Beginning Andoid 4 Application Development
354850
I just bought this book last week and start reading from chapter 1, 2, 3 and learned that this book is really easy to learn. I like the author's style that he provided the code first and explained how the code does step by step later. It is easy to follow. This book describes what the title says: Beginning Android 4. I am new to Android, but I am an experience java web developer, that helps me to focus Android coding from this book and learn Android 4 very quick. I love how the book layout with multi-color which makes the reader easy and enjoy reading.
If you a beginner, this book is for you. I will update more after finish the book.
1776796
Very good book with simple examples. I have experience programming other android applications, but needed a good example for creating game animations. This book did that very well.
2030214
The reviews do not lie in this case. I bought three Android development books so far. First I bought "Programming Android: Java Programming for the New Generation of Mobile Devices" by Zigurd Mednieks..., "Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies" by Barry Burd, and third this book.

Unfortunately, I bought The Big Nerd Ranch Guide last. Not that I would not have purchased the two other books, but they could not captivate me as a beginner. What 'The Big Nerd Ranch Guide' does different is not to first bore you with dry android development concepts before actually building an application. Right of the bat it starts with building a simple (but not just a "Hello World" app like other books) application during which the authors explain why the particular code is used. It works way better to fascinate a novice this way as opposed to first covering development notions that an android learner can't put into perspective anyhow.

This book makes you work and it plainly comes down to that if you truly want to become an Android developer. After finishing this book, and actually entering the project examples covered, I really feel confident in my skills as a beginner Android geek. I have now revisited the other two books and can handle the "dry stuff" much better...simply because I am now able to put it into context (no pun intended :)).

Important: if you have no Java experience, read a basic Java beginner book before this one.
1240914
I really like the OS of this phone and the actual design is awesome. There are NO APPS for it, though, so I had to switch to a Moto G4 so I could run what I needed for work. Also couldn't do simple things like check my bank statements...  Would be a great phone if companies paid a bit more attention to creating Windows apps.

There are a lot of people trying to recreate popular apps for the Windows platform, but it's just not there yet.

Keep trying, Windows and Microsoft!!  I'm rooting for you!!
772498
This book is for those whose would like to create Ext JS and Sencha Touch Application using Sencha Architect Software Tool. You can learn some useful tips and tricks that can help in our everyday tasks while working with Sencha Architect. This book also covers about building, packaging, emulating Ext JS and Sencha Touch App natively for iOS and Android (some blackberry is mentioned) apps. I like the way book explained about Sencha Architect configuration using screen-captures for each step.

It is light on a bunch of examples but the ones they use are good examples.  Did not like the way it created its own proxy but it was interesting to see how they did it.  Good book to keep you focused on Sencha Architect and how it works.  We could use more books like this.
581395
good overview of android programming. deals with the current Android developer toolset as well as best practices. overall very valuable to get up to speed with android programming quickly if you are an experienced programmer. If you aren't an experienced programmer there is still enough depth but you will probably have to spend more time letting the examples sink in and do more of the sample projects.
1036519
I have eight other Android books and only one has the depth of this book. Of the 20 chapters in this book 15 are devoted to advanced application operations. This is not a book for beginners, this is a book for the adventurers that want to bring every possible feature of Android out into the light and see how their device can perform. This territory is for the prepared mind. If you want to know more about beginning to use Eclipse to build Android programs or how to do elegant widget design you must read one of those other introductory books.

There is enough material in the 400 pages of this book to keep an experimenter working on upgrading his applications for months. You can try out multi-threading and running simultaneous applications that talk to each other and the web. Use the NDK to find the maximum performance of your device or open up new interfaces and automatically record actions and the resulting computed data records into the database. Link your device to others and form a mobile computing cluster or provide a six way video conference between different offices across the country. Even use one device as an aerial platform controller and video observer for another device in the hand of its pilot. You could even try using one device as a submarine controller and connect it to a remote control device using acoustic signals with the help of digital filters.

The phrase "smart phone" is simply a euphemism for a multi-core computer with advanced sensor arrays. This book will open your eyes to the ways that these devices can be employed in support of modern technology. What kind of application would allow a mobile super-computer to come into existence? How many phones would be needed, 50, 5000, 500000? Not a problem, a smart programmer could get all this computing power for free.

I'm thinking of integrating my house with my car into my phone. Then I'm going to connect "Jeeves" to my home and office computers just so I don't have to leave myself spread across four different contact and document applications. I'm going to build a background trapdoor into my community website so I can get service notices and communicate with my community group seamlessly. This book is going to make it possible to upgrade my entire social situation. What might it do for your life? Let your mind be the only limit to your life with this book.
4139975
This is an excellent guide to Android programming *For those with a background in Object Oriented Programming*. This is not the place to start if you are new to programming and want to make an app. However if you are a C++/Java/Etc. programmer who wants to make Android apps this is the best resource I have found.
1745566
be careful what version operating system you have on your phone as it has to be Android 4.4 or higher
2682188
I have a chapter in one of my books, Ubuntu Unleashed, that gives an introduction to using Ubuntu as a foundation for developing for Android. The information in that chapter barely scratches the surface of the topic. As a response to those who are interested in learning more and who ask me for book recommendations, I am writing this review.

Android Programming Unleashed is part of the same series as my book. I'm stating that right up front so that everyone knows that I have a potential conflict of interest. Read my review with that in mind. I'm trying to be unbiased, and I have no direct financial or editorial interest in Android Programming Unleashed, but I am the author of a book in the same series. So, now that that is out of the way, let's dig in.

