Barry Burd - Java Programming for Android Developers For Dummies

Java Programming for Android Developers For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013948033

ISBN 978-1-118-50438-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-61212-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-61214-9 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Introduction

A ndroid is everywhere. In mid-2013, Android ran on 53 percent of all smartphones in the United States and on 80 percent of all smartphones worldwide. In a study that spans the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, GlobalWebIndex reports that Android tablets outnumber iPads by 34 million. More than a million apps are available for download at the Google Play store (double the number of apps that were available in May 2012). And more than 9 million developers write code using Java, the language that powers Android devices.

If you read this book in a public place (on a commuter train, at the beach, or on the dance floor at the Coyote Ugly saloon, for example), you can read proudly, with a chip on your shoulder and with your head held high. Android is hot stuff, and youre cool because youre reading about it.

See www.kantarworldpanel.com/global/News/news-articles/Samsung-nears-50-share-across-Europe-as-Apple-powers-back-in-the-US and http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413 .

See www.globalwebindex.net/android-tablets-dominate-q1-mobile-market .

See www.androidguys.com/2013/07/24/sundar-pichai-there-are-now-more-than-1-million-android-apps .

See www.java.com/en/about.

How to Use This Book

You can attack this book in either of two ways: go from cover to cover or poke around from one chapter to another. You can even do both (start at the beginning, and then jump to a section that particularly interests you). This book was designed so that the basic topics come first, and the more-involved topics follow them. But you may already be comfortable with some basics, or you may have specific goals that dont require you to know about certain topics.

In general, my advice is this:

If you already know something, dont bother reading about it.

If youre curious, dont be afraid to skip ahead. You can always sneak a peek at an earlier chapter if you need to do so.

Conventions Used in This Book

Almost every technically themed book starts with a little typeface legend, and Java Programming For Android Developers For Dummies is no exception. What follows is a brief explanation of the typefaces used in this book:

New terms are set in italics.

If you need to type something thats mixed in with the regular text, the characters you type appear in bold. For example: Type MyNewProject in the text field.

You also see this computerese font. I use computerese for Java code, filenames, onscreen messages, and other such things. Also, if something you need to type is really long, it appears in computerese font on its own line (or lines).

You may need to change certain things when you type them on your own computer keyboard. For instance, I may ask you to type

public void Anyname

which means that you type public void and then a name that you make up on your own. Words that you need to replace with your own words are set in italicized computerese .

What You Dont Have to Read

Pick the first chapter or section that has material you dont already know and start reading there. Of course, you may hate making decisions as much as I do. If so, here are some guidelines you can follow:

If you already know what kind of an animal Java is and you dont care what happens behind the scenes when an Android app runs: Skip . Believe me I wont mind.