Preface

I started this book nearly 10 years ago. At the time, it seemed obvious to me that Android would be important in the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) world. Both Larry and I taught the Android Internals course for the great Marakana (later, New Circle). That class was so popular that both of us got to see a lot of the world while teaching it. I was certain that a book that described the general process of customizing Android for a new device without getting bogged down in details could be a hit.

On the other hand, I recall sitting in the restaurant in Grand Central Station with the editor of one of the books I co-authored (a man I very much respected) as he laid out comparable titles and explained in inexorable detail the chances that such a book would succeed. They were not good.

Sometime later, my co-author on O’Reilly’s Programming Android, Zigurd Mednieks, proposed the Android Deep Dive series to Addison-Wesley. The idea was a series of small, replaceable titles, none of which had the overhead of a large book. If a volume became obsolete, it could be replaced or updated without impact to the rest of the series. In this lower-risk environment, my book made sense. It was green-lighted, and I started work on it.

Somewhere around the time I got the first few chapters written, Laura Lewin (the series editor at that time) and Zigurd pitched another book to me. That pitch turned into Android Concurrency. I am very proud of that book, but it took several years to write and completely stalled work on this one.

When I finally returned to this book, I was no longer teaching Internals. Cyanogen had shut down, and both Android and I had moved on. When I picked up the book again, I discovered that Android had changed so much in the interim (ART, Treble, and SE Linux) that each time I caught up, it had already moved on. The book was nearly canceled.

I had the great luck to have Larry Schiefer on board as a technical reviewer. When I finally conceded that the project was swamped and on the verge of drowning, our superstar editor Malobika Chakraborty suggested I take on a co-author. Talk about luck: Larry volunteered! He pulled the book out of its hole, laid down some fantastic knowledge, and made this project relevant again. I’m gonna buy him a t-shirt with a big yellow “S” on it.

Before you dig into the first chapter, let me offer a gentle reminder: This is not a cookbook. The book contains code examples, and they are all available online. They have all compiled successfully and run at least once. That, however, is no guarantee that they will compile and run for you (though we hope they do!). Tool chains change. Android changes. Devices change. Things that work today may well not work at all tomorrow. Our intention is that the content here is a guidebook, not a map.

Good luck!

Blake Meike, May 2021