An Overview of Changes in This Edition

When we began writing the first edition of this book, there were no Android devices on the market. One Android device became available shortly after we started writing, and it was available only in the United States. Today there are hundreds of devices shipping all over the world—smartphones, tablets, e-book readers, wrist watches, and specialty devices such as the Google TV. The Android platform has gone through extensive changes since the first edition of this book was published. The Android SDK has many new features and the development tools have received much-needed upgrades. Android, as a technology, is now on solid footing in the mobile marketplace.

In this new edition, we took the opportunity to do a serious overhaul on book content—but don’t worry, it’s still the book readers loved the first (and second!) time, just bigger, better, and more comprehensive. To cover more of the exciting topics available to Android developers, we had to divide the book into two volumes. In addition to adding tons of new content, we’ve retested and upgraded all existing content (text and sample code) for use with the latest Android SDKs available while still remaining backwards compatible. The Android development community is diverse, and we aim to support all developers, regardless of which devices they are developing for. This includes developers who need to target nearly all platforms, so coverage in....