Customer Reviews

The Busy Coder's Guide to Advanced Android Development

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I have read the other popular books by burnette and meier and clearly this book and the series from Mark Murphy are a class apart. I would consider myself an intermediate java developer and found this book the best resource as the author shows you good practice in building android apps not just its API features. Additionally, Murphy continually updated the content which you can download if you have a subscription. The examples work flawlessly and the companion books round out the learning experience lacking by other authors. Frankly, just start here if you want to do more than dabble in android.

I am a software developer over 15 years experience. I wanted a book that would cover the Android development / programming environment in fairly complete depth and with good breadth. A lot to ask! I started with another popular Android book and found it was a good introduction but lacking in details. What's with that "@+id" stuff, for example; the book never mentioned how to interpret it. So I went searching for better and found this book. It is both reasonably comprehensive (but not an encyclopedia) and reasonably broad. The examples are well focused and presented well (e.g., you know what the example is supposed to look like and behave like). What's really made me happy is how the publisher handles the ebook versions of their books. They have 4 Android tomes (Busy Coder's Guide To Android, BCG to Advanced, a tutorial, and a performance book). If you pay for the ebooks (sign up on line; costs about as much as one book), you not only get the ebook for the paper book you purchased, but you also get access to all 4! And no DRM - epub and pdf versions. AND they are continually updating the books (each book has a version number!) and you have access to all updates for the duration of your subscription. This is a great deal from my point of view. They have other niceties as well - e.g., you can trade in your (gently used) paper book and get credit. Also have a bug bounty program that earns you chits for extending your subscription. Highly recommended!

I was having issues finding a good example for developing custom components, and came across this book online. The book contains very clear, concise examples that are a great resource. The examples in this book are well organized, and easy to follow, and most important - are complete.

I was so happy with the quality of the online material, that I decided to buy the print edition.

Mark is a wealth of Android knowledge, and his books are excellent resources.

The material in this book is not for beginners, but for experienced developers that are looking to take their code to the next level.

I should have known that this book is a waste of time and money by just by previewing the book. The table of contents makes no sense, but worse is the index. For example, in the index, 'Intent' lists +30 pages where the word Intent is found, but it does not describe the usage. Therefore I must look through all references and since I am a 'Busy Coder", this is wasting my time. The author throughout the book tries to convince the reader that his library should be used. He continues to describe his library. I do not care about his library. I am interested in how to get the job done using the Google Android Framework. Do NOT waste your money on this book. Apress'es Pro Android 3 provides much better, more detailed explanations. I also very much like O'Reilly's Programming Android.