Pro Android 3 [Paperback]

Satya Komatineni (Author), Dave MacLean (Author), Sayed Hashimi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2011 | ISBN-10: 1430232226 | ISBN-13: 978-1430232223 | Edition: 1

Pro Android 3 shows you how to build real-world and fun mobile applications using the new Android 3.0 SDK. It covers everything from the fundamentals of building apps for embedded devices, phones, and tablets to advanced concepts such as custom 3D components and multi-tasking.

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 3.0, including the improved UI across all Android platforms, integration with services, and more, giving you the knowledge to create stunning, cutting-edge apps, while keeping you agile enough to respond to changes in the future.
What you'll learn

• How to use Android to build Java-based mobile applications for Google phones with a touch screen or keyboard
• How to design and implement irresistible user interfaces for touchscreens with Views and layouts
• How to populate your application with data from data sources, using Content Providers
• How to create 3D graphics with OpenGL and custom components
• How to build multimedia and game apps using Android's Media APIs and OpenGL
• How to use Android's location-based services, network-based services, and security
• How to use new Android 3.0 features, such as Fragments and the ActionBar

Who this book is for This book is for professional software engineers/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.
Table of Contents

1. Introducing the Android Computing Platform
2. Setting up your Development Environment
3. Understanding Resources
4. Understanding Content Providers
5. Understanding Intents
6. Building User Interfaces and Using Controls
7. Adding Menus
8. Implementing Dialogs
9. Working with Preferences and Saving State
10. Security and Permissions
11. Working with Services
12. Exploring Packages, Processes, and Library Projects
13. Exploring Processes, Components, Threads, and Handlers
14. Exploring Broadcast Receivers and Long Running Services
15. Exploring the Alarm Manager
16. Unveiling 2D Animation
17. Exploring Maps and Location Services
18. Using the Telephony APIs
19. Understanding the Media Frameworks
20. Programming 3D Graphics with OpenGL
21. Exploring Live Folders
22. Home Screen Widgets and Live Wallpaper
23. Android Search
24. Exploring Text to Speech and the Google Translate API
25. Touchscreens
26. Using Sensors
27. Understanding the Contact API
28. Deploying your Application: Android Market and Beyond
29. Fragments
30. Action Bar
31. Selected Topics in Android 3.0

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sayed Y. Hashimi is the author of Pro Android, as well as a consultant and trainer in Jacksonville, Florida. Sayed has worked for startups and Fortune 100 companies. He has developed large-scale distributed applications with a variety of programming languages and platforms, including C++, Java, and .NET. Sayed has published in major software journals on topics ranging from low-level programming techniques to high-level architecture concepts.

Satya Komatineni has been programming for more than 20 years in the IT and Web space. He has had the opportunity to work with Assembly, C, C++, Rexx, Java, C#, Lisp, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, SVG, relational databases, object databases and related technologies. He has published more than 30 articles touching many of these areas, both in print and online. He has been a frequent speaker at O'Reilly Open Source Conference, speaking on innovations around Java and Web. Satya has done a considerable amount of original work in creating Aspire, a comprehensive open-source Java-based web framework, and has explored personal web productivity and collaboration tools through his open-source work for KnowledgeFolders.com. Satya holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Andhra University, India. You can find his website at SatyaKomatineni.com.

Dave MacLean is a software engineer and architect living and working in Jacksonville, Florida. Since 1980, he has programmed in many languages, developing solutions ranging from robot automation systems to data warehousing, from web self-service applications to electronic data interchange transaction processors. Dave has worked for Sun Microsystems, IBM, Trimble Navigation, General Motors, and several small companies. He graduated from the University of Waterloo in Canada with a degree in systems design engineering. Visit his blog at http://davemac327.blogspot.com or contact him at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 1200 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (April 21, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430232226
• ISBN-13: 978-1430232223
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 2.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,398 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book May 15, 2011

By Deeps

Format:Paperback

This is a really good book on Android development.

