With App Inventor, a free visual development system, practically anyone can create robust, modern apps for today’s newest Android smartphones and tablets without any use of Java. Now, there’s a start-to-finish guide to App Inventor for everyone: working developers and non-programmers alike. Both an easy tutorial and a reliable reference, Android Apps with App Inventor provides hands-on walkthroughs that cover every area of App Inventor development, including the Google and MIT versions of App Inventor.
Kloss begins with the absolute basics of program structure, syntax, flow, and function, and then demonstrates simple ways to solve today’s most common mobile development problems. Along the way, you’ll build a dozen real Android apps, from games and geotrackers to navigation systems and news tickers. By the time you’re done, you’ll be comfortable implementing advanced apps and mashups integrating realtime multimedia data from all kinds of Web services with the communication and sensor-based features of your smartphone.
Topics covered include
- Installing and configuring App Inventor
- Building modern, attractive mobile user interfaces
- Controlling Android media hardware, including the camera
- Saving data locally with TinyDB, or in the cloud with TinyWebDB
- Streamlining and automating phone, text, and email communications
- Tracking orientation, acceleration, and geoposition
- Integrating text-to-speech and speech-to-text in your apps
- Controlling other apps and Web services with ActivityStarter
- Building mobile mashups by exchanging data with Web APIs
- Testing your apps for diverse hardware with the Android Emulator
- Example apps, including multimedia center, online vocabulary trainer, finger painting, squash game, compass, geocacher, navigator, stock market ticker, and many more
This book will empower you to explore, experiment, build your skills and confidence, and start writing professional-quality Android apps—for yourself, and for everyone else!
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