Michael Burton - Android App Development For Dummies

Android Application Development For Dummies, 3rd Edition

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Copyright 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954664

1. Table of Contents

Welcome to Android Application Development For Dummies!

When Android was acquired by Google in 2005 (yes, Android was a startup company at one point), a lot of people didnt have much interest in it because Google hadnt yet entered the mobile space. Fastforward to a few years later, when Google announced its first Android phone: the G1. It was the start of something huge.

The G1 was the first publicly released Android device. It didnt match the rich feature set of the iPhone at the time, but a lot of people believed in the platform. As soon as Donut (Android 1.6) was released, it was evident that Google was putting some effort into the product. Immediately after version 1.6 was released, talk of 2.0 was already on the horizon.

Today, were on version 5.0 of the Android platform, with no signs that things are slowing down. Without doubt, this is an exciting time in Android development.

Android Application Development For Dummies is a beginners guide to developing Android applications. You dont need any Android application development experience under your belt to get started.

The Android platform is a deviceindependent platform, which means that you can develop applications for various devices. These devices include, but arent limited to phones, watches, tablets, cars, ebook readers, netbooks, televisions, and GPS devices.

Finding out how to develop for the Android platform opens a large variety of development options for you. This book distills hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of Android documentation, tips, tricks, and tutorials into a short, digestible format that allows you to springboard into your future as an Android developer. This book isnt a recipe book, but it gives you the basic knowledge to assemble various pieces of the Android framework to create interactive and compelling applications.

Throughout the book, you use the Android framework classes, and youll create Java classes and XML files.

Code examples in this book appear in a monospace font so that they stand out from other text in the book. This means that the code youll see looks like this:

public class MainActivity

Java is a highlevel programming language that is casesensitive, so be sure to enter the text into the editor exactly as you see it in the book. The examples follow standard Java conventions so you can transition easily between the book examples and the example code provided by the Android Software Development Kit (SDK). All class names, for example, appear in PascalCase format.

All the URLs in the book appear in monospace font as well:

http://d.android.com

To begin programming with Android, you need a computer that runs one of the following operating systems:

• Windows 2003, Vista, 7 or 8
• Mac OS X 10.8.5 or later
• Linux GNOME or KDE

You also need to download Android Studio (which is free) and the Java Development Kit (or JDK, which is also free), if you dont already have them on your computer. outlines the entire installation process for all the tools and frameworks.

Because Android applications are developed in the Java programming language, you need to understand the Java language. Android also uses XML quite heavily to define various resources inside the application, so you should understand XML too. You dont have to be an expert in these languages, however.

You dont need a physical Android device, because all the applications you build in this book will work on an emulator.