Practical Android Projects

Ask yourself...how do you learn best? Well, like most programmers, you may well prefer to have a solid, real App that you can tear apart and analyze-bit by bit. Featured on phones like the Nexus One, the Motorola Droid, a variety of HTC phones, and even more, Android is a powerful, full-featured, open source mobile platform that is ready for inspection, use and creative programming. This Android Projects book first provides you with a brief introduction to the Android SDK 3, and then dives right into building step by step some cool looking and fun apps that put Android's amazing capabilities to work. You'll learn how to create a virtual pet using the Android logo, how to create an app to help you with household inventory and shopping, how to create a game using GPS and Google Maps, and much more!* Learn how to configure your development environment for working with the Android SDK * Discover how to work with powerful Android capabilities like the accelerometer and GPS * Build fun and practical apps that will run on a wide variety of Android 3 phones What you'll learn * How to build interesting apps such as Arcade Football, a virtual pet, and Finger Painting * Use phone location with a Geo Latitude Alerts app which you can adapt as your own * Build a utility that others can use with the Inventory and Shopping Assistant app! * How to program a game on Android with the Navigation Game app! * How to work with the Android UI, from layouts to lists to touch screen * How to interact with a third party web API using REST * How to work with audio and video in Android * Putting the accelerometer to work * Working with GPS and Google Maps * How to create an augmented reality app Who this book is for Any developer new to the Android platform who wants to learn to build mobile apps using the Android SDK. Knowledge of the fundamentals of Java programming is assumed.Table of Contents* Introducing Android* Roll your own Android scripting language* Hosting open source JVM extension scripting languages on Android* Beginning Android scripting with Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A)* How to interact with a third party web API using REST* Beginning Android development with Rhodes and Ruby* Programming an Android GUI: Javascript/HTML and Flex with AIR* Practical Approach: Android and Google App Engine* Android and Social Media: Facebook and Twitter* Game Development: Graphics* Game Development: Animations* App Inventor Setup and Sample Project