25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Have for Android Developers, June 10, 2009
This review is from: Unlocking Android: A Developer's Guide (Paperback)
This is a must have book for anybody doing Android development. It is definitely targeted at developers who are new to Android -- which describes most Android developers out there given what a new platform it is. However, the level of depth on many topics and the clarity provided behind many key concepts in Android are so well done that this book will benefit anyone working on Android applications.
The book is divided into three sections. The first section is called "What is Android? -- The Big Picture." I have to admit, I thought this might be fluff, but it is definitely not. The overview is good, but what the real value is the explanation on getting your development environment setup. This is something that many books fail to mention at all, as it can be a tricky topic to illustrate in a book. It is well done here, and can definitely be a big time save for new developers. More of this kind of "how to" material is also presented in the appendices.
The second part is called "Exercising the Android SDK" and is the real meat of the book. It takes a very practical, top-down approach to Android application development. It starts off by explaining UI concepts, then intents and services. It then dives into excellent detail on some of the key aspects of mobile application development: working with data, using the Internet, telephony, notifications, graphics, multimedia, and GPS. I would recommend that you immediately read the chapters 3-6 (UI, intents, services, data management, Internet) as these are really the building blocks of any mobile app that is not a game. The other chapters are great too, but you can probably read them as needed. Maybe you don't need GPS today, but need it three months from now. Just read chapter 11 at that time, and you will have no problem. The chapters are self-contained enough for this, while there is still a nice flow of thought between them as well.
The last part of the book is called "Android Applications." It starts off with a very nice example of creating a very "full" application. It really drives in all of the previous material, and is a veritable cookbook of sample code. There are a lot of clever little things you might want to do in your application that you can find an easy to follow sample of in this chapter. I found myself thinking "oh I'm going to rip this off and re-do some part of an existing app." The last chapter is title "Hacking Android" and is all about writing an application in C to run "closer to the metal" on Android. This is probably not that useful to most developers, but I imagine it would be invaluable if you actually did need to do something like this. If nothing else, it is a good read and reveals fascinating aspects of Android's internals. It certainly demonstrates the technical mastery of the authors.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not all its hyped up to be, July 8, 2009
This review is from: Unlocking Android: A Developer's Guide (Paperback)
Review omitted for brevity... Thats how I feel about the code examples. Whatever happened to the good ol' days when code examples were long but complete. If someone is a beginner, they don't know how to complete the code that the authors decided to leave out.
If you use this book as a supplement to the developer.android.com documentation, you will be better off than depending on this book as a source.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Its average, February 17, 2010
This review is from: Unlocking Android: A Developer's Guide (Paperback)
The book is good but there are several typos and sometimes it is hard to follow. The authors forgot to put more diagrams and pictures to explain the concept better. Developers are very visual people and we tend to understand concepts through diagrams or drawings on the board. There some cases where the book gets very tedious and difficult to follow. The code examples are very good but again I would have love to see 3 or 4 lines of code and then an explanation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
