HANDS-ON ANDROID

1. Overview and Development Environment ????? 11
2. User Interface Design: Views and Layouts .............. 67
3. Activities and Intents ............................................. 109
4. Graphics in Android ............................................... 173
5. Threads, Touchscreen, and Sensors ...................... 207
6. Multimedia and the Lifecycle of Activities .... 257
7. Security and Location .................................... 289
8. Services, Notifications, and Broadcast Receivers .325
9. Data Storage ............................................... 361
10. Internet: Sockets, HTTP, and Web Services. 42
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Android is the free platform for mobile application development created by Google. Currently, it has become the leading platform over others such as the iPhone or Windows Phone. Android applications are widening their rank of influence to new devices such as digital pads, embedded systems, Google Glass, or Wearable. This book is intended as a guide for those readers who want to be introduced to Android programming. All the sections are accompanied by easy-to-follow examples, increasing in the level of complexity as they progress through the book. This book is recommended to both non-experienced users and programming experts. Throughout the book, two applications are developed as examples: the legendary video game Asteroids and a personal information management tool, My Places. Each exercise starts with simplified versions of the applications that will be completed section by section in order, including: fragments, vector and bitmap graphics, touch screen control and sensors, concurrent threads, notifications, geolocation, maps, multimedia, file system, XML, SQL, Internet access, Web services including PHP- and MySQL-based servers, as well as publishing on Google Play and adding advertisements. The book recommends active learning supported by resources on the Internet: Step-by-step exercises: To show you the programming steps in detail. Practice: To let you program on your own. Solution: To help you if you have problems with the practices. Additional resources: To lead you to additional information on the Internet. Review questions and critical thought: To check if you understand everything correctly.