Beginning Android 2 |  | Author: Mark Murphy
Publisher: Apress
Category: Book
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $18.78
as of 9/4/2010 23:47 CDT details
You Save: $26.21 (58%)
New (22) Used (11) from $17.08
Seller: umalucky
Rating:  15 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.6 x 0.9
ISBN: 1430226293
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1
EAN: 9781430226291
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Android development platform, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, is a platform in its truest sense, encompassing hundreds of classes beyond the traditional Java classes and open source components that ship with the SDK. With Beginning Android 2, you’ll learn how to develop applications for Android 2.x mobile devices, using simple examples that are ready to run with your copy of the SDK. Author, Android columnist, writer, developer, and community advocate Mark L. Murphy will show you what you need to know to get started programming Android applications, including how to craft GUIs, use GPS, and access web services. What you’ll learn - Discover Android and how to use it to build Java-based mobile applications for a wide range of phones and other devices.
- Create user interfaces using both the Android widget framework and the built-in WebKit-powered Web browser components.
- Utilize the distinctive capabilities of the Android engine, including location tracking, maps, and Internet access.
- Use and create Android applications incorporating activities, services, content providers, and broadcast receivers.
- Support Android 1.5, 1.6, and 2.0 devices, including dealing with multiple Android OS versions, multiple screen sizes, and other device-specific characteristics.
Who is this book for? This book is aimed at people new to mobile development, perhaps even to Java development itself.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
 So far so good May 17, 2010
James E. White (Oak Park, IL)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I just recently bought this book and it is a solid introduction to Android. However, please understand that this book makes 2 assumptions:
1. You have a decent understanding of how to code Java SE and OO concepts such as inheritance, encapsulation, etc.
2. You have already set up your Android environment be it via command line or through Eclipse.
If your experience is like mine you probably will use a little of both types of setups to get things going. I found the eclipse simulator set up horribly slow to boot up once you have created it using eclipse. I had to use the command line version to see code I ran.
With that said I think this book provides a nice start and covers enough topics to give you at least a taste of what Android can do. I will buy the follow up Pro Android 2 once I have completed this book. This book flows pretty quickly and is small (370 or so pages) compared to most books like this that can easily go above and beyond 700 pages.
Again if you have a decent grasp of Java and OO concepts, I would suggest trying this book out if you are interested in trying your hand at Android 2 development.
Perfect to jump-start your new project - if you are ready May 29, 2010
George Sharia (Greenwich, CT USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
For those who criticized this book on the basis of "not for beginners". The title of this book is not "Beginning Java", or "Beginning OO", or "Beginning program mining ...", etc. It's "Beginning Android", so it assumes that you already know all of the above.
And, for somebody who already knows the necessary pre-requisites, and needs ready code samples to jump-start his/her new project, this book is perfect.
Learning Android at the Perfect Pace June 17, 2010
ninlar (Phoenix, AZ USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is definitely for someone that has some experience with Java. I bought this book, because of the other reader's comments. I enjoyed the fact that this books wastes no time diving straight into your first Android project rather than wasting time reviewing Java syntax. After two days of reading this book, I was able to create a nice UI using XML layouts, communicate with my REST web services on the Internet, and store user data in SQLite.
Great Book May 12, 2010
bugZilla (VA, USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I liked this book. It got me going and that's the goal. I found it intuitive and easy to follow. There is a web site with the source code and that's great. In my opinion you can't go wrong with this book. Remember that you must know Java before tackling Android. This is not a teach you Java and Android beginner book. Its a Android beginners book.
Great, fast primer on basic Android development June 25, 2010
Jason A. Salas (Dededo, Guam Guam)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Mark Murphy's work stands as among the best books to learn Android programming.
A caveat for the reader considering this review: this book doesn't cover Java at all, so this isn't one of those one-stop-shopping books where everything you'll need to know is covered within 300+ pages. You'll need to have working knowledge of Java (or C#) to get going.
That said, you've got experience in Java and development via a prompt, his work is a no-frills primer on the Android ecosystem and how you can manipulate it for your own projects. He mercifully cites several gotchas and things to look out for in Android OS development, and iterates over many of the major APIs that you'll need to know. He also shows the clean separation between Google's layout for architecting Android applications with Java versus the much-feared J2ME.
I was admittedly skeptical when Murphy put forth in the introductory chapter that he wouldn't be basing his examples on the Eclipse IDE, opting rather for the command-line. Since 90% of the people would be using Eclipse or some other IDE, this left a bad taste in my mouth. But it actually makes covering the programming samples easier, just highlighting the source code, XML-based UI files and when necessary, the application manifest. It's a nice, concise way of learning what could easily have filled 1,200 pages.
The topics are broad and numerous, so each chapter is terse but not too minimal...you get up to speed on a specific topic, then move into the next one. The book thus makes for a quick read in any sitting. Murphy uses consistent patterns in his programming that make glomming onto the main Android environment really easy. He also writes with a witty voice and makes several music and sports references throughout the book, which serves to lighten the mood just enough.
The programming examples are helpful, timely and topical. The only example I felt short-changed by was the chapter on developing location-aware services...which in my opinion alluded too much to the online documentation, only highlighting sparse snippets of code.
But those aside, this is the most cost-effective investment I've made since taking up Android development. I plan to buy other Murphy books for more advanced topics (building complex UIs, accessing specific hardware) because of it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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