Developing Android based application is like any other development. You have to get tools, learn basics and explore the details of the API. Learning Android covers first two topics.
First of all, you can get the overview of Android, what it does, who develops it and so forth. You can call it an overview from 9K feet height. After that you are explained how Android is organized and how all the system layers are organized. This is quite useful part because you can get the feeling what to expect when it comes to the API. Then you will be guided through the initial setup that allows you to develop Android based applications. This part is quite useful, because it allows you to get all the information required for preparing development environment. You will be, literally, lead step by step how to configure everything (at this point you can tell that Marko has some experience when it comes to providing people with tutorials – you are simply not able to go wrong here). One remark here. Marko doesn’t mention that you have to set-up Android’s SDK location before you proceed with “Hello world” example. In order to do this, you have to go to: Eclipse -> Preferences -> Android -> SDL Location and set proper SDK location. He also forgets to mention that after setting up ADT you have to go to: and install all the packages that are required for Android development.
After you are ready to go with coding, there is a place for getting familiar with Android’s API. Here, Marko provides you with information related to Various aspects of Android related development. In general, it’s fine, but there is one drawback. Marko tries to provide you with the knowledge related to Android by conducting you basing on hypothetical application (Yamba). It means, that through out the book you will be hooked to this application and you will try to approach it from various perspectives: UI, database, services, etc. This kind of approach ha it’s pros and cons. Pros are that you can get the feeling of real application being developed using technology you are interested in. Cons are: you are stick to example project through out whole book, you can’t jump between topics without the overview of the example of application. I generally prefer “Cookbook” series where you are presented a solution for particular issue.
What I have missed most in this book are: HTTP communication within Android apps, Web Service calls within Android based applications, description of Android Market.
In general, this book is OK, but definitely not perfect. I missed lots of topics to be covered here. On the other hand, it has quite well prepared introduction to Android, initial set up and Android’s basics. This way, you are provided everything that allows you to start developing Android applications.
Stay tuned, I will update this post as soon as I read some other books on Android. I’ll tell you then, whether this book can compete with others or not.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Thinking about learning Android ? This is a great book to get you on the road to delivering apps to Android mobile devices.
Mobile development is an area that is rapidly growing, and as a developer I believe this book is an excellent resource to have by your side. Whether learning for the first time or having experience in development this book will take you through the A-Z of Android. Learning Android works well in explaining Android and mobile terminology with an easy to follow step-by-step approach and plenty of examples to get you started.
It comes a good second behind a professional training course and you will learn enough to give you a good introduction to Android.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
There’re books that require almost no thinking to understand their topics, even the hardest ones. There’re books that are so well written that it merely takes hours to read them from cover to cover. If you’re on your way into Android mobile development and wish you could read a book that would combine the features, “Learning Android” by Marko Gargenta should do it with ease.
The writing style, the chapters and sections, and more importantly the topics covered fit into the description so well. The book contains step-by-step information on ADT Plugin for Eclipse’s and Android SDK’s installation and, obviously for the most part of the book, how to develop a complete mobile application – the Yet Another Micro Blogging App (YAMBA) which is a Twitter client. There’re complete sections on different aspects of Android UI, networking, multithreading, debugging, preferences, intents, services, SQLite and database access, lists and adapters, broadcast receivers, permissions, content providers, alarms, notifications and system services like Sensor Service, Location Manager and Alarm Manager. There’s more, but it’s not to overwhelm you with listing them all. The point is that the book made it so easy to digest Android concepts in less than 2 days and although it strained every nerve of mine before I finished the first chapters, the others made my day.
The book is very compact yet detailed at the level I needed with a bit over 200 pages and covers wide range of miscellaneous Android features. There’s a chapter about Android NDK, too.
I’m enormously impressed how easy it was for the author to cover every aspect of Android development with a complete working application and some smaller ones and it only took a bit over 200 pages. It’s an amazing work and proves the author knows what he’s writing about.
It’s a highly recommended reading for people who’re new to Android and did a few, preliminary steps into the environment. Android professionals might find the book a nice overview of all the available features which might not yet have been so well presented.
The book could’ve been better at times. I wished there’d not been explanation on how Eclipse IDE works or Java language itself. It would’ve saved the pages for more useful content. I wish the author could’ve explained the multithreading better as I found it a bit lacking in a proper lock management (with no use of java.util.concurrent whatsoever) and think many of the proposed solutions won’t simply work. But still, as you might’ve guessed, it hasn’t much influenced my take on the book. Although you may be tempted to skip some chapters, I encourage you to read the book from cover to cover so the writing style slowly emerges and lets you sink into it which should happily take you in a lovely journey throughout Android territory. Happy reading!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Welcome to Android’s world,
Developing Android based application is like any other development. You have to get tools, learn basics and explore the details of the API. Learning Android covers first two topics.
