This third edition is current enough to include a chapter on the then, in 2014, forthcoming Android 5.0. That being said, the primary focus is Android 4.x.

The author describes the target reader as someone who is tech savvy but not a programmer. He offers to teach such users the fundamentals of Android programming (650 pages worth), but to ignore many of the more focused application programming interfaces (APIs) such as accessing the camera or sensors, working with MySQLite, and 3D programming. The book does do a good job of meeting this target. The general tone is tutorial and chatty (perhaps even a bit too chatty) rather than a reference.

I felt like I was being tutored by an experienced colleague or a coach explaining the steps he went through to gain his expertise. In several spots, the author stops his linear exposition to present a problem he encountered and how he worked through it. On the whole, I enjoyed this style very much. It gives a very comforting introduction to programming for new developers.

This style is very easy to read from cover to cover, though it is perhaps more difficult to find answers to particular questions. The index is not a huge help in this. While it is reasonably long (13 two-column pages), it contains many nested entries and it is hard to find most topics. It is probably best to use this book as a first guide, and then to rely on another book or online reference for answering immediate questions.

Looking at the book in more detail, the first chapter begins with setting up the development environment, with a focus on Eclipse rather than the now emerging Android Studio. The chapter even discusses appropriate hardware, going as far as suggesting a top-of-the-line tower computer with liquid-cooled fans. Amusingly, even though the author is obviously a fan of open-source software and has just suggested buying a new computer, he still assumes development on Windows 8.1 rather than on Linux. This first chapter sets the tone of the entire book: detailed, precise, and opinionated. The description of how to set up the Android developer environment covers exactly which files to download and which to avoid. Wonderful, that is, until a few months later: by the time I read the book, it was already somewhat out of date, as the fast-moving Android ecosystem has already abandoned Eclipse for Android Studio. But, to the extent that the book remains current, it is wonderful. The chapter continues with detailed lists of best-of-breed software for managing graphical assets, audio, and the other sundries critical to Android app development.

The book moves slowly and patiently through everything a beginner needs to know to create an Android app. After 100 pages (three chapters), readers will have basically learned the project directory layout and how to create a transparent app icon in multiple sizes. Continuing on, chapter 4 presents Extensible Markup Language (XML) resource files and chapter 5 introduces Java with a focus on syntax.

Chapters 6 through 8 present the fundamentals of Android user interface (UI) design; 9 through 12 introduce multimedia objects; and the remaining chapters (13 through 16) get a bit more hardcore, teaching services, content providers, Android Wear, and the future of Android 5. The one appendix gives a brief introduction to digital audio.

I was fascinated by the book’s technical focus: lots of discussions about multimedia, including recommendations of open-source tools, best practices, and workflows. However, there is absolutely no discussion of networking or client/server computing, nor of ad server integration or other monetization schemes. This book focuses exclusively on beginner developers creating media-rich local apps with no network connectivity. It is not bad for this somewhat restricted audience, and also works as a stepping-stone into more advanced Android books.

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