Reviews for Android Application Development: Programming with the Google SDK

1. Good but don't read at night

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   This book is well written and proposes many examples. It also provides a URL where to download the examples source code from. It has only about 300 pages, too few for explaining everything. Moreover, it is a bit repetitive: is states the same concepts many times, a bit pedantic, tho. A good knowledge of Java is required.

2. Very disappointing

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   Whatever your Android programming level is, this book is a complete waste of time and definitely doesn't worth a single penny. After reading half of the book it was very clear to me that there is no leading author for this book and nobody technically reviewed the book as a whole. Except chapter 7, referring to signing and publishing Android application, the whole part one is useless. Whole Android installation process is different right now and you better check Google web site to get latest installation steps. Not to mention that there are unnecessary and very annoying repetitions on how to use Eclipse.
   Even if first part was disastrous, I did finish the book. In second part there are two chapters that are worth spending your time on: chapter 10: Building a View and chapter 13: Inter-process Communication. As for the rest....utterly disappointing. The authors even prove that they don't know what application they wrote. In some chapters they use different names for same class they put in their application, this in addition to the fact that their application doesn't work at all.
   If you receive this book as a present and you are completely bored you can read it, otherwise I would not spend a single penny on it.
   

3. Rubbish

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, August 12th, 2009

   Well this book does cover the basics of creating an android application but the quality of this book is below the usual high O'Reilly standard.

4. Android for the masses

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2009

   The book is aimed at the beginner/intermediate Android developer.
   
   As it can be used by the absolute beginner, it is better suited to
   developers with a little foreknowledge or a mentor on the subject.
   
   This book is well suited to a training environments as the topics have
   additional information surrounding them that assist in supporting there
   relevance and use in the development cycle.
   
   The examples were well explained and easy enough to implement, I did find
   that a few examples didn't work out the box but with a little common sense
   and very little effort had them all working as per the book (Remember the
   framework version).
   
   PLEASE NOTE : As this book contains technical items explained from the
   authors perspective some of the topic explanations seem confusing when first
   read, please take the time to re-read them, as I found that once I
   understood the mindset and approach of the author it was a pleasant and easy
   reading from then on.
   
   I would recommend this book to startup developers and it's material to
   "Android developer course" writers (remember to get permission from the
   publisher/Author).

5. First professional book from O'Reilly about Android

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, June 12th, 2009

   This is definitely the first book about Android that O'Reilly published.
   The previous one from O'Reilly was just "nothing".
   
   But I guess this is normal: Android is still a new and growing technology.