Introduction

Welcome to Beginning Android, Fifth Edition. In this fifth edition, I have completely rewritten the book and have taken stock of all the great changes that have happened to the Android platform with the releases of version 5.0 Lollipop and version 6.0 Marshmallow.

Tackling the latest and greatest aspects of Android will become second nature once you explore this book, but more importantly, you will also have a rock-solid foundation into the fundamentals of Android that span all its versions. You will explore and learn about activities, fragments, all of the user interface and user experience elements, services, data management, web services, and many, many more building blocks for your Android applications.

The best judge of this book’s value is the great applications you can create from the knowledge with which it provides you. I look forward to trying all of the great applications that will flow from the knowledge you take from this book. You can explore more about the book itself at the website, www.beginningandroid.org (that’s .org, not .com), and contact me via that site or my personal site at www.grantxallen.com.

All the best with your Android development!

—Grant Allen

November 2015