Beginning Android »

Mark Murphy is the founder of CommonsWare and the author of The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. A three-time entrepreneur, his experience ranges from consulting on open source and collaborative development for Fortune 500 companies to application development on just about anything smaller than a mainframe. He has been a software developer for over 25 years, working on platforms ranging from the TRS-80 to the latest crop of mobile devices. A polished speaker, Mark has delivered conference presentations and training sessions on a wide array of topics internationally.

Mark writes the "Building Droids" column for AndroidGuys and the "Android Angle" column for NetworkWorld.

Outside of CommonsWare, Mark has an avid interest in how the Internet will play a role in citizen involvement with politics and government. He is a contributor to the Rebooting America essay collection, and his personal blog features many posts discussing "cooperative democracy."

Beginning Android, one of the first beginning books on Android, covers what the reader needs and wants to know to get started on programming Android applications — everything from crafting GUIs to using GPS and accessing Web services, and more.

Written by Android columnist, writer, developer and community advocate, Mark L Murphy, the easy-to-read style of Beginning Android makes entry-level Android development even more accessible.

Google’s open source Java-based Android mobile (and possibly Netbook applications) operating and development platform is growing with the availability of more and more Smart Phone devices that can utilize it. Beyond HTC G1 and G2 Google Phones, Android continues to grow and be in use as well as adopted by other hardware vendors and their developers in the Open Handset Alliance.

On Google’s Android source code download site alone, there are nearly 1.5 million downloads of Android. Also, Android’s mobile phone market share is growing from 4% in 4Q2008 to as much as 6-8% by mid 2009. Moreover, its ease of use and much lower barrier of entry due to Open Source makes Android accessible to more developers and users. Lastly, Android supports Adobe Flash+AIR platform while Apple’s iPhone still does not.