andbook!
Android Programming with Tutorials from the anddev.org-Community. written by Nicolas Gramlich
Check for the latest version on http://andbook.anddev.org
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Foreword / How to read this doc
This document was written for developers who have worked with Java™ before and want to start developing for the Android Platform. I tried to make this as much “hands on” as possible, placing example codes everywhere it fit. Also I tried to insert as many picture as possible, because they liven up the learning process and relax the reader’s eyes.
But unfortunately coding is not everything; one has to learn about some basic facts of the Android Platform to fully understand. That is what is described on the first ~XXX pages. It is not necessary to read all those describing pages, but it is preferable. You could decide to treat it as a kind of reference. What you would read there is also explained when it occurs during the “hands on”-process. So you could directly start at Hello World – The Android Way. All codes you see in this document (the whole workspace) will be available on:
http://andbook.anddev.org/sources/
Have fun reading…
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Introduction
The Open Handset Alliance (1) released the Google Android SDK on November 12th, 2007, having announced it about a week before. The impact was unbelievable, almost every IT/programming-related news-page dumped a news-post about the SDK release – the Google Groups (2) was overwhelmed with over 2000 Messages within the first two Days. The idea of the Android Platform was and still is amazing and is of course attracting more and more programmers every day. Especially the open architecture based on Intents and the possibility to replace even the Home-application grant a really large amount of flexibility to the whole platform.
“Android – Imagination is the limit”1
1 Nicolas Gramlich – anddev.org Site-Admin
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What is Android – a GPhone?
The weeks and months before Google released the Android SDK there had been a lot of rumors about a so called GPhone. It was said to be a mobile device manufactured by Google providing free communication by showing context-sensitive advertisements to the user on the device itself.
Picture 1 Render of a potential GPhone
But on November 5th 2007 Andy Rubin2 announced: “[The] Android [Platform] – is more significant and ambitious than a single phone.” Google within the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) delivers a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. What was released a week later was not a final product, but a “First Look SDK” what many did not realize. Major news sites grabbed the discomforts of some developers who said that Android is full of bugs and heavily lacks of documentation. But the majority says that Android is not buggier than any other software at this stage.
2 Andy Rubin – Google Director of Mobile Platforms
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Android from above
Let’s take a look at what the OHA emphasizes on its Android Platform:
