Over the last two years, Google’s Android operating system (OS) has gone from a virtually
unknown open source solution to the current mobile OS market leader among all mobile
handsets, with over one-third of the market share, and it’s still climbing rapidly. Android has even
started to dominate the tablet OS marketplace, and is also the foundation for the popular iTV OS
known as GoogleTV. There seems to be no end in sight for Android’s rocketing success, which is
great news for owners of this book.
I’ve heard a great many people say, “I have a really phenomenal idea for a smartphone
application! Can you program it for me!?” Rather than sit back and code all of these applications
for everyone, I thought it might be a smarter idea to write a book about how an absolute beginner
could code an Android application using open source tools that cost nothing to download and
that are free for commercial use, and then leverage that new found knowledge to reach their
dream of making their application idea a revenue-generating reality.
Thanks to open source and Google’s Android development environment, Oracle’s Java
programming Language, Linus Torvald’s Linux operating system, the Eclipse code editing
software, and this book, vaporizing a software product out of thin air, and at no production cost
other than your PC and “sweat equity,” is now a complete reality.