The comprehensive developer guide to the latest Android features and capabilities Professional Android, 4th Edition shows developers how to leverage the latest features of Android to create robust and compelling mobile apps. This hands-on approach provides in-depth coverage through a series of projects, each introducing a new Android platform feature and highlighting the techniques and best practices that exploit its utmost functionality. The exercises begin simply, and gradually build into advanced Android development. Clear, concise examples show you how to quickly construct real-world mobile applications. This book is your guide to smart, efficient, effective Android development. Learn the best practices that get more out of Android Understand the anatomy, lifecycle, and UI metaphor of Android apps Design for all mobile platforms, including tablets Utilize both the Android framework and Google Play services

A hands-on guide to building mobile applications, Professional Android Application Development features concise and compelling examples that show you how to quickly construct real-world mobile applications for Android phones. Fully up-to-date for version 1.0 of the Android software development kit, it covers all the essential features, and explores the advanced capabilities of Android (including GPS, accelerometers, and background Services) to help you construct increasingly complex, useful, and innovative mobile applications for Android phones. What this book includes An introduction to mobile development, Android, and how to get started. An in-depth look at Android applications and their life cycle, the application manifest, Intents, and using external resources. Details for creating complex and compelling user interfaces by using, extending, and creating your own layouts and Views and using Menus. A detailed look at data storage, retrieval, and sharing using preferences, files, databases, and Content Providers. Instructions for making the most of mobile portability by creating rich map-based applications as well as using location-based services and the geocoder. A look at the power of background Services, using threads, and a detailed look at Notifications. Coverage of Android's communication abilities including SMS, the telephony APIs, network management, and a guide to using Internet resources Details for using Android hardware, including media recording and playback, using the camera, accelerometers, and compass sensors. Advanced development topics including security, IPC, advanced 2D / 3D graphics techniques, and user–hardware interaction. Who this book is for This book is for anyone interested in creating applications for the Android mobile phone platform. It includes information that will be valuable whether you're an experienced mobile developer or making your first foray, via Android, into writing mobile applications. It will give the grounding and knowledge you need to write applications using the current SDK, along with the flexibility to quickly adapt to future enhancements.

Developers, build mobile Android apps using Android 4 The fast-growing popularity of Android smartphones and tablets creates a huge opportunities for developers. If you're an experienced developer, you can start creating robust mobile Android apps right away with this professional guide to Android 4 application development. Written by one of Google's lead Android developer advocates, this practical book walks you through a series of hands-on projects that illustrate the features of the Android SDK. That includes all the new APIs introduced in Android 3 and 4, including building for tablets, using the Action Bar, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC Beam, and more. Shows experienced developers how to create mobile applications for Android smartphones and tablets Revised and expanded to cover all the Android SDK releases including Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), including all updated APIs, and the latest changes to the Android platform. Explains new and enhanced features such as drag and drop, fragments, the action bar, enhanced multitouch support, new environmental sensor support, major improvements to the animation framework, and a range of new communications techniques including NFC and Wi-Fi direct. Provides practical guidance on publishing and marketing your applications, best practices for user experience, and more This book helps you learn to master the design, lifecycle, and UI of an Android app through practical exercises, which you can then use as a basis for developing your own Android apps.

If you’re an Android application developer, chances are you’re using fixed, scrolling, swipe-able, and other cutting-edge custom UI Designs in your Android development projects. These UI Design approaches as well as other Android ViewGroup UI layout containers are the bread and butter of Pro Android User Interface (UI) design and Android User Experience (UX) design and development. Using a top down approach, Pro Android UI shows you how to design and develop the best user interface for your app, while taking into account the varying device form factors in the increasingly fragmented Android environment. Pro Android UI aims to be the ultimate reference and customization cookbook for your Android UI Design, and as such will be useful to experienced developers as well as beginners. With Android’s powerful UI layout classes, you can easily create everything from the simplest of lists to fully tricked-out user interfaces. While using these UI classes for boring, standard user interfaces can be quite simple, customizing a unique UI design can often become extremely challenging.

Pro Android Wearables details how to design and build Android Wear apps for new and unique Android wearable device types, such as Google Android smartwatches, which use the new WatchFaces API, as well as health-monitoring features and other cool features such as altimeters and compasses. It's time to take your Android 5 Wear application development skills and experience to the next level and get exposure to a whole new world of hardware. As smartwatches continue to grab major IoT headlines, there is a growing interest in building Android apps that run on these wearables, which are now being offered by dozens of major manufacturers. This means more revenue earning opportunity for today's indie app developers. Additionally, this book provides new media design concepts which relate to using media assets, as well as how to optimize Wear applications for low-power, single-core, dual-core or quad-core CPUs, and how to use the IntelliJ Android Studio IDE, and the Android device emulators for popular new wearable devices.

