Customer Reviews

Android Wireless Application Development

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is my fourth Android book and by far the best. Concepts that I was uncertain about are explained clearly and completely. I especially like the order in which the topics are covered. The other books launched into developing an application without much underlying explanation of the individual topics - putting that off until later, and not doing it as well. If I had bought this book first, I probably wouldn't have or need the others.

As I have used Android more and more my developer sense started to tingle and I wanted to create my own Android app. I looked at a couple of development books but they all just seemed to be the same: how to install the development environment and then all about how great the Android is to develop for. Nothing I could find actually moved past walking you through your first app on the code side. So when I was emailed about a new book by authors Shane Conder and Lauren Darcey all about Android Application Development I jumped at the chance to review it!

Android Wireless Application Development is a hefty book, weighing in at 573 pages with appendices and a CD, it is chock full of wonderful little tidbits of information that make Android so much fun to develop for. I was never a fan of Java in my programming classes but now that I see it in another light I'm slowly coming around to it. Of course the book starts you off by getting you to install Eclipse (Win/Mac/Linux) and all the tools necessary to create that app that's going to make you rich in the end, then you are walked through how to write your first app, run it on the virtual Android phone, and then how to install it on a device to test. The book follows that with introductions in design, interface essentials, common Android APIs, 3D graphics, and finally how to deploy and sell your marvelous app through the Marketplace.

I found the book a marvellous teaching tool, it keeps your attention and has plenty of screenshots, images, and code snippets to satisfy even a beginner (like myself). I was so excited in the intro app when I was able to get my app to play a media file from the web with a small bit of code. The authors have the perfect balance of teaching and explaining that this is one book you will not get bored reading, you will definitely be ready to use what you've learned to make a new app as soon as you are done reading about it.

I'll be looking for YOUR app in the marketplace soon!

Gee, there are SO MANY THINGS in Android - that was the lingering feeling after having read the book. Because the authors' strong intention is not to make compromises. They methodically go through every feature of the Android API, including 1.5 features. Have you heard about AppWidgets before? Or LiveFolders? I admit that I have not but now I know about them because the book mentioned it.

The enormous breadth of the discussion comes with a cost, however. Even though everything (or almost everything) is mentioned, very few topics are discussed in depth. For example I checked the most popular topics of my blog - unit tests, adapters. The Android unit testing framework is discussed as a bulleted list (no code examples) and the ArrayAdapter example uses Strings as backing data which causes so many problems for developers.

It is best to handle this book as an inventory of Android features and as such, it is very valuable. Such an inventory takes 573 pages, as of version 1.5. I wonder what that number will be in 3 years time.

This book does a good job brushing on most of the APIs in Android, but the code examples are lacking. Almost none of the code examples are comprehensive, so basically this book just gives you hints as to what classes/functions need to be exercised for a given functionality. I almost always needed to consult google for better examples.

This is definitely not the best book if you are new to android.

If you are a professional developer then this is a great book. It easily teaches you everything you need to know to code on a new platform. The book covers all the general concepts from, OS Design, GIU Development, Multi-threading, DB storage, IO, Networking & Web, plus more. The examples are great. There are few errors. Each code snip is called out during a topic discussion and in full.

If you are new to coding this would not be a good choice as a lot of knowledge is assumed.

Overall, this is a great book for the transitioning developer. This is the best Android book I have read so far.

I've read most Android tutorials online, following the documentation from Google and was ready to give up until I stumbled unto this book from Amazon. The previous reviewers gave it such a glowing recommendation, I thought I'd try it. There were other books with more review, but less than stellar recommendations. So I want to echo what everyone else here is saying, if you're serious about learning to develop for the Android platform, you need to start here. This book comes with code references from every snippet referenced in the book and a safari pass to read it online for a limited time. So within one evening I was already using the Android API to interface with the hardware for such things like geolocation and playing music and video.

Anyway, this book is written by fellow programmers, so expect a few typos and grammatical errors. The logic and explanations however are sound and clear.

I've read almost every Android development book out there, and this book is by far my favorite. The author has done a great job in laying out the content and covers just enough to give it a quick read through while jumping into code samples (included on the CD). I've recommended this book to other budding Android developers.

Excellent book! Definitely requires somewhat of a background in the Java programming langauge, but aside from the loads of typos and grammatical errors, it was VERY informative! I just completed my first application using the Android SDK thanks to this book, and I am currently working on another! Highly recommend!

The book is very sloppy. It was not proofread adequately, and the examples not tested. The authors are obviously competent Android developers, which in this case is not necessarily a good thing - all too often, a concept is mentioned or made use of before it is formally introduced. It's obvious to them, but not to someone reading his/her first book on the plaform. Examples: p.66, Location based services do not work as described, p.108 rect not explained sufficiently, p.110 9.png files - what are the "patch guides", "emulator supporting G maps is mentioned but one would not have any idea what it means, p.146 line 3 getText is used instead of setText, p.114 "@+id" not explained, p.143 autoLink helper values are not explained - no idea how to use them - screenshots but no code, the chapter on resources is placed much too early. This is by no means a complete list, just examples, I usually don't read technical books for the purpose of collecting evidence. All too often I ended up googling what the authors were talking about to understand it. If I need to do that, might as well learn the platform online and not bother with a book. Many of the examples are very incomplete - from reading a typical one you have no idea how to put together a complete sample that uses it. In addition to all this, the book is obsolete. Despite the 2010 copyright date, it only covers the platform through 1.5, and even 1.5 is not covered adequately. I lasted through the beginning of ch. 9, but enough is enough is enough. Returned it, and on to the next one.

I have purchased and have been studying/using four books on Android and of them I'd say this is the best. This is not to say the others are not good, but this book serves the purpose of getting up to speed faster and with more clarity especially with it's emphasis on using Eclipse as the development environment.

The book gives a sequential treatment of Android, unfolding the concepts and constructs in a manner that helps a beginner (to Android) quickly see implementation. While not exhaustive in depth on all of the topics it covers it covers all of the main topics one needs to know. Their examples cover and answer many of the complex issues that one gets into as you go past the simple linear layout and delve into multiple views and stand-alone drawing. I like the multiple apps they include showing implementation that you can expand on.

Setting up the Android development environment was more complex than any I've experienced - and Eclipse is slow and buggy and requires time to understand - the use of Java makes for a slow IDE and operating system in Android, and surprisingly programs do not seem to work completely on all platforms using the same Android version. So much for portability. But all of this has nothing to do with the book, which is excellent.

Android is still maturing which means growing pains on both sides, for the developer and the user. I do see lots of promise for it! As to open source that is some what a joke - try to stop unwanted SMS messages going out in the background for example. A collusion between Google and the phone provider - one you discover when you get your next bill unless you have unlimited TEXT on. It's built into the operating system.