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Learning Android: Building Applications for the Android Market--New from O'Reilly Media

Sebastopol, CA—Want to build apps for Android devices? Learning Android (O'Reilly Media, $34.99 USD) is the perfect way to master the fundamentals. Written by Marko Gargenta (@Marakana), an expert who has taught this mobile platform to hundreds of developers in large organizations, this gentle introduction shows experienced object-oriented programmers how to use Android's basic building blocks to create user interfaces, store data, connect to the network, and more.

"Android is the number one mobile platform, and many developers want to create applications for it," says Gargenta. "Android development is one of the biggest waves of this year. Developing for the tablets is next on the horizon. (I'm already working on Honeycomb book to address that.) In Learning Android, the reader will pick up the skills to develop any reasonably complex Android application."

You'll build a Twitter-like application throughout the course of this book, adding new features with each chapter. Along the way, you'll also create your own toolbox of code patterns to help you program any type of Android application with ease.

• Get an overview of the Android platform and discover how it fits into the mobile ecosystem
• Learn about the Android stack, including its application framework, and the structure and distribution of application packages (APK)
• Set up your Android development environment and get started with simple programs
• Use Android's building blocks—Activities, Intents, Services, Content Providers, and Broadcast Receivers
• Learn how to build basic Android user interfaces and organize UI elements in Views and Layouts
• Build a service that uses a background process to update data in your application
• Get an introduction to Android Interface Definition Language (AIDL) and the Native Development Kit (NDK)