Pro Android Graphics is a comprehensive goldmine of knowledge and techniques that will help you design, create, and optimize 2D graphics for use in your Android Jelly Bean applications. Android application developer and expert multimedia producer Wallace Jackson of Mind Taffy Design shows you how to leverage Android's powerful graphics APIs in conjunction with professional open source graphics design tools such as GIMP 2.8.6 and more. You’ll learn about: The foundational graphics concepts behind the three core new media areas (digital imaging, digital video, and 2D animation) which relate to graphics design, and how to optimize these new media assets for your Android applications across iTVs, tablets, eReaders, game consoles, and smartphones. Digital imaging techniques for Android apps design, including graphics design layouts and graphical user interface elements, and how to use image compositing techniques to take your digital imaging to far higher levels. Advanced image compositing and blending techniques, using Android’s PorterDuff, NinePatch, and LayerDrawable classes. Advanced 2D animation techniques, using Android’s Animation and AnimationDrawable classes. Digital video optimization, playback, and streaming, using open source 3D (Terragen 3) and video (VirtualDub) applications, as well as professional video editing applications such as Squeeze Pro 9. You’ll use these software packages with Android’s VideoView and MediaPlayer classes, and add compositing to enhance your end-users’ digital video experience.

Did you know you can take your Flash skills beyond the browser, allowing you to make apps for Android, iOS and the BlackBerry Tablet OS? Build dynamic apps today starting with the easy-to-use Android smartphones and tablets. Then, take your app to other platforms without writing native code. Pro Android Flash is the definitive guide to building Flash and other rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the Android platform. It covers the most popular RIA frameworks for Android developers—Flash and Flex—and shows how to build rich, immersive user experiences on both Android smartphones and tablets. You'll learn how to incorporate multimedia, animation, and special effects into your apps for maximum visual appeal. You'll also cover advanced topics, including input methods, hardware inputs, deployment, and performance optimization.

Rev. ed. of: Professional Android application development. c2009.

Learn to build human-interactive Android apps, starting with device sensors This book shows Android developers how to exploit the rich set of device sensors—locational, physical (temperature, pressure, light, acceleration, etc.), cameras, microphones, and speech recognition—in order to build fully human-interactive Android applications. Whether providing hands-free directions or checking your blood pressure, Professional Android Sensor Programming shows how to turn possibility into reality. The authors provide techniques that bridge the gap between accessing sensors and putting them to meaningful use in real-world situations. They not only show you how to use the sensor related APIs effectively, they also describe how to use supporting Android OS components to build complete systems. Along the way, they provide solutions to problems that commonly occur when using Android's sensors, with tested, real-world examples. Ultimately, this invaluable resource provides in-depth, runnable code examples that you can then adapt for your own applications. Shows experienced Android developers how to exploit the rich set of Android smartphone sensors to build human-interactive Android apps Explores Android locational and physical sensors (including temperature, pressure, light, acceleration, etc.), as well as cameras, microphones, and speech recognition Helps programmers use the Android sensor APIs, use Android OS components to build complete systems, and solve common problems Includes detailed, functional code that you can adapt and use for your own applications Shows you how to successfully implement real-world solutions using each class of sensors for determining location, interpreting physical sensors, handling images and audio, and recognizing and acting on speech Learn how to write programs for this fascinating aspect of mobile app development with Professional Android Sensor Programming.

Create must-have applications for the latest Android OS The Android OS is a popular and flexible platform for many of today's most in-demand mobile devices. This full-color guide offers you a hands-on introduction to creating Android applications for the latest mobile devices. Veteran author Wei Meng Lee accompanies each lesson with real-world examples to drive home the content he covers. Beginning with an overview of core Android features and tools, he moves at a steady pace while teaching everything you need to know to successfully develop your own Android applications. Explains what an activity is and reviews its lifecycle Zeroes in on customizing activities by applying styles and themes Looks at the components of a screen, including LinearLayout, AbsoluteLayout, and RelativeLayout, among others Details ways to adapt to different screen sizes and adjust display orientation Reviews the variety of views such as TextView, ProgressBar, TimePicker, and more Beginning Android Application Development pares down the most essential steps you need to know so you can start creating Android applications today.