Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Introduction

Android is everywhere. In mid-2014, Android ran on 62 percent of all smartphones in the United States and on 84 percent of all smartphones worldwide.¹ In a study that spans the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Statista reports that Android tablet shipments outnumber iPad shipments by 23 million.² Over a million apps are available for download at the Google Play Store (more than double the number of apps that were available in June 2012).³ And, in the year between June 2013 and June 2014, Google paid more than $5 billion in revenues to independent developers of Google Play apps.⁴

So if you read this book in a public place (on a commuter train, at the beach, on the dance floor at the Coyote Ugly saloon), you can read proudly, with a chip on your shoulder and with your chest held high. Android is hot stuff, and you’re cool because you’re reading about it.

How to Use This Book

You can attack this book in either of two ways. You can go cover to cover, or you can poke around from one chapter to another. You can even do both (start at the beginning and then jump to a section that particularly interests you). I designed this book so that the basic topics come first and the more involved topics follow the basics. But you may already be comfortable with some basics, or you may have specific goals that don’t require you to know about certain topics.

In general, my advice is as follows:

• If you already know something, don’t bother reading about it.
• If you’re curious, ...