Saturday, September 15, 2012

Pro Android 4 (2012)


Pro Android 4 shows you how to build real-world and fun mobile apps using the new Android SDK 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), which unifies Gingerbread for smartphones, Honeycomb for tablets and augments further with Google TV and more.

This Android 4 book updates the best selling Pro Android 3 and covers everything from the fundamentals of building apps for embedded devices, smartphones, and tablets to advanced concepts such as custom 3D components, multi-tasking, sensors/augmented reality, better accessories support and much more.
  • Using the tutorials and expert advice, you'll quickly be able to build cool mobile apps and run them on dozens of Android-based smartphones.
  • You'll explore and use the Android APIs, including those for media and sensors.
  • And you'll check out what's new with Android 4, including the improved user interface across all Android platforms, integration with services, and more.
After reading this definitive tutorial and reference, you gain the knowledge and experience to create stunning, cutting-edge Android 4 apps that can make you money, while keeping you agile enough to respond to changes in the future.

What you’ll learn

  • How to use Android 4 to build Java-based mobile apps for Android smartphones and tablets 
  • How to build irresistible standard and custom User Interfaces and User Experiences (UI and UX) across Android devices
  • How to populate your application with data from data sources, using Content Providers
  • How to build multimedia and game apps using Android's media APIs
  • How to use Android's location-based services, network-based services, and security
  • How to use new Android features, such as Fragments and the ActionBar

Who this book is for

This book is for professional software engineers and programmers looking to move their ideas and applications into the mobile space with Android. It assumes a passable understanding of Java, including how to write classes and handle basic inheritance structures.

Beginning Android 4


Beginning Android 4 is an update to Beginning Android 3, originally written by Mark Murphy. It is your first step on the path to creating marketable apps for the burgeoning Android Market, Amazon's Android Appstore, and more. Google’s Android operating-system has taken the industry by storm, going from its humble beginnings as a smartphone operating system to its current status as a platform for apps that run across a gamut of devices from phones to tablets to netbooks to televisions, and the list is sure to grow.

Smart developers are not sitting idly by in the stands, but are jumping into the game of creating innovative and salable applications for this fast-growing, mobile- and consumer-device platform. If you’re not in the game yet, now is your chance!

Beginning Android 4 is fresh with details on the latest iteration of the Android platform. Begin at the beginning by installing the tools and compiling a skeleton app. Move through creating layouts, employing widgets, taking user input, and giving back results. Soon you’ll be creating innovative applications involving multi-touch, multi-tasking, location-based feature sets using GPS.

You’ll be drawing data live from the Internet using web services and delighting your customers with life-enhancing apps. Not since the PC era first began has there been this much opportunity for the common developer. What are you waiting for? Grab your copy of Beginning Android 4 and get started! 

What you’ll learn

  • Develop Java-based mobile applications and games for a wide range of phones and devices.
  • Create user interfaces using WebKit and the Android widget framework.
  • Build location- and map-based applications drawing on live feeds over the Internet.
  • Incorporate activities, services, content providers, and broadcast receivers into your applications.
  • Support multiple Android versions, multiple screen sizes, and other device-specific characteristics.
  • Build and experience the array of new WebM video and other multimedia APIs for Android and more.

Who this book is for

Beginning Android 4 is aimed at programmers new to Android application development who desire to create marketable applications for the burgeoning market of smartphone, tablet, and other Android device users.

Apress Beginning Android (2009)


Learn how to develop applications for Android mobile devices using simple examples, ready to run with your copy of the software development kit. Author and Android columnist, writer, developer, and community advocate Mark L. Murphy shows you what you need to know to get started on programming Android applications–everything from crafting graphical user interfaces to using GPS, accessing web services, and more!
The Android development platform, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, is a platform in its truest sense, encompassing hundreds of classes beyond the traditional Java classes and open source components that ship with the SDK. Some Android books race through the material, trying to cover as much ground as possible in as few pages as possible. Experienced writer and community advocate Mark Murphy shows you how to develop Android applications simply and with care.
The book includes dozens of sample projects, ready to run with your copy of the SDK—not just one huge project where you have difficulty finding the specific examples of the technique you are looking for. You can even get these sample programs online at Apress.com.

What you’ll learn

  • Discover what Android is and how to use Android to build Java-based mobile applications for Google Phones G1 and more phones as they hit the market
  • Work with the new Android 1.x SDK
  • Create user interfaces using both the Android Widget framework and the built-in WebKit-powered web browser components
  • Use scripting with BeanShell
  • Work with menu inflation, fonts, SDK tools, rotation events, and more
  • Work with TabActivity, MyLocationOverlay, DDMS, and more
  • Utilize the distinctive capabilities of the Android engine including maps, Internet access, integrated search, media playback, and more
  • Use and create similar sample Android applications for services, content providers, mapping, and location-based services/events.

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at people new to mobile development, perhaps even to Java itself.

Learn Java for Android Development


Android development is hot, and many programmers are interested in joining the fun. However, because this technology is based on Java, you should first obtain a solid grasp of the Java language and its foundational APIs to improve your chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. After all, you will be busy learning the architecture of an Android app, the various Android-specific APIs, and Android-specific tools. If you do not already know Java fundamentals, you will probably end up with a massive headache from also having to quickly cram those fundamentals into your knowledge base.  

Learn Java for Android Development
 teaches programmers of any skill level the essential Java language and foundational Java API skills that must be learned to improve the programmer’s chances of succeeding as an Android app developer. Each of the book’s 10 chapters provides an exercise section that gives you the opportunity to reinforce your understanding of the chapter’s material. Answers to the book’s more than 300 exercises are provided in an appendix. Additionally, author Jeff Friesen has created six bonus chapters that you can download from his personal site, located at http://tutortutor.ca/cgi-bin/makepage.cgi?/books/ljfad.

Once you complete this book, you will be ready to dive into Android, and you can start that journey by obtaining a copy ofBeginning Android 2.   

What you’ll learn

  • The Java language: This book provides complete coverage of nearly every pre-Java version 7 language feature (native methods are briefly mentioned but not formally covered). Starting with those features related to classes and objects, you progress to object-oriented features related to inheritance, polymorphism, and interfaces. You then explore the advanced language features for nested types, packages, static imports, exceptions, assertions, annotations, generics, and enums. Continuing, you investigate strictfp, class literals, synchronized, volatile, the enhanced for loop statement, autoboxing/unboxing, and transient fields. The book also briefly presents most (if not all) of Java version 7’s language features, although not much is said about closures or modules (which were not finalized at the time of writing).
  • Java APIs: In addition to Object and APIs related to exceptions, you explore Math, StrictMath, BigDecimal, BigInteger, Package, Boolean, Character, Byte, Short, Integer, Long, Float, Double, Number, the References API, the Reflection API, String, StringBuffer, System, the Threading API, the collections framework, the concurrency utilities, the internationalization APIs, the Preferences API, Random, the Regular Expressions API, File, RandomAccessFile, stream classes, and writer/reader classes. You will also get a tiny taste of Swing in the context of internationalization.
  • Tools: You will learn how to use the JDK’s javac (compiler), java (application launcher), javadoc (Java documentation generator), and jar (Java archive creator, updater, and extractor) tools. You will also receive an introduction to the NetBeans and Eclipse integrated development environments. Although you can develop Android apps without NetBeans or Eclipse, working with these IDEs is much more pleasant.

Who this book is for

This book is for any programmer (including existing Java programmers and Objective-C [iPhone/iPad] programmers) of any skill level who needs to obtain a solid understanding of the Java language and foundational Java APIs before jumping into Android app development.