Instant Android Systems Development How-to

In Detail

Android is by far the most popular open source mobile operating system. Learning to write high quality code at the platform level and learning how the systems works internally is a vital skill. This book teaches you these skills with clear and concise explanations and code examples.

Instant Android Systems Development How-to provides a gentle introduction to the platform internals without sacrificing depth. Source code examples are designed to be meaningful, but at the same time, do not disguise their real purpose, which is to illustrate systems development techniques and common design patterns in android systems programming. Readers will be guided through several examples that give a hands-on experience.

Readers begin by downloading the android source code, which is a topic of much discussion on android forums. They are then guided through the android boot process, and later on learn various common android systems development paradigms. More importantly, the book provides advice on when to use certain techniques which is often a mystery for the novice developer. Readers who complete the book will have high confidence in developing good systems code for Android.

The book discusses how to setup a development machine and how to obtain the android source code and kernel code. It describes the source code organization and how the system boots up with precise references to various points in the source code. It highlights the common systems design patterns followed and how to create a custom system service. It then covers the all important flashing of phones. This is a topic of much confusion and the book provides direct steps to achieve safe flashing of developer phones. It describes the user application library mechanism and the platform library mechanism. Native code is needed for certain operations and an example service utilizing native code is explained. Modification of core system applications is explained and useful tips are provided on how to speed up the build-test cycle. The book concludes with a case study of two real world android platform extensions which give the user a reference while developing their own extensions.

Instant Android Systems Development How-to is a well rounded book on platform internals that provides simple explanations without sacrificing depth and rigor.

Approach

Filled with practical, step-by-step instructions and clear explanations for the most important and useful tasks.This is a how-to book with practical, coded examples which are well explained.

Who this book is for

This book is for seasoned Android SDK programmers. Knowledge of Java, Linux, and C is assumed. Certain Operating System concepts like processes, threads, shared memory, and inter process communication is also assumed, but the book provides necessary background before any obscure topics are introduced.