Pro Android Media


Book Description

Mobile devices have evolved to focus on rich media production and consumption. Developers of mobile applications are able to create applications that allow people to play, capture, and share media in a variety of new ways on mobile devices. The popularity of Android has soared in part because the platform offers developers a rich set of capabilities including access to media capturing and playback functions. Pro Android Media provides concise and clear instruction on how to utilize the media APIs made available through Android to create dynamic apps. It takes you from a simple means to gain access to the camera to complex video capture and sharing examples. It also covers sound, graphics, painting, and more—everything you need to make your app come "alive." After reading this book, the app you create will showcase the best of multimedia that Android has to offer.




Pro Android UI


Book Description

If you’re an Android application developer, chances are you’re using fixed, scrolling, swipe-able, and other cutting-edge custom UI Designs in your Android development projects. These UI Design approaches as well as other Android ViewGroup UI layout containers are the bread and butter of Pro Android User Interface (UI) design and Android User Experience (UX) design and development. Using a top down approach, Pro Android UI shows you how to design and develop the best user interface for your app, while taking into account the varying device form factors in the increasingly fragmented Android environment. Pro Android UI aims to be the ultimate reference and customization cookbook for your Android UI Design, and as such will be useful to experienced developers as well as beginners. With Android’s powerful UI layout classes, you can easily create everything from the simplest of lists to fully tricked-out user interfaces. While using these UI classes for boring, standard user interfaces can be quite simple, customizing a unique UI design can often become extremely challenging.




Pro Android 2


Book Description

Pro Android 2 shows how to build real-world and fun mobile applications using Google's latest Android software development kit. This new edition is updated for Android 2, covering everything from the fundamentals of building applications for embedded devices to advanced concepts such as custom 3D components, OpenGL, and touchscreens including gestures. While other Android development guides simply discuss topics, Pro Android 2 offers the combination of expert insight and real sample applications that work. Discover the design and architecture of the Android SDK through practical examples, and how to build mobile applications using the Android SDK. Explore and use the Android APIs, including those for media and Wi-Fi. Learn about Android 2's integrated local and web search, handwriting gesture UI, Google Translate, and text-to-speech features. Pro Android 2 dives deep, providing you with all the knowledge and techniques you need to build mobile applications ranging from games to Google apps, including add-ons to Google Docs. You'll be able to extend and run the new Google Chrome APIs on the G1, the G2, and other next-generation Google phones and Android-enabled devices.




Pro Android Wearables


Book Description

Pro Android Wearables details how to design and build Android Wear apps for new and unique Android wearable device types, such as Google Android smartwatches, which use the new WatchFaces API, as well as health-monitoring features and other cool features such as altimeters and compasses. It's time to take your Android 5 Wear application development skills and experience to the next level and get exposure to a whole new world of hardware. As smartwatches continue to grab major IoT headlines, there is a growing interest in building Android apps that run on these wearables, which are now being offered by dozens of major manufacturers. This means more revenue earning opportunity for today's indie app developers. Additionally, this book provides new media design concepts which relate to using media assets, as well as how to optimize Wear applications for low-power, single-core, dual-core or quad-core CPUs, and how to use the IntelliJ Android Studio IDE, and the Android device emulators for popular new wearable devices.




Pro Android Graphics


Book Description

Pro Android Graphics is a comprehensive goldmine of knowledge and techniques that will help you design, create, and optimize 2D graphics for use in your Android Jelly Bean applications. Android application developer and expert multimedia producer Wallace Jackson of Mind Taffy Design shows you how to leverage Android's powerful graphics APIs in conjunction with professional open source graphics design tools such as GIMP 2.8.6 and more. You’ll learn about: The foundational graphics concepts behind the three core new media areas (digital imaging, digital video, and 2D animation) which relate to graphics design, and how to optimize these new media assets for your Android applications across iTVs, tablets, eReaders, game consoles, and smartphones. Digital imaging techniques for Android apps design, including graphics design layouts and graphical user interface elements, and how to use image compositing techniques to take your digital imaging to far higher levels. Advanced image compositing and blending techniques, using Android’s PorterDuff, NinePatch, and LayerDrawable classes. Advanced 2D animation techniques, using Android’s Animation and AnimationDrawable classes. Digital video optimization, playback, and streaming, using open source 3D (Terragen 3) and video (VirtualDub) applications, as well as professional video editing applications such as Squeeze Pro 9. You’ll use these software packages with Android’s VideoView and MediaPlayer classes, and add compositing to enhance your end-users’ digital video experience.




Pro Android 5


Book Description

Pro Android 5 shows you how to build real-world and fun mobile apps using the Android 5 SDK. This book updates the best-selling Pro Android and covers everything from the fundamentals of building apps for smartphones, tablets, and embedded devices to advanced concepts such as custom components, multi-tasking, sensors/augmented reality, better accessories support and much more. Using the tutorials and expert advice, you'll quickly be able to build cool mobile apps and run them on dozens of Android-based smartphones. You'll explore and use the Android APIs, including those for media and sensors. And you'll check out what's new in Android, including the improved user interface across all Android platforms, integration with services, and more. By reading this definitive tutorial and reference, you'll gain the knowledge and experience to create stunning, cutting-edge Android apps that can make you money, while keeping you agile enough to respond to changes in the future.




