Whether you are a seasoned mobile engineer, web or web developer, or new to full programming, Android represents an exciting opportunity to write apps for an audience of over two billion Android device users. You are probably already familiar with Android, the most popular software for mobile phones. Otherwise, and if you have purchased this book in the hope that the development of Android will help you create an unstoppable army of emotionless robot warriors in a relentless quest to cleanse the world from the scourge of humanity, you should reconsider this, book purchase (and your lifestyle choices.) For Android App Development this happens to be essential.
Since then, Android has expanded beyond mobile phones to provide a development platform for an increasingly wide range of hardware, including tablets, televisions, watches, cars, and internet devices.
Perfection of the Android
Android is an open source software stack that includes an operating system, middleware, and key applications for mobile and embedded devices.
- Crucially, for us as developers, it also includes a rich set of API libraries that allow writing apps that can shape the look and function of the Android devices they run on.
- On Android, system, bundled, and third-party apps are written with the same APIs and run at the same time. These APIs include hardware access, video recording, location services, support for background services, maps, notifications, sensors, relational databases, inter-application communication, Bluetooth, NFC and 2D and 3D graphics.
This book explains how to use these APIs to build your own Android apps. In this chapter, you will learn some guidelines for developing mobile and integrated hardware, as well as some platform features available to Android developers.
Conclusion
Android has powerful APIs, a huge and diverse user ecosystem, excellent documentation, a thriving developer community, and comes with no development or distribution costs. As the ecosystem of Android devices continues to grow, you have the opportunity to build innovative apps for users, regardless of your development experience.