I have been extensively programming in java for a few years. Recently
I was reading about a CIO summit in our area and each of the CIOs talked about
how significant the new mobile devices are for banking, transportation
and healthcare.

I wanted to see how to quickly gain expertise in the mobile space to
my already well established enterprise skills.

This book has pointed out that I can be up and running with Android
very quickly even without buying a single android device. I could walk
through almost all the examples of this book through the emulator.

I also like the fact that most of the chapters (except for a couple at
the begining) are stand alone. Each chapter has working examples that
have been specifically developed for that chapter with few
pre-requisites. I am able to download the zip files for each chapter
so that I can import them directly into eclipse. Then I am able to
read through the chapter and look at the working example
simultaneously to make the most of it.

If you look at the google android developer website you see that
android offers an extensive set of APIs. I do find the android
documentation on the android site very good. However I needed a book
that is a bit more organized and take me from concept to concept in a
meaningful manner.

By comparison I can see that this book covers a number of android
basic features that include intents, resources, menus, dialogs,
controls, services, security, preferences, activities, and content
providers. Some of these concepts are very unique to Android. The
authors have gone into a lot of detail while covering these topics. I
must say this strengthened my appreciation of Android as a full
fledged programming platform.

I am also very pleased with the coverage of Android internals that
include processes, threads, handlers, asynchronous tasks, broadcast
receivers, wake locks, long running services, notification manager
etc.

I have always wanted to see what it means to program in opengl. This
book provides an excellent introduction to opengl including the opengl
es 2.0. Be warned though that this is not an extensive guide on
OpenGL. You may have to buy a 500 page book just to do justice to all
the intricacies of OpenGL. This book does have references to further
material that you can read on OpenGL. The animation chapter is really
fun to read. The other advanced topics covered include maps,
telephony, sensors, media.

The coverage on the contacts api is extensive and good.

It is really surprising how quickly this book was released with
coverage for tablets only after a month or two of the honeycomb
release.

Finally for a senior programmer this book goes into how to dive into
the android sdk source code right in the introductory chapter. I found
this really useful when I am not sure how a particular functionality
works when the SDK documentation is not clear.

As I have listed so many things this book covers it is fair to list a
few things that it does not cover. Game programmign is not covered at
all. Live Wall Paper topic is not covered. If you are thinking of
using Bluetooth API to write cool applications it is not covered
either.

But I am really happy with the book because I am able to gain a broad
picture of the Android SDK. I am able to understand its architecture.
I am able to explore its advanced APIs. I am left with a lot
references to supporting material in each chapter.

Excellent in all and all.

Oh, one more thing! The supplemental website that supports this book
androidbook.com seem to contain a lot of the working notes of authors
in addition to their future research on Android SDK.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Best Android programming book I have purchased April 29, 2011

By Samwise

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the third Android programming book I have read and so far it is the best (for me at least). It is a massive book 1100+ pages that (so far in my reading) goes to the effort to explain not only how to do a task, but explains why.

While it is called Pro Android 3, it does go over the all the steps needed to get an experienced programmer up and going with the eclipse IDE for android programming. If you are familiar with Java programming I would recommend this as a great first book for Android development.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Pro Android 3 May 28, 2011

By V S B VEERAPANENI

Format:Paperback

This is the first book I have read on the Android platform.

Though I am not an active coder, I have done quite a bit of coding in C++ and am quite familiar with C# and Java.

With this background I am pleased to find that I can learn the basics
from scratch with this book. Midway through the book I saw that I can get a good footing
with the internals of Android. There are also lot of chapters on a ton
of independent advanced APIs (this list is evident from the table of
contents in the book description).

I have seen some folks asking about fragments and other tablet
specific APIs. I haven't gone through those chapters in detail but from an
initial look it seems to have lot of pages on those topics.

Overall, this is a great book for Android developers whether they are beginners or already gotten their hands dirty in this environment.

On the way to my first app in Android...