about many aspects of Android programming including user interfaces, multimedia, and the Android life cycle.

This second edition has been completely revised for Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Android 1.6 (Donut). Every page and example was reviewed and updated for compatibility with the new versions. In addition, two new appendixes show you how to create Widgets for the Home screen and publish your application to the Android Market.

If you’re a busy developer who’d rather be coding than reading about coding, this book is for you. To help you find what you need to know fast, each chapter ends with a “Fast-Forward” section. These sections provide guidance for where you should go next when you need to read the book out of order.

Contents and Extracts

  • Full Table of Contents
  • Preface
  • Introducing Android
    • Quick Start
    • Key Concepts
  • Android Basics
    • Designing the User Interface excerpt
    • Exploring 2D Graphics excerpt
    • Multimedia
    • Storing Local Data
  • Beyond the Basics
    • The Connected World
    • Locating and Sensing
    • Putting SQL to Work
    • 3D Graphics in OpenGL
  • Appendixes
    • Java vs. the Android Language and APIs
    • Hello, Widget
    • Publishing to the Android Market
    • Bibliography

About the Author

Ed Burnette is a software industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience as a programmer, author, and speaker. His development credits include everything from commercial video games to high-performance grid computing systems. Ed is a founding member and senior researcher at the SAS Advanced Computing Lab.

Ed has authored numerous technical articles and books, including Google Web Toolkit: Taking the Pain out of Ajax and Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide. He writes the Dev Connection blog for ZDNet, and is the creator of Planet Android (http://www.planetandroid.com).

In his copious spare time, you can often find him playing video games with his two sons at their home in central North Carolina.