Best android app development books

        Android is open source mobile operating system developed by Google. Open source means OS can be customized by handset manufactures like Samsung, LG, OnePlus etc.

    Android is built on top of Linux Kernel. Android programs are written in Java or Kotlin using SDK (Android Software Development Kit) and run through the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) optimized for mobile.

Features of Android

    Android allows developers to write applications and  published in playstore  and can be downloaded from the Google play store other than the built-in applications that come with the phone. Some features and benefits of Android are:

• Open source and free – anyone can easily write applications of their choice 
  
• Large developer community and support
  
• Rich development environment
  
• Very cost-effective to develop apps
  
• Intuitive UI

Related : AndroidBasic Concepts

Following are top android books to purchase to become an expert in building top android applications

 1. Headfirst Android Development

   Topics Covered :

•  Setting up Android project, Java, building first app, Running on the Emulator. 

• Creating Multiple Activities and Intents, The Activity Lifecycle and The User Interface

• List Views and Adapters, Fragments,Nested Fragments, Action Bars, Navigation Drawers

• SQLite Databases, Cursors and Asynctasks, Services, Material Design

    Where to buy: Amazon

2. Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide 

     Topics Covered :

• Fundamentals of creating Android projects, creating you first app, android XML and UI , Making Toasts activities, Running on the Emulator.

• It also explains about Model-View-Controller, The Activity Lifecycle, Debugging Android Apps, Making log messages, Android SDK Versions and Compatibility.

• It explains about android Fragments, RecyclerView, Layouts and Widgets,  Dialogs, WebView

• It also explains about Databases , Implicit Intents,  Intents, Localization, Data Binding, creating Audio Playback test application and Unit Testing.

• It explains about  HTTP and Background Tasks, Loopers, Handlers, SharedPreferences, Broadcast Intents, scheduling background work, multi-threading, accessing web services

    Where to buy: Amazon 

3. Android Application Development All-in-one for Dummies

    Topics Covered :

• Installing the Software Tools like Java, Android SDK, android studio, Creating an Android App
  

• The Building Blocks, Android Activities, Intents and Intent Filters, Services, Broadcast Receivers, Content Provider
  

•  Menus, Lists, and Notifications designing an apps liken phone dialer, messaging, Social Media App, Simple Android Game, NDK development 
  

• Apps for Tablets, Watches, and TV Sets publishing Your App to the Google Play Store,  Monetizing and Marketing Your App
  

    Where to buy: Amazon

4. Professional Android

    Topics Covered :

• Introduction to android, setting up development environment ,  Activities and Fragments, Android Manifest and Gradle Build Files
  

• Building User Interfaces, Intents and Broadcast Receivers, Using Internet Resources for downloading, Files, Saving State, and User Preferences, Creating and Using Databases, Content Providers and Search
  

• Working in the Background, Implementing the Android Design Philosophy, Implementing a Modern Android User Experience, Advanced Customization of Your User Interface, Location, Contextual Awareness, and Mapping
  

• Hardware Sensors, Audio, Video, and Using the Camera, Communicating with Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer
  

• Advanced Android Development, Releasing, Distributing, and Monitoring Applications
  

    Where to buy: Amazon

5. Beginning Android 4 Games Development

    Topics Covered :

•  Setting Up the Development Environment, Game Development 101, Android for Game Developers, Android API Basics
  

• An Android Game Development Framework, AndroidAudio, AndroidSound, and AndroidMusic, AndroidGraphics and AndroidPixmap

• OpenGL ES: A Gentle Introduction, GLSurfaceView, GLGame, 2D Transformations

• 2D Game Programming Tricks: Collision Detection and Object Representation in 2D, A Camera in 2D, A 2D OpenGL ES Game, OpenGL ES: Going 3D, 3D Programming Tricks, Publishing Your Game
  

    Where to buy: Amazon

6. Android Programming with Kotlin for Beginners

    Topics Covered :

• Getting Started with Android and Kotlin, Kotlin, XML, and the UI Designer, Writing our first Kotlin code, Exploring Android Studio and the Project Structure

•  Getting Started with Layouts and Material Design, Beautiful Layouts with CardView and ScrollView

• The Android Lifecycle, Kotlin Variables, Operators, and Expressions, Kotlin Decisions and Loops, Kotlin Functions, Object-Oriented Programming, Inheritance in Kotlin

• Bringing Android Widgets to Life, Android Dialog Windows, Adapters and Recyclers, Data Persistence and Sharing, Localization

• Animations and Interpolations, Drawing Graphics, Design Patterns, Multiple Layouts, and Fragments, Advanced UI with Paging and Swiping, Android Databases

    Where to buy: Amazon

7. The Android Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the Android SDK

    Topics Covered :

