this print for content only—size & color not accurate spine = 0.889" 464 page count Books for professionals By professionals ® Pro Android Dear Reader, Android, Google’s open source platform for mobile development, is destined to become one of the leading mobile platforms of the future. Demand for develop- ers who can build software for this platform is increasing rapidly because more and more organizations are targeting customers who own handheld devices. Plus, companies want their core applications built on an open platform that is supported by the Open Handset Alliance. Pro Android covers mobile application development for the Android Platform, starting with a history of Android and an overview of the platform’s main pillars. Its content ranges from basic concepts such as Android resources, intents, and content providers to mind-wrenching concepts such as OpenGL 3D graphics. We take a pragmatic approach to even the most difficult aspects of Android programming, and we give you confidence in areas that other authors avoid. We teach you how to build Android applications by taking you through the Android APIs one step at a time. We cover the Android SDK from UI devel- opment, animations, media framework, background services, up through Android 1.5’s Live Folders. We wrote this book because we saw the captivation and awe on our custom- ers’ faces when we presented our Android-based applications. After you apply the skills you learn in this book, you too will impress your customers with your sophisticated Android programs. Regards, Sayed Y. Hashimi and Satya Komatineni US $44.99 Shelve in Mobile Computing User level: Intermediate–Advanced Hashimi, Komatineni Pro Android The eXperT’s Voice ® in open source Pro Android cyan MaGenTa yelloW Black panTone 123 c Sayed Y. Hashimi and Satya Komatineni Companion eBook Available THE APRESS ROADMAP Beginning Android Pro Android Beginning Java™ ME Platform www.apress.com SOURCE CODE ONLINE Companion eBook See last page for details on $10 eBook version Covers Google’s Android Platform and its fundamental APIs, from basic concepts such as Android resources, intents, and content providers to advanced topics such as OpenGL 3D graphics ISBN 978-1-4302-1596-7 9 781430 215967 5 4 4 9 9 Sayed Y. Hashimi, author of Deploying .NET Applications: Learning MSBuild and ClickOnce Pro Service-Oriented Smart Clients with .NET 2.0 Satya Komatineni Includes Android 1.5 [...]... simplicity of the Java programming language coupled with Android s extensive class library makes Android a compelling platform to write programs for Figure 1-2 provides an overview of the Android software stack (We’ll provide further details in the section “Understanding the Android Software Stack.”) User Applications Java Libraries Activities/Services UI/Graphics/Views Resources/Content Providers Telephone/Camera... of development in Android are compelling reasons for Java developers to program for it • Java SE support: Compared to the support for Java SE in CDC, the Android support for Java SE is a bit more complete, except for the AWT and Swing As we mentioned earlier, Android has its own UI approach instead In fact, Android s declarative UI resembles the JavaFX approach Understanding the Android Software Stack... use Java to write programs for devices that run on Google’s Android Platform (http://code.google.com /android/ ), an open source platform for mobile development We are excited about Android because it is an advanced platform that introduces a number of new paradigms in framework design In this chapter, we’ll provide an overview of Android and its SDK, show you how to take advantage of Android source code,... resident on the devices Android provides special mechanisms to use this XML data While we are on the subject of Android s design considerations, we should answer this question: How would one compare and contrast Android to Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME)? Comparing Android and Java ME As you have seen so far in this chapter, Android has taken a dedicated and focused approach to its mobile-platform... and processes Android s libraries cover telephony, video, graphics, UI programming, and every other aspect of the physical device The Android Platform, although built for mobile devices, exhibits the characteristics of a full-featured desktop framework Google makes this framework available to Java programmers through a software development kit called the Android SDK When you are working with the Android. .. with the Android widget toolkit We first cover building UIs programmatically, then cover Android s preferred way of defining UIs—in XML layout files We also discuss Android s layout managers and view adapters Plus, this chapter provides an introduction to the Hierarchy Viewer tool, which you use to optimize UIs • Chapter 5, “Working with Menus and Dialogs” Here we extend our discussion on UI programming... itself Android s support for a relational database on the handset also played a part in early adoption In late 2008 Google released a handheld device called Android Dev Phone 1 that is capable of running Android applications without being tied to any cell phone provider network The goal of this device (approximate cost $400.00) is to allow developers to experiment with a real device that can run the Android. .. business-development professionals can use this book to get an understanding of the Android Platform’s capabilities What This Book Covers This book covers the Android SDK It’s broken up into 13 chapters, as follows: • Chapter 1, “Introducing the Android Computing Platform” This chapter introduces you to the Android Platform and its basic building blocks It also gives you an overview of the Android subsystems... high-level packages within the Android SDK Plus, we provide information on Android s specialized virtual machine that addresses the limitations of handheld devices • Chapter 2, “Getting Your Feet Wet” In this chapter, we show you how to set up a development environment for Android programming We then walk you through a basic application and introduce you to some of the Android components We also cover... by MFC The Android UI, JavaFX, Microsoft Silverlight, and Mozilla XML User Interface Language (XUL) fall under this new type of fourthgeneration UI framework in which the UI is declarative and independently themed n Note  The noteworthy aspect of UI programming in Android is that you are programming in a modern UI paradigm even though the device happens to be a handheld Programming in the Android UI . & color not accurate spine = 0.889" 464 page count Books for professionals By professionals ® Pro Android Dear Reader, Android, Google’s open source platform for mobile development, is destined. such as Android resources, intents, and content providers to mind-wrenching concepts such as OpenGL 3D graphics. We take a pragmatic approach to even the most difficult aspects of Android programming,. in open source Pro Android cyan MaGenTa yelloW Black panTone 123 c Sayed Y. Hashimi and Satya Komatineni Companion eBook Available THE APRESS ROADMAP Beginning Android Pro Android Beginning Java™