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CHAPTER 1 HELLO, ANDROID
The increasing popularity of modern smartphones, combined with the increasing availability of flat-
rate, affordable data plans and Wi-Fi, has created a growth market for advanced mobile applications.
The ubiquity of mobile phones, and our attachment to them, makes them a fundamentally different
platform for development from PCs. With a microphone, a camera, a touchscreen, location detection,
and environmental sensors, a phone can effectively become an extension of your own perceptions.
With the average Android user installing and using around 40 apps, mobile applications have changed
the way people use their phones. This gives you, the application developer, a unique opportunity to
create dynamic, compelling new applications that become a vital part of people’s lives.
WHY DEVELOP FOR ANDROID?
If you have a background in mobile application development, you don’t need me to tell you that:
➤ A lot of what you can do with Android is already possible.
➤ But doing it is painful.
Android represents a clean break, a mobile framework based on the reality of modern mobile devices
designed by developers, for developers.
With a simple and powerful SDK, no licensing fees, excellent documentation, and a thriving developer
community, Android represents an excellent opportunity to create software that changes how and why
people use their mobile phones.
From a commercial perspective Android:
➤ Requires no certification for becoming an Android developer
➤ Provides the Android Market for distribution and monetization of your applications
➤ Has no approval process for application distribution
➤ Gives you total control over your brand and access to the user’s home screen
What Has and Will Continue to Drive Android Adoption?
Android is targeted primarily at developers, with Google and the OHA betting that the way to deliver
better mobile software to consumers is to make it easier for developers to write it themselves.
As a development platform, Android is powerful and intuitive, letting developers who have never
programmed for mobile devices create useful applications quickly and easily. It’s easy to see how inno-
vative Android applications could create demand for the devices necessary to run them, particularly if
developers write applications for Android because they can’t write them for other platforms.
Open access to the nuts and bolts of the underlying system is what’s always driven software develop-
ment and platform adoption. The Internet’s inherent openness and neutrality have seen it become the
platform for a multibillion-dollar industry within 10 years of its inception. Before that, it was open sys-
tems like Linux and the powerful APIs provided as part of the Windows operating system that enabled
the explosion in personal computers and the movement of computer programming from the arcane to
the mainstream.