Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform 1st Edition

by Ed Burnette (Author)

15 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-1934356173

ISBN-10: 1934356174

Why is ISBN important?

Paperback

$5.97 - $9.99

Other Sellers

from

Other Sellers

See all 1 versions

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by Great Time Books

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

FREE delivery February 15 - 18. Details

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by krs-books.

List Price: $32.95 Details

Save: $22.96 (70%)

$3.99 delivery February 11 - 18. Details

There is a newer edition of this item:

Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform
$27.72
(31)
Only 3 left in stock (more on the way).

Android is a new software toolkit for mobile phones, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. In a few years, it's expected to be found inside millions of cell phones and other mobile devices, making Android a major platform for application developers. That could be your own program running on all those devices.

Getting started developing with Android is easy. You don't even need access to an Android phone, just a computer where you can install the Android SDK and the phone emulator that comes with it. Within minutes, "Hello, Android" will get you creating your first working application: Android's version of "Hello, World."

From there, you'll build up a more substantial example: an Android Sudoku game. By gradually adding features to the game throughout the course of the book, you'll learn about many aspects of Android programming including user interfaces, multimedia, and the Android life cycle.

If you're a busy developer who'd rather be coding than reading about coding, this book is for you. To help you find what you need to know fast, each chapter ends with "Fast forward" section. These sections provide guidance for where you should go next when you need to read the book out of order.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1st edition (January 7, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 228 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1934356174
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1934356173
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.49 x 9 inches

Customer Reviews:
15 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		30%
4 star		28%
3 star		21%
2 star		8%
1 star		14%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Unoti

The best way to get started with Android

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2010

Verified Purchase

You can get through the book in a weekend. I took a couple of cross-country flights, read the book on the way there and on the way back. After getting home, had my first android app running within an afternoon. The book won't be the end of your journey on figuring out how to do things, but it's a tremendously good place to start.

The book is introductory, really. It merely touches on a lot of areas. If you get serious about developing on Android, you'll need to do a lot more research. But the book is designed to just get you started, and hold your hand over the hardest part: getting basic control of what you're doing and getting started. It does this wonderfully, and so for that I give it 5 stars.

This is for version 1.5, and today we're at version 2.2. I wouldn't worry about this too much. This book is all about getting you up and running quickly, and it does that. It will give you what you need to get running and figure out for yourself what's different in later versions. Also keep in mind that many devices out there are still on version 1.5 (for a while longer anyway), so you may want to be developing back to this version anyway.

If you expect it to be the last book you'll ever need and your one stop shop for all things Android, you'll be disappointed. But to do that, the book would have to be overwhelmingly large. So get this book and take it for what it is: the perfect way to get started with developing on Android.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

C. Elsasser

Like a recipe book missing major steps

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2009

Verified Purchase

I had previously given it a two and have included that review below. But getting deeper I'm finding so much missing. The book walks you through the steps of making A Sudoku application, but excludes major portions which are in the online sample code. But including that code causes a whole bunch of reference errors to a point at which you end up copying everything from the example. Not much is explained except for the walk-through (see below) so it ends up making the book pretty useless.

Prior:
It walks you through the process of building an application and subsequently you run into a portion of the SDK but it explains little in terms of why you are doing what you are doing. I feel very much like I'm following a recipe. Perhaps the idea is that you can further research using the Android online reference, but in that case I don't really need the book in that Android's developer website offers a bunch of online tutorials and examples.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

Steve K. Oliver II

Learn Android in a Weekend

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2009

I've read several books on Android from cover to cover, and skimmed several others, and "Hello, Android" is hands-down the best introduction to Android development.

Here's why I say that --

You really can get through the book in a day or two. The explanations are clear, the topics focus on what's relevant to getting started in Android development, and when you're done you have the skills to dive into the SDK to continue learning.

There is a consistent example project that is developed throughout the book. I found this very helpful, because it showed me how all the different parts fit together. For example, launching activities from an existing activity, using multiple classes in your project, adding preferences, etc.

There are very few (if any) "gotchas" in this book. I followed the examples step by step without any problem. I think some people have used the book's online forum to ask about which packages to import, but when I used Eclipse it was done automatically for me. (By the way, all the files are also online.)

Even after having many months of Android development under my belt, I find that I still refer back to this book from time to time. That's saying something for a book that sets out to be an introduction.

Remember, this book is a great introduction. If you already know Android and are looking for a deep-dive, look elsewhere. But if you are curious about all the excitement around Android and have a few hours to spare, spend them with this book and find out what developing in Android is all about.

113 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael Nichols

Excellent introduction to programming Android applications

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2009

This is the book to get if you know nothing about Android. It teaches through several examples, namely sudoku and a spinning, textured, translucent cube example. It's about half the size of Professional Android Application Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) and because of that is more condensed and to-the-point. I would recommend this book over the Wrox one as a first/only Android book.

Chapter 1 dives right in and gets your environment set up and the classic "Hello Android!" application running on an emulator. Only after getting code running does it go into details about the Android framework. I like this approach because until you start getting your hands into some code, you can't really appreciate the high-level stuff much or at all.

The sudoku application is started in chapter 3 and is developed over subsequent chapters adding graphics, sound, a dialog box and persistent state. By the end of the book, you will have put together (if you followed the code examples) a pretty cool sudoku app.

The remaining chapters focus on what I believe are the key components to mobile applications. Chapter 5 goes over playing sound and video. Chapter 7 goes over connecting to the internet. Chapter 8 is about SQLite. Chapter 9 (my favorite) is a step-by-step 3D OpenGL graphics example of a spinning, textured, translucent cube.

Bottom Line: This book has excellent examples with explanations of what the code means that will get you started building Android apps quickly. I highly recommend this to anyone looking to buy a first Android book or interested specifically in graphics for Android.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Cyril

Parfait pour bien commencer !

Reviewed in France on April 29, 2009

Verified Purchase

Bien que n'étant pas très familier avec java, j'ai trouvé cette ouvrage très abordable et complet. Au fil des chapitres, on apprend à créer toutes les facettes d'une application (un Sudoku) : création des menus, logique de jeu, aspects sonores et graphiques... Mon seul regret est que l'on y apprend pas l'algorithme de génération de grilles de sudoku (grilles stockées en dur), mais l'intérêt de l'ouvrage n'est pas là.

2 people found this helpful

Translate review to English

See all reviews

Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform 1st Edition

Buy used: $5.97

Buy new: $9.99

There is a newer edition of this item:

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy used:

$5.97

Buy new:

$9.99