Beginning Android 2

by Mark L. Murphy

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 software development kit. 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 graphical user interfaces, use GPS, and access web services.

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction

414 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[emrecio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Returned the book. It's not necessary if you go through the tutorials on the official Android Developer website. The book covers most topics. I needed a more advanced book. Had I started with this book, without doing the tutorials on the site, then it would have been more useful as it provides more in-depth discussion and explanations.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I needed at the moment -- my first android programming book. Murphy's a decent writer and journeyman coder. The books' cons are: there's nothing inncluded about eclipse development (the book's examples are all command line), and although it's touted as being for the 2.0 platform, clearly large chunks of this text were updated from previous versions. For instance, every onCreate() contains a reference to 'icicle', which is never explained. However, everything does pretty much work as Murphy explains it and he covers a good amount of territory.

One particular strength of this book highlights a weakness (IMHO) of the android API: Murphy takes the space needed to explain how to code ListViews containing more than simple text. This is a subject which I wish didn't need so much space, but turned out to be just the information I needed for an app. The SAMS book does not cover this. Although Murphy's material is on the internet too, so if that's all you need you can skip shelling out the $$ for the hard copy. But if you want to support the author, buy the damn book.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am still using this as a reference, and it was good for when I needed it, but, I need more books like this that are slightly more in-depth and slightly more advanced.