Unlocking Android – A developer’s guide

Abstract

In the fall of 2007 I was speaking with my friend Troy Mott, who happens to also be an editor for Manning, the publisher of thisbook. Troy and I were discussing the mobile marketplace, something we have done for years. We started kicking around the idea of writing a book onAndroid. The challenge was that Android didn’t really exist. Yet. We knew from some of the preliminary information that the platform promised to be open, capable, and popular. We felt that those ingredients could make for an interesting and valuable topic, so we began thinking about what that book might look like, taking it on faith that the platform would actually come to fruition. Before long we convinced ourselves (and Manning) that this was a good idea and the work began in early 2008. Beyond the usual challenges of putting a book together, we had the additional obstacle that our subject matter has been in a steady, though unpredictable, state of change over the past year. In ssence we’ve written this book two times because the SDKhas been changed multiple times and Android-equipped phones have become available, accelerating the interest and demand for the platform. Every time a significant change occurred, we went back and revisited portions of the book, sometimes rewriting entire chapters to accommodate the latest developments in the Android platform.