Android Programming Unleashed contains more than 650 well-written pages of useful information written by someone who clearly has experience teaching others. The book is structured in four parts, each of which contain several chapters.

The first part, Fundamentals of Android Development, starts like most development and programming books, with information about installation and a general introduction to the platform, tools, and getting started. It also includes a chapter on the basic widgets used in an Android application, including some standard classes, layouts, controls, and events.

The second part dives in deeper. Building Blocks for Android Application Design contains four chapters that each cover an important aspect like laying out controls, utilizing resources and media, using selection widgets and debugging, and displaying and fetching information using dialogs and fragments.

The third part, Building Menus and Storing Data, completes the basics that are needed for most useful applications. Here you learn how to create interactive menus and various useful options for those menus as well as how to use databases in Android applications.

The fourth part gives you additional information that will enable you to create more complex and interesting applications. Advanced Android Programming: Internet, Entertainment, and Services contains six chapters that cover a wide range of topics. Here you learn about implementing drawing and animation, displaying web pages and maps, communicating with SMS and email, creating and using content providers, creating and consuming services, and publishing Android applications to the Google Play store.

The book is clearly written and complete. It uses the standard tools for Android development, so the installation instructions include information for developing on the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. The figures and illustrations are clear and useful and the book contains numerous code samples. The code samples are also available for download using instructions given in the book's introduction.

So, whether my book or something else whetted your appetite to code up some apps for Android, this is the book I recommend you take a look at.
1363100
This is a pretty good starter book on Android programming, covering the basics of getting yourself a development environment and creating your first apps.
The information is well presented and easy to read and does not talk down to the reader. It assumes you know Java programming. The only area I wished had received a bit more coverage were the widgets & layout views that are the basis of the Android UIs. There is some coverage, but a broader overview of the available widgets etc would be desirable.

Note that book is only a starting point. As soon as you get beyond the basics you'll need to go elsewhere; for me the very next step was the online Android documentation; no book is going to have the coverage or convenience provided by that, and having got the basics covered there was no real need to get any other book.

Overall a very worthwhile purchase.
2206621
This book and the sample code should allow experienced Java programmers to start building and serving Android Apps in a couple days or less.  Good reference book, too.  Good level of detail and explanation.  Excellent table of contents and flow/organization.  The picture on the cover scared my 2yr old; she likes the O'Reilly animals.
4883159
This is a good book ('tutorial) for any developer that wants to use EJB 3.0 with the most popular Oracle J2EE technologies.

The book starts with a simple introduction of EJB 3.0 and compares that spec to EJB 2.x, overviews new features such as, annotations, JPA and interceptors.

Then it goes into this topic in depth, always tied-up to JDeveloper; for instance, shows how to convert EJB 2.x to 3.0, it's a very good example if the reader comes from that legacy specification or to see explicitly how much effort we are saving coding and not generating deploy descriptors to obtain the same business/architecture JEE feature.

Continuing the Book's Oracle point of view, look into EclipseLink JPA, JDeveloper (as main IDE) and complete chapter of Eclipse OEPE and their details. Chapters dedicated to integration with ADF & JSF separately, EJB relationships, and finishing with Web Services.

A lot of details, clear explanations, source code, screen-shots of step-by-step instructions to avoid any doubt to the reader to get the best of these specs and tools.

As usual at Packt Publishing website can be found the source code of these examples.
3855972
Windows Phone programming is an area of interest to me as a mobile programmer, both as someone who has done Windows Mobile 6.x development and Android programming. I wanted to get started with a single resource that would not only give me a good overview the Windows Phone ecosystem but also quickly get started without too many details.

This book definitely met those needs. It has probably the best introduction that I have found where the author takes you through a quick introduction to Windows Phone. The chapter is a must read and covers the key areas for a developer so that by the time you begin the next chapters, you will you are ready.

The book gives good introduction to XAML, which I had not used before and a discussion of the appropriate tools. So you find Expression Blend and Visual Studio being used when it is the right tool for the task. The teaching experience of the author comes out throughout the book where necessary screenshots accompany the text.

The topics cover just about enough to determine if you need that functionality in your phone apps. Simple screen navigation, Phone Calls, Network Services, Background Tasks, Databases -- these topics are enough for anyone to begin writing serious Windows applications.

If you have to start with Windows Phone programming, give this book a shot.
3051518
This is a very good book with some very interesting and useful code examples.
However, I wonder how many reviewers have actually worked the samples and  installed the resulting apk onto a phone.
In my case it took me over 2 weeks to actually get the Android SDK to install. It would not find the java jdk.
I wrote the author and he said he remembered having install problems also but, couldn't remember how he solved the problem. After many hours searching the net I found an entry by a very clever developer/user who discovered that when you set the JAVA_HOME environment variable it must use Unix style FORWARD slashes not the normal Windows backslashes, This is in a Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit system using all 64bit downloads. I have been able to now install the Android SDK(which now recognizes the Java jdk) and can build apk files from the book examples. I am now looking for a reasonably priced development phone with Android 4.3 to complete the Android setup so I can actually install and test the book samples on a live phone.
3502865
If you're looking to get a head start with this kind of software, this is a great diving board. You should know Java/JavaFX before you start, but it gives some great ideas about how to structure an app. Sadly the .mobi version of the source code remains elusive. I tried to find it to no avail, so be prepared for some typing or OCR copying.
4023458
Overall good introduction to the world of mobile development. Try to read this before you make decision to start developing mobile apps.