Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform

Front Cover
Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2008 - Computers - 218 pages

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.

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About the author (2008)

Ed Burnette is editor of the articles section at eclipse.org, and author of the web site's "The Rich Client Platform (RCP) Tutorial" series. Ed also co-authored Eclipse in Action (Manning) and runs the eclipsepowered.org site, where he can often be found hanging out in the Eclipse community forums. He's written everything from multi-user servers to compilers to commercial video games since earning a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from North Carolina State University. He is a Principal Systems Developer at SAS, and lives near Research Triangle Park, NC.