Android Studio Development Essentials

Neil Smyth

Jan 2015 · eBookFrenzy

About this ebook

The goal of this book is to teach the skills necessary to develop Android based applications using the Android Studio development environment and the Android 5.0 Software Development Kit (SDK).

Beginning with the basics, this book provides an outline of the steps necessary to set up an Android development and testing environment. An overview of Android Studio is included covering areas such as tool windows, the code editor and the Designer tool. An introduction to the architecture of Android is followed by an in-depth look at the design of Android applications and user interfaces using the Android Studio environment. More advanced topics such as database management, content providers and intents are also covered, as are touch screen handling, gesture recognition, camera access and the playback and recording of both video and audio. This edition of the book also covers features such as printing, transitions and cloud-based file storage.

In addition to covering general Android development techniques, the book also includes Google Play specific topics such as implementing maps using the Google Maps Android API, in-app billing and submitting apps to the Google Play Developer Console.

Chapters also cover advanced features of Android Studio such as Gradle build configuration and the implementation of build variants to target multiple Android device types from a single project code base.

Assuming you already have some Java programming experience, are ready to download Android Studio and the Android SDK, have access to a Windows, Mac or Linux system and ideas for some apps to develop, you are ready to get started. 

Ratings and reviews

For the Price and the amount of detail this book has to offer it is fantastic. Not to tech and not to boring. I would recommend this to the Beginner and maybe the intermediate developer / designer . It really helps to know the functionality and what the backend is really doing to better create a great User Experience. The only cons I have so far is the formatting that Google Book reader has for the code snippets. It does not fold well and some of the examples are hard to walk through when viewing it on screen. And I have been having issues with pg's 129 - 133. These will not load in the reader.

Fantastic book. If you are totally new to Android (or close to that) and would like to learn every aspect of Android, this book is the best for you. The steps in this book does not guide you to build one complex application but teaches you to do a small app for each topic. The advantage is you can easily select what topics you want to learn and quickly do so. The disadvantage is that at the end of the book, you are left with several mini apps but none that puts everything together. Again who cares as long you learn. The book is well written and careful attention has been given to the details. The screenshots are really helpful. So, if you are beginner start here and get the breadth of Android topics.

An informative guide worth reading and paying money for, the author has put a lot of time into this book.