Skip to Content
Android Application Development
book

Android Application Development

by Rick Rogers, John Lombardo, Zigurd Mednieks, G. Blake Meike
May 2009
Intermediate to advanced
334 pages
10h 8m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Android Application Development

Chapter 1. Getting to Know Android

Why Android?

Google’s Android mobile phone software platform may be the next big opportunity for application software developers.

Google announced the Open Handset Alliance and the Android platform in November of 2007, releasing the first beta version of the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) at the same time. Within a matter of a few months, over 1 million people had downloaded versions of the SDK from Google’s website. In the United States, T-Mobile announced the G1 Android mobile phone in October of 2008, and estimates are that several hundred thousand G1s were sold before the end of that year. There are already several competing mobile phone software stacks in the market, so why is there such interest in Android?

Android has the potential for removing the barriers to success in the development and sale of a new generation of mobile phone application software. Just as the the standardized PC and Macintosh platforms created markets for desktop and server software, Android, by providing a standard mobile phone application environment, will create a market for mobile applications—and the opportunity for applications developers to profit from those applications.

Why hasn’t it been profitable to develop mobile applications for smartphones until now? And what are the problems that Android alleviates?

Fragmentation

About 70 million smartphones were sold in 2007, so there are a lot of phones available to run applications, but each brand has a different ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Learn Android Studio 4: Efficient Java-Based Android Apps Development

Learn Android Studio 4: Efficient Java-Based Android Apps Development

Ted Hagos
Android High Performance Programming

Android High Performance Programming

Enrique López Mañas, Diego Grancini

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596156220Errata Page