Android in Action, Second Edition
A deep dive into Android 2. Outstanding!
NEWER EDITION AVAILABLE
Android in Action, Third Edition is now available. An eBook of this older edition is included at no additional cost when you buy the revised edition!
When it comes to mobile apps, Android can do almost anything&mdash:and with this book, so can you! Android runs on mobile devices ranging from smart phones to tablets to countless special-purpose gadgets. It's the broadest mobile platform available.
Android in Action, Second Edition is a comprehensive tutorial for Android developers. Taking you far beyond "Hello Android," this fast-paced book puts you in the driver's seat as you learn important architectural concepts and implementation strategies. You'll master the SDK, build WebKit apps using HTML 5, and even learn to extend or replace Android's built-in features by building useful and intriguing examples.
Table of Contents detailed table of contents
preface
preface to the first edition
acknowledgments
about this book
about the cover illustration
Part 1 What is Android? — The Big Picture
1. Introducing Android
1.1. The Android platform
1.2. Understanding the Android market
1.3. The layers of Android
1.4. The Intent of Android development
1.5. Four kinds of Android components
1.6. Understanding the AndroidManifest.xml file
1.7. Mapping applications to processes
1.8. Creating an Android application
1.9. Summary
2. Android’s development environment
2.1. Introducing the Android SDK
2.2. Exploring the development environment
2.3. Building an Android application in Eclipse
2.4. Using the Android emulator
2.5. Debugging your application
2.6. Summary
Part 2 Exercising the Android SDK
3. User interfaces
3.1. Creating the Activity
3.2. Working with views
3.3. Using resources
3.4. Exploring the AndroidManifest file
3.5. Summary
4. Intents and Services
4.1. Serving up RestaurantFinder with Intent
4.2. Checking the weather with a custom URI
4.3. Checking the weather with broadcast receivers
4.4. Building a background weather service
4.5. Communicating with the WeatherAlertService from other apps
4.6. Summary
5. Storing and retrieving data
5.1. Using preferences
5.2. Using the filesystem
5.3. Persisting data to a database
5.4. Working with ContentProvider classes
5.5. Summary
6. Networking and web services
6.1. An overview of networking
6.2. Checking the network status
6.3. Communicating with a server socket
6.4. Working with HTTP
6.5. Web services
6.6. Summary
7. Telephony
7.1. Exploring telephony background and terms
7.2. Accessing telephony information
7.3. Interacting with the phone
7.4. Working with messaging: SMS
7.5. Summary
8. Notifications and alarms
8.1. Introducing Toast
8.2. Introducing notifications
8.3. Introducing Alarms
8.4. Summary
9. Graphics and animation
9.1. Drawing graphics in Android
9.2. Creating animations with Android’s Graphics API
9.3. Introducing OpenGL for Embedded Systems
9.4. Summary
10. Multimedia
10.1. Introduction to multimedia and OpenCORE
10.2. Playing audio
10.3. Playing video
10.4. Capturing media
10.5. Recording video
10.6. Summary
11. Location, location, location
11.1. Simulating your location within the emulator
11.2. Using LocationManager and LocationProvider
11.3. Working with maps
11.4. Converting places and addresses with Geocoder
11.5. Summary
Part 3 Android applications
12. Putting Android to work in a field service application
12.1. Designing a real-world Android application
12.2. Mapping out the application flow
12.3. Application source code
12.4. Source code for managing jobs
12.5. Server code
12.6. Summary
13. Building Android applications in C
13.1. Building Android apps without the SDK
13.2. Solving the problem with dynamic linking
13.3. What time is it? The DayTime Server2
13.4. Daytime Client
13.5. Summary
Part 4 The maturing platform
14. Bluetooth and sensors
14.1. Exploring Android’s Bluetooth capabilities
14.2. Interacting with the SensorManager
14.3. Building the SenseBot application
14.4. Summary
15. Integration
15.1. Understanding the Android contact model
15.2. Getting started with LinkedIn
15.3. Managing contacts
15.4. Keeping it together
15.5. Creating a LinkedIn account
15.6. Synchronizing to the backend with SyncAdapter
15.7. Wrapping up: LinkedIn in action
15.8. Summary
16. Android web development
16.1. What’s Android web development?
16.2. Optimizing web applications for Android
16.3. Storing data directly in the browser
16.4. Building a hybrid application
16.5. Summary
17. AppWidgets
17.1. Introducing the AppWidget
17.2. Introducing SiteMonitor
17.3. SiteMonitor application architecture
17.4. AppWidget data handling
17.5. Implementing the AppWidgetProvider
17.6. Displaying an AppWidget with RemoteViews
17.7. Configuring an instance of the AppWidget
17.8. Updating the AppWidget
17.9. Tying it all together with AndroidManifest.xml
17.10. Summary
18. Localization
18.1. The need for localization
18.2. Exploring locales
18.3. Strategies for localizing an application
18.4. Leveraging Android resource capabilities
18.5. Localizing in Java code
18.6. Formatting localized strings
18.7. Obstacles to localization
18.8. Summary
19. Android Native Development Kit
19.1. Introducing the NDK
19.2. Building an application with the NDK
19.3. Building the JNI library
19.4. Building the user interface
19.5. Integrating the NDK into Eclipse
19.6. Summary
Appendix A: Installing the Android SDK
Appendix B: Publishing applications
index
What's inside
- Android 2 from the ground up
- SDK and web development
- Drive a robot via Bluetooth and Sensors
- Integrate with Social Media Contacts
- Image processing with native C code
Invaluable examples. A worthy update.
Android from A to Z!
I rate this book a G—great for geeks.
Best coverage of Android.