•  Overview of Android, Application Basics: Activities and Intents,  Threads, Services, Receivers, and Alerts, Advanced Threading Techniques like Loaders, AsyncTasks, Android IPC 

• User Interface  Layout and events like Views and ViewGroups, Event Handlers and Event Listeners, Multimedia Techniques like image, audio and video 

• Hardware Interface like  Camera, Telephony, Bluetooth, Near Field Communication (NFC), Universal Serial Bus (USB), Networking 

•  Data Storage Methods shared Preferences, SQLite Database, Content Provider, File Saving and Loading

• Location-Based Services, Using Google Maps, Push Messages, Google Cloud Messaging Setup, Sending and Receiving Push Messages, Receiving Messages, Sending Messages

• Android Native Development, Eclipse Built-In Debug Tools, Android SDK Debug Tools, Android System Debug Tools

•  In-App Billing, Google Play In-App Billing

    Where to buy: Amazon

Related topics :

Android Basic Concepts

AdvancedAndroid App Concepts

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Android Basic Concepts

ANDROID BASICS        

       Android as a software stack— a set of software subsystems required to deliver a totally functional solution— for mobile devices.

   The stack includes an operating system (modified Linux kernel), middleware(software that connects the low-level operating system to high-level apps) that’s partly based on Java, and key apps (written in Java) such as a web browser (known as Browser) and a contact manager (known as Contacts).

Android offers the following features: 

• Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of app components 
• Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi support (hardware dependent) 
• Camera, GPS, compass, sensors and accelerometer support (hardware dependent) 
• Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices 
• GSM Telephony support (hardware dependent) 
• Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine 
• Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF) 
• Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0, 1.1, or 2.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional) 
• SQLite for structured data storage

ANDROID ARCHITECTURE

    The Android software stack consists of apps at the top, middleware (consisting of an application framework, libraries, and the Android runtime) in the middle, and a Linux kernel with various drivers at the bottom.          

Related : Android system architecture and build system overview

     Directly below the app layer is the application framework, a set of high-level building blocks for creating apps. The application framework is preinstalled on Android devices and consists of the following components:

• Activity Manager: This component provides an app’s life cycle and maintains a shared activity stack for navigating within and among apps. 
  
• Content Providers: These components encapsulate data (such as the Browser app’s bookmarks) that can be shared among apps.
  
• Location Manager: This component makes it possible for an Android device to be aware of its physical location.
  
• Notification Manager: This component lets an app notify the user of a significant event (such as a message’s arrival) without interrupting what the user is currently doing.
  
• Package Manager: This component lets an app learn about other app packages that are currently installed on the device. 
  
• Resource Manager: This component lets an app access its resources.
  
• Telephony Manager: This component lets an app learn about a device’s telephony services. It also handles making and receiving phone calls.
  
• View System: This component manages user interface elements and user interface-oriented event generation. 
  
• Window Manager: This component organizes the screen’s real estate into windows, allocates drawing surfaces, and performs other window-related jobs.

Components

            An app consists of components (activities, services, broadcast receivers, and content providers) that run in a Linux process and that are managed by Android:             

• Activities present user interface screens.
• Services perform lengthy jobs (such as playing music) in the background and don’t provide user interfaces.
• Broadcast receivers receive and react to broadcasts from Android or other components.
• Content providers encapsulate data and make them available to apps.

Views, View Groups, and Event Listeners

        An activity’s user interface is based on views (user interface components), view groups(views that group together related views), and event listeners (objects that listen for events originating from views or view groups).                     

Fragments

      Android 3.0 introduced the concept of fragments, which are objects that represent parts of an activity’s user interface. A fragment serves as a modular section of an activity with its own life cycle and the ability to receive its own input events, and which you can add or remove while the activity is running. You can combine multiple fragments into a single activity to build a multipane user interface (typically in a tablet context) and reuse the fragment in multiple activities.          

Services

        A service is a component that runs in the background for an indefinite period of time and that doesn’t provide a user interface. As with an activity, a service runs on the process’s main thread; it should spawn another thread to perform a time-consuming operation. Services are classified as local or remote:           

• A local service runs in the same process as the rest of the app. Such services make it easy to implement background tasks.
• A remote service runs in a separate process. Such services let you perform interprocess communications.

Broadcast Receivers            

    A broadcast receiver is a component that receives and reacts to broadcasts. Many broadcasts originate in system code; for example, an announcement is made to indicate that the timezone has been changed or the battery power is low.

Content Providers

        A content provider is a component that makes a specific set of an app’s data available to other apps. The data can be stored in the Android filesystem, in an SQLite database, or in any other manner that makes sense.

 Related : Android Advanced concepts  

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