J. L. Gillaspy said
This is my fourth Android book and by far the best. Concepts that I was uncertain about are explained clearly and completely. I especially like the order in which the topics are covered. The other books launched into developing an application without much underlying explanation of the individual topics - putting that off until later, and not doing it as well. If I had bought this book first, I probably wouldn't have or need the others.
Jason Holden said
This book does a good job brushing on most of the APIs in Android, but the code examples are lacking. Almost none of the code examples are comprehensive, so basically this book just gives you hints as to what classes/functions need to be exercised for a given functionality. I almost always needed to consult google for better examples.
This is definitely not the best book if you are new to android.
Nicholas Nezis said
I've read almost every Android development book out there, and this book is by far my favorite. The author has done a great job in laying out the content and covers just enough to give it a quick read through while jumping into code samples (included on the CD). I've recommended this book to other budding Android developers.
Opus22 said
I have purchased and have been studying/using four books on Android and of them I'd say this is the best. This is not to say the others are not good, but this book serves the purpose of getting up to speed faster and with more clarity especially with it's emphasis on using Eclipse as the development environment.
The book gives a sequential treatment of Android, unfolding the concepts and constructs in a manner that helps a beginner (to Android) quickly see implementation. While not exhaustive in depth on all of the topics it covers it covers all of the main topics one needs to know. Their examples cover and answer many of the complex issues that one gets into as you go past the simple linear layout and delve into multiple views and stand-alone drawing. I like the multiple apps they include showing implementation that you can expand on.
Setting up the Android development environment was more complex than any I've experienced - and Eclipse is slow and buggy and requires time to understand - the use of Java makes for a slow IDE and operating system in Android, and surprisingly programs do not seem to work completely on all platforms using the same Android version. So much for portability. But all of this has nothing to do with the book, which is excellent.
Android is still maturing which means growing pains on both sides, for the developer and the user. I do see lots of promise for it! As to open source that is some what a joke - try to stop unwanted SMS messages going out in the background for example. A collusion between Google and the phone provider - one you discover when you get your next bill unless you have unlimited TEXT on. It's built into the operating system.
Gabor Paller said
Gee, there are SO MANY THINGS in Android - that was the lingering feeling after having read the book. Because the authors' strong intention is not to make compromises. They methodically go through every feature of the Android API, including 1.5 features. Have you heard about AppWidgets before? Or LiveFolders? I admit that I have not but now I know about them because the book mentioned it.
The enormous breadth of the discussion comes with a cost, however. Even though everything (or almost everything) is mentioned, very few topics are discussed in depth. For example I checked the most popular topics of my blog - unit tests, adapters. The Android unit testing framework is discussed as a bulleted list (no code examples) and the ArrayAdapter example uses Strings as backing data which causes so many problems for developers.
It is best to handle this book as an inventory of Android features and as such, it is very valuable. Such an inventory takes 573 pages, as of version 1.5. I wonder what that number will be in 3 years time.
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