Pro Android with Kotlin


Book Description

Develop Android apps with Kotlin to create more elegant programs than the Java equivalent. This book covers the various aspects of a modern Android app that professionals are expected to encounter. There are chapters dealing with all the important aspects of the Android platform, including GUI design, file- and data-handling, coping with phone calls, multimedia apps, interaction with location and mapping services, monetizing apps, and much more. Pro Android with Kotlin is an invaluable source for developers wanting to build real-world state-of-the-art apps for modern Android devices. What You Will Learn Integrate activities, such as intents, services, toasts and more, into your Android apps Build UIs in Android using layouts, widgets, lists, menus, and action bars Deal with data in your Android apps using data persistence and cloud access Design for different Android devices Create multimedia apps in Android Secure, deploy, and monetize your Android apps Who This Book Is For Professional Android app developers.




Professional Android Sensor Programming


Book Description

Learn to build human-interactive Android apps, starting with device sensors This book shows Android developers how to exploit the rich set of device sensors—locational, physical (temperature, pressure, light, acceleration, etc.), cameras, microphones, and speech recognition—in order to build fully human-interactive Android applications. Whether providing hands-free directions or checking your blood pressure, Professional Android Sensor Programming shows how to turn possibility into reality. The authors provide techniques that bridge the gap between accessing sensors and putting them to meaningful use in real-world situations. They not only show you how to use the sensor related APIs effectively, they also describe how to use supporting Android OS components to build complete systems. Along the way, they provide solutions to problems that commonly occur when using Android's sensors, with tested, real-world examples. Ultimately, this invaluable resource provides in-depth, runnable code examples that you can then adapt for your own applications. Shows experienced Android developers how to exploit the rich set of Android smartphone sensors to build human-interactive Android apps Explores Android locational and physical sensors (including temperature, pressure, light, acceleration, etc.), as well as cameras, microphones, and speech recognition Helps programmers use the Android sensor APIs, use Android OS components to build complete systems, and solve common problems Includes detailed, functional code that you can adapt and use for your own applications Shows you how to successfully implement real-world solutions using each class of sensors for determining location, interpreting physical sensors, handling images and audio, and recognizing and acting on speech Learn how to write programs for this fascinating aspect of mobile app development with Professional Android Sensor Programming.




Pro Android Web Apps


Book Description

Developing applications for Android and other mobile devices using web technologies is now well within reach. When the capabilities of HTML5 are combined with CSS3 and JavaScript, web application developers have an opportunity to develop compelling mobile applications using familiar tools. Not only is it possible to build mobile web apps that feel as good as native apps, but to also write an application once and have it run a variety of different devices. While the HTML5 specification is still evolving, there is a lot that can be used right now to build mobile web apps. Mobile web apps are now starting to provide many of the features that were once only available to native-language-based apps in Java, Objective-C, etc. Pro Android Web Apps teaches developers already familiar with web application development, how to code and structure a web app for use on the Android mobile platform. Understand both the why and how of mobile web app development, focusing on the Android platform. Learn how to structure mobile web apps through a number of practical, real-world application examples. Discover what cloud platforms such as Google AppEngine have to offer Android web apps, for both hosting web apps and providing device to cloud data synchronization solutions. Get a real picture of the status of HTML5 on Android and other mobile devices, including some things to watch out for when building your own applications. Understand the capabilities of the web application stack, and how to complement those with native bridging frameworks such as PhoneGap to access native features of the device. Gain an understanding of the different UI frameworks that are available for building mobile web apps. Learn how to include mapping and leverage location-based services in mobile web apps to create engaging mobile experiences. Enable social integration with your Android web app and gain access to millions of potential users. After reading this book, you will not only have a greater understanding of the world of web apps on Android, but also how to leverage additional tools and frameworks to increase the reach of your mobile web apps. Additionally, through the practical samples in the book you will have been given solid exposure of where both the opportunities and challenges lie when building mobile apps the web way.




Pro Android Flash


Book Description

Did you know you can take your Flash skills beyond the browser, allowing you to make apps for Android, iOS and the BlackBerry Tablet OS? Build dynamic apps today starting with the easy-to-use Android smartphones and tablets. Then, take your app to other platforms without writing native code. Pro Android Flash is the definitive guide to building Flash and other rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the Android platform. It covers the most popular RIA frameworks for Android developers—Flash and Flex—and shows how to build rich, immersive user experiences on both Android smartphones and tablets. You'll learn how to incorporate multimedia, animation, and special effects into your apps for maximum visual appeal. You'll also cover advanced topics, including input methods, hardware inputs, deployment, and performance optimization.