First of all, you can get the overview of Android, what it does, who develops it and so forth. You can call it an overview from 9K feet height. After that you are explained how Android is organized and how all the system layers are organized. This is quite useful part because you can get the feeling what to expect when it comes to the API. Then you will be guided through the initial setup that allows you to develop Android based applications. This part is quite useful, because it allows you to get all the information required for preparing development environment. You will be, literally, lead step by step how to configure everything (at this point you can tell that Marko has some experience when it comes to providing people with tutorials – you are simply not able to go wrong here). One remark here. Marko doesn’t mention that you have to set-up Android’s SDK location before you proceed with “Hello world” example. In order to do this, you have to go to: Eclipse -> Preferences -> Android -> SDL Location and set proper SDK location. He also forgets to mention that after setting up ADT you have to go to: and install all the packages that are required for Android development.
After you are ready to go with coding, there is a place for getting familiar with Android’s API. Here, Marko provides you with information related to Various aspects of Android related development. In general, it’s fine, but there is one drawback. Marko tries to provide you with the knowledge related to Android by conducting you basing on hypothetical application (Yamba). It means, that through out the book you will be hooked to this application and you will try to approach it from various perspectives: UI, database, services, etc. This kind of approach ha it’s pros and cons. Pros are that you can get the feeling of real application being developed using technology you are interested in. Cons are: you are stick to example project through out whole book, you can’t jump between topics without the overview of the example of application. I generally prefer “Cookbook” series where you are presented a solution for particular issue.
What I have missed most in this book are: HTTP communication within Android apps, Web Service calls within Android based applications, description of Android Market.
In general, this book is OK, but definitely not perfect. I missed lots of topics to be covered here. On the other hand, it has quite well prepared introduction to Android, initial set up and Android’s basics. This way, you are provided everything that allows you to start developing Android applications.
Stay tuned, I will update this post as soon as I read some other books on Android. I’ll tell you then, whether this book can compete with others or not.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Learn Android A-Z,
Thinking about learning Android ? This is a great book to get you on the road to delivering apps to Android mobile devices.
Mobile development is an area that is rapidly growing, and as a developer I believe this book is an excellent resource to have by your side. Whether learning for the first time or having experience in development this book will take you through the A-Z of Android. Learning Android works well in explaining Android and mobile terminology with an easy to follow step-by-step approach and plenty of examples to get you started.
It comes a good second behind a professional training course and you will learn enough to give you a good introduction to Android.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Quickly and easily into Android mobile development,
There’re books that require almost no thinking to understand their topics, even the hardest ones. There’re books that are so well written that it merely takes hours to read them from cover to cover. If you’re on your way into Android mobile development and wish you could read a book that would combine the features, “Learning Android” by Marko Gargenta should do it with ease.
The writing style, the chapters and sections, and more importantly the topics covered fit into the description so well. The book contains step-by-step information on ADT Plugin for Eclipse’s and Android SDK’s installation and, obviously for the most part of the book, how to develop a complete mobile application – the Yet Another Micro Blogging App (YAMBA) which is a Twitter client. There’re complete sections on different aspects of Android UI, networking, multithreading, debugging, preferences, intents, services, SQLite and database access, lists and adapters, broadcast receivers, permissions, content providers, alarms, notifications and system services like Sensor Service, Location Manager and Alarm Manager. There’s more, but it’s not to overwhelm you with listing them all. The point is that the book made it so easy to digest Android concepts in less than 2 days and although it strained every nerve of mine before I finished the first chapters, the others made my day.
The book is very compact yet detailed at the level I needed with a bit over 200 pages and covers wide range of miscellaneous Android features. There’s a chapter about Android NDK, too.
I’m enormously impressed how easy it was for the author to cover every aspect of Android development with a complete working application and some smaller ones and it only took a bit over 200 pages. It’s an amazing work and proves the author knows what he’s writing about.
It’s a highly recommended reading for people who’re new to Android and did a few, preliminary steps into the environment. Android professionals might find the book a nice overview of all the available features which might not yet have been so well presented.
The book could’ve been better at times. I wished there’d not been explanation on how Eclipse IDE works or Java language itself. It would’ve saved the pages for more useful content. I wish the author could’ve explained the multithreading better as I found it a bit lacking in a proper lock management (with no use of java.util.concurrent whatsoever) and think many of the proposed solutions won’t simply work. But still, as you might’ve guessed, it hasn’t much influenced my take on the book. Although you may be tempted to skip some chapters, I encourage you to read the book from cover to cover so the writing style slowly emerges and lets you sink into it which should happily take you in a lovely journey throughout Android territory. Happy reading!
Was this review helpful to you?
|