Beginning Android Tablet Programming

Beginning Android Tablet Programming starts off by showing how to get your system ready for Android tablet programming. You won’t need any previous Android experience, because you’ll learn all about the basic structure of an Android program and how the Android operating system works—and then you’ll learn how to write your first Android tablet application from scratch!

Beginning Android Tablet Programmingthen equips you to build a set of interesting and fully-working Android tablet applications. These projects will give you the inspiration and insights to build your own Android programs in the future.

You’ll be introduced to 2D programming, and you’ll see what you can do with a touch screen interface and the Honeycomb SDK. Of course, 3D programming is even more alluring for many programmers. If that includes you, you’ll learn about how Honeycomb has changed the game for Android graphics programming, and get your first taste of 3D programming on an Android tablet.

Lights, camera, action! You’ll learn along the way how Android Honeycomb gives you access, through your programming, to all those interesting sensors that tablet computers are equipped with today—beyond the touch screen itself. You’ll learn, for example, how you to use a tablet GPS sensor to locate your car!

You’ll also discover how you can access files on your tablet—or on the web—through programming, and then build on that insight to create your own file browser application. This Android project contains many useful coding techniques appropriate for many situations you might encounter in your future programming Android tablet applications; you’ll be glad to have them under your belt.

What you’ll learn

• Programming for a touch screen environment
• Learn about the new facilities available from Android 3.0 Honeycomb
• Take advantage of sensors and data feeds while writing entirely new applications
• Code a game for an Android tablet
• How to write Android tablet programs code in programming languages other than Java
• Transition from an Android smart phone environment to an Android tablet

Who this book is for

• Beginning and intermediate Android programmers
• Intermediate Java programmers
• Intermediate programmers in open-source programming languages, especially Python

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started 
2. How Android Works
3. What You Can Do with an Android Tablet
4. Beyond Java: Programming in Python and Friends
5. Project 1: Media Player
6. Explorer:An Android File Explorer
7. Contact Manager:and other potentially useful applications
8. Dude, Where’s My Car?:Adventures in GPS
9. Let the games begin!: Some 2d and 3d graphical game techniques
10. Remind Me:Playing with Alarms and SMS
11. Everything Else: Advanced Techniques and other stuff