Beginning Android (Expert's Voice in Open Source) [Paperback]

Mark L. Murphy (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1430224193 | ISBN-13: 978-1430224198 | Publication Date: June 26, 2009 | Edition: 1

Beginning Android, one of the first beginning books on Android, covers what the reader needs and wants to know to get started on programming Android applications — everything from crafting GUIs to using GPS and accessing Web services, and more.

Written by Android columnist, writer, developer and community advocate, Mark L Murphy, the easy-to-read style of Beginning Android makes entry-level Android development even more accessible.

Google’s open source Java-based Android mobile (and possibly Netbook applications) operating and development platform is growing with the availability of more and more Smart Phone devices that can utilize it. Beyond HTC G1 and G2 Google Phones, Android continues to grow and be in use as well as adopted by other hardware vendors and their developers in the Open Handset Alliance.

On Google’s Android source code download site alone, there are nearly 1.5 million downloads of Android. Also, Android’s mobile phone market share is growing from 4% in 4Q2008 to as much as 6-8% by mid 2009. Moreover, its ease of use and much lower barrier of entry due to Open Source makes Android accessible to more developers and users. Lastly, Android supports Adobe Flash+AIR platform while Apple’s iPhone still does not.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Murphy is the founder of CommonsWare and the author of the Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. A three-time entrepreneur, his experience ranges from consulting on open source and collaborative development for the Fortune 500 to application development on just about anything smaller than a mainframe. He has been a software developer for over 25 years, from the TRS-80 to the latest crop of mobile devices. A polished speaker, Mr. Murphy has delivered conference presentations and training sessions on a wide array of topics internationally.

Mr. Murphy writes the Building 'Droids column for AndroidGuys and the Android Angle column for NetworkWorld.

Outside of CommonsWare, Mr. Murphy has an avid interest in how the Internet will play a role in citizen involvement with politics and government. He is a contributor to the Rebooting America essay collection, and his personal blog features many posts discussing "cooperative democracy".

Product Details

• Paperback: 361 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (June 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430224193
• ISBN-13: 978-1430224198
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #772,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Murphy is the founder of CommonsWare and the author of the Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development and other books on Android application development. A three-time entrepreneur, his experience ranges from consulting on open source and collaborative development for the Fortune 500 to application development on just about anything smaller than a mainframe. He has been a software developer for over 25 years, from the TRS-80 to the latest crop of mobile devices. A polished speaker, Mr. Murphy has delivered conference presentations and training sessions on a wide array of topics internationally.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fails at instruction, barely usable as reference, February 15, 2010

By 

Aaron Hill "ahill" (Richmond, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning Android (Expert's Voice in Open Source) (Paperback)

I had high hopes for this book - I've used many a press books before for picking up new languages and technologies. The book began good and the first couple demos were useful, but then things kind of fell apart.

There are basically two pedagogical approaches that these sorts of books take: teach by example or teach by exercise. In the former, you learn by rote repetition typing of the projects listed -- in the latter you put your knowledge to use by solving instructional problems. Books like these tend towards the former while classroom books tend towards the latter.

This book begins with some teaching by example, showing fully functional code that you can re-create on your own to see how things work. But then after that, he resorts to just showing what is POSSIBLE with Android, but does not provide complete working code. Unless, of course, you count the downloadable code from the a press website, which the author relies heavily on. But if you are simply loading up working code written by someone else, rather than typing it out, there is not much learning happening. (If the author simply wished to save on paper and thus cut costs, perhaps some exercises / practice problems would have been a good substitute)

The book version that I had read used obsolete versions of Android, as well -- and did not use the Eclipse Android Development Toolkit, either.

Considering that this book is listed as "Beginning", one would expect some more hand-holding and less rapid exploration of features. The material is not really arranged in a way that would lend itself to being used a reference book -- it seems to sit square in the middle between pedagogical and referential.

Beginning Android programmers may find better starting material on the android developer site (developer.[...]), or in other books. I do not recommend this one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better know your Java!, March 23, 2010

By 

Travis J. Reddell (Alexander, AR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning Android (Expert's Voice in Open Source) (Paperback)

A pretty good guide to Android programming. But don't go diving in unless you are quite familiar with the Java programming language. This book says it's for those that are new to Android and "even Java itself", but the author gives no pretense of providing a Java background to the reader. I know some C++, but needless to say I had to hit up Sun's Java Tutorial (online) before I could gain much from this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok... not as good as I had hoped, though, November 28, 2009

By 

H. Goldman - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning Android (Expert's Voice in Open Source) (Paperback)

The book is fairly good but Wrox's Professional Android Development is more thorough. I ended up having to buy three chapters from their handy "chapter on demand" ordering system just to fill in gaps in this book.