Reviews for Professional Android 2 Application Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

1. Initial Impression - oversimplification and terminology confusion

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, April 12st, 2010

   Bear in mind that this is a preliminary review prompted by what appears to be a serious issue. I may revise my rating (and retract some criticism) as I acquire more Android knowledge and read more of the book. However, the book's treatment of the first Android concept of interest to me looks poor---it appears to bear no relation to the official documentation.
   
   Note:
   1)Although I've only spent a few minutes with this book and a few minutes looking at the official reference developer.android.com, but already I'm concerned that this book is deviates significantly from the official documentation in its treatment of a key concept.
   2)I have no Android development experience (yet) and this is the first Android book I've looked at, so cannot compare this with other books. Hence, my concern over the apparent mismatch with the official Android documentation.
   3)I have a lot of experience in non-Android development.
   
   It appears that for Android, component life-cycles are an important concept that is oversimplified and confused by Meier. Terminology confusion: "Application Priority" or "Process Importance Hierarchy"? The author seems to deviate from the official sources by using "Priority" in relation to component life-cycle management whereas the official documentation deliberately introduces the concept of "Process Importance Hierarchy". Use of "Priority" seems entirely incorrect.
   
   The on-line official documentation has many more diagrams relating to component life-cycles than this book. The reason it has more diagrams is because it probably isn't anything like as simple as Meier seems to indicate by his incorrect terminology.
   
   My initial impression is that its a readable book, but does it convey the same information as the official documentation or is it oversimplified fiction?
   
   

2. Highly recommended

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   I'm a professional software dev and have been writing code for a *long* time. Having done some hobbyist development on Android, I was frustrated with the online docs (View descriptions with no screenshots - come on, Google) and trawling endless blogs.
   
   I bought this book last week and have been reading it cover to cover. I've used it a few times for reference too and the index is pretty thorough.
   
   At 17 quid, it's fantastic value given the breadth and depth of the material.
   
   PS If you're interested in a decent blog, try Googling "Android and Amir". Good stuff.

3. The update to Android 2.0 has made it 100% more valuable

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2010

   Over the last 18 months Android seems to have been a tricky subject to write about, it has moved on so fast that books published got outdated far quicker than they deserved. However due to more recent stability in the platform and the fact that this book is the latest and greatest Android work to come out adds a large amount of value to it, which should afford this book a much longer shelf life.
   
   The author has updated and enhanced the entire book to cover the rich features of the newer Android offering. I find that his deep understanding of concepts behind Android translate into one of the easiest to understand guides to getting started available today. If you are thinking about getting into Android then I highly recommend this as a solid starting place to learning the fundamentals of Intents, Activities, Receivers, Services, Content Providers, etc...
   
   Once you're through the fundamentals you'll also find that this book covers a wide range of the features available, giving any developer a good solid bag of tools and best practises to use in day to day development and a very handy reference with well written code samples.
   
   Of course it won't answer all your questions or solve all your problems, but once you are up and running and really understand the fundamentals and the have a solid grasp of what's possible then there are a growing abundance of web based Android resources/sites/forums available and a particularly helpful and vibrant community to get you around any sticky issues.