Book Review : Hello, Android Third Edition

Hello, Android : Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform is one of the best book on Android you must read. Published by Pragmatic Books and written by Ed Brunette, this book give you clear introduction on Android programming.

This is my first book on Android application development I ever read. I've read this book back in the year of 2011, so at that time the topics covered in this book was still fresh. The third edition is published in 2010, and there's no sign that Pragmatic Books will publish a new edition for this book. The "Hello, Android" third edition covered Android version from 1.5 to 2.1 (Donut), given the fact that current Android version is 4.2 (Jelly Bean), this book will looks outdated. But if you want to learn about getting started on Android Development, this book provide essentials information and tips tricks about Android development. Sample projects provided offer great points of learning both the code of Android and the flow of the project. So despite the fact that this is old book, this book is perfect for beginner who never coding Android before and want to learn about Android application development. This book will gave you a look in the big picture of Android application development.

One of my favourite sample project in this book is the Sudoku Game example. That's fun to learn and you can learn a lot from that project alone. The explanation given is also very details.

The book is divided up into 4 sections:


The Section I : Introducing Android
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Chapter 1 : Gets the tools set up (Eclipse IDE, Android Development Kit plug-in and Android SDK) and has you compiling the obligatory "Hello World" project.
Chapter 2 : Takes you on a 5 minute tour of the Android system from bottom to top. It's useful, especially if like me you come from a non-mobile development context. Android handles
application life-cycle differently because of the resource constrained devices it's typically hosted by; this has major implications for your application implementation.

Section II : The Basics (Uses the construction of a basic Sudoku game as it's vehicle for teaching throughout the section)
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Chapter 3 : User interface (Screens, Dialogue boxes, Menus, Buttons etc.)
Chapter 4 : 2D Graphics (draw your Sudoku grid / numbers)
Chapter 5 : Multimedia (Audio / Video...to add those essential Sudoku sounds...)
Chapter 6 : Storing Local Data (remembering Sudoku options - handling saving of current game data when the game is paused [e.g. when a call comes in mid-game and Android context
switches out your application])

Section III : Beyond the Basics
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Chapter 7 : The Connected World - using the phone browser / browser view, JavaScript, web services.
Chapter 8 : Location and Sensing - using the host of other sensors (GPS, Accelerometer, light-meter, orientation etc) your device may have.
Chapter 9 : SQLite - using the ever-popular SQLite embedded database that comes with Android.
Chapter 10 : 3D Graphics - using the Android implementation of OpenGL.

Section IV : The Next Generation
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Chapter 11 : Multi-touch - how to
Chapter 12 : There's no place like home - creating widgets / live wall-paper
Chapter 13 : Write once, Test Everywhere - advice and tips on debugging / testing when faced with a large array of devices already in the wild.
Chapter 14 : Publishing to the Market - a basic overview of getting your application to those fee-paying mobile junkies.

You can buy this book on Amazon or you can find another Android books on our shop.