Introduction

If you’ve got a burning idea for an application that you’re dying to share, or if you recognize the power and possibilities of the Android platform, you’ve come to the right place. This is a short book on an immense topic.

I don’t mean to alarm anyone right off the bat here, but let me be honest: Android development is hard. Its architecture is dissimilar to that of many existing platforms (especially other mobile SDKs), there are many traps for beginners to fall into, and the documentation is frequently sparse at best. In exchange for its difficulty, however, Google’s Android offers unprecedented power, control, and—yes—responsibility to those who are brave enough to develop for it.

This is where my job comes in. I’m here to make the process of learning to write amazing Android software as simple as possible.