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Learning Android Intents
Learning Android Intents
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2014
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 8, 2014
Learning Android Intents is a great beginner’s guide about Android Intents. In 9 chapters every aspect of Android Intents is covered – from the Android versions history, IDE’s to more advanced features:
Chapter 1: Understanding Android
Chapter 2: Introduction to Android Intents
Chapter 3: Intent and Its Categorization
Chapter 4: Intents for Mobile Components
Chapter 5: Data Transfer Using Intents
Chapter 6: Accessing Android Features Using Intents
Chapter 7: Intent Filters
Chapter 8: Broadcasting Intents
Chapter 9: Intent Service and Pending Intents
What I liked about this book
Clear explanation of technical details by experts in the field.
Good use of screenshots. In fact, some of the code snippets and shorter code examples are “screenshotted”. This makes the book more compact and easier to read with an e-book reader.
As often I tried to find something negative. I wish that there was nothing to report, but unfortunately I found many occurrences of “//TODO Auto-generated method stub” comments in the code examples. So many that I have to mention it. In my opinion it should have been easy to delete those. For instance, with Ctrl-D/Cmd-D or similar. I noticed also that not much attention is given to unit testing and profiling/performance tuning. Probably not very relevant for Android Intents. Or there was simply not enough room for that. Otherwise a great book for Android enthusiasts and I think making screenshots of short code examples should become the norm in programming books.
Chapter 1: Understanding Android
Chapter 2: Introduction to Android Intents
Chapter 3: Intent and Its Categorization
Chapter 4: Intents for Mobile Components
Chapter 5: Data Transfer Using Intents
Chapter 6: Accessing Android Features Using Intents
Chapter 7: Intent Filters
Chapter 8: Broadcasting Intents
Chapter 9: Intent Service and Pending Intents
What I liked about this book
Clear explanation of technical details by experts in the field.
Good use of screenshots. In fact, some of the code snippets and shorter code examples are “screenshotted”. This makes the book more compact and easier to read with an e-book reader.
As often I tried to find something negative. I wish that there was nothing to report, but unfortunately I found many occurrences of “//TODO Auto-generated method stub” comments in the code examples. So many that I have to mention it. In my opinion it should have been easy to delete those. For instance, with Ctrl-D/Cmd-D or similar. I noticed also that not much attention is given to unit testing and profiling/performance tuning. Probably not very relevant for Android Intents. Or there was simply not enough room for that. Otherwise a great book for Android enthusiasts and I think making screenshots of short code examples should become the norm in programming books.
March 13, 2014
Sometimes I need a quick reference or in this case I needed to start from the ground up. Intent as a framework seems pretty straight forward and as another reviewer had written 'you can do a lot with a few lines of code' and I couldn't agree more! Getting setup was pretty simple and jumping right into Chapter 2 everything becomes clearer, and you learn each Role of Intent and what it's used for, but it doesn't stop there. Each of the following chapters jumps you into each of the categories, using Implicit or Explicit for activities or content, and I enjoyed the coverage of WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular components, each of these are covered fairly well and there are a few I left out of this review but they are equally important. Each chapter seemed to progress nicely, I want to mention the final chapter, it was awesome! Detecting service events and pending intents was huge but to get the best case scenario in order to give the user a more elegant notice on what may have gone wrong rather then just crashing is worth it's weight in gold. You'll need to tweak them in order to get the desired result but it's just like working with windows events in my opinion so it was pretty easy to understand. https://www.packtpub.com/learning-and...
March 20, 2014
The book gives a very detailed and exhaustive description of entry-level, intermediate and advanced techniques that could be used with Android intents. Every chapter guides the reader through deeper and deeper knowledge of the intent's functionality, starting from simple connection between activities, up to intent services and Android device related functionalities (like GPS, Wi-Fi and so on). A discussion about the usage of intents in social networking is included and very important, IMHO...
I could say that this book is for everyone that has a very basic knowledge of Android development.
In summary, I find the book great for every Android developer that needs to be in touch with intents... that are the major part of Android developers!
Just a note about the downloadable source code. It is available as text files that the reader has to use and fill the Android project. A not usual approach, that in my opinion is not the best one...
Link for the book is here
I could say that this book is for everyone that has a very basic knowledge of Android development.
In summary, I find the book great for every Android developer that needs to be in touch with intents... that are the major part of Android developers!
Just a note about the downloadable source code. It is available as text files that the reader has to use and fill the Android project. A not usual approach, that in my opinion is not the best one...
Link for the book is here
April 6, 2014
This book offers all categories of developers an excellent guide for studying Android Intents.
The authors introduce the basic key concepts of Intents and expand throughout the book to the more advanced and difficult topics with examples and code that everyone can easily follow. Android Intents is very powerful and by the end of the book you can get the most from it. I definitely recommend this book for everyone that wants to develop applications for Android platforms.
Each chapter clearly announces its scope and gives a clear overview of its content. Examples are well chosen and come with just the right amount of source code. Besides, each of the presented piece of code is judiciously commented in the text. As might be expected, a clear and concise wrap-up concludes each chapter.
I recommend this book to any Android developer who wants to make the best out of Android's service-oriented architecture.
The authors introduce the basic key concepts of Intents and expand throughout the book to the more advanced and difficult topics with examples and code that everyone can easily follow. Android Intents is very powerful and by the end of the book you can get the most from it. I definitely recommend this book for everyone that wants to develop applications for Android platforms.
Each chapter clearly announces its scope and gives a clear overview of its content. Examples are well chosen and come with just the right amount of source code. Besides, each of the presented piece of code is judiciously commented in the text. As might be expected, a clear and concise wrap-up concludes each chapter.
I recommend this book to any Android developer who wants to make the best out of Android's service-oriented architecture.
February 1, 2014
The two authors make Intents really easy to use and the amount of things you can do with intents is remarkable.
Very simple things like pass data to another section of your own app, make a phone call, capture a picture or image, use any of the Android sensors like accelerometer or gyroscope and engage with network tasks like Bluetooth and WiFi and NFC. And allot more.
The list of things you can do with just a few lines of code is quite vast. But if it' can be done with Intents. it's probably in the book.
They expose the basic functionality of just about any Android system feature at the same time as hiding any hint of complexity behind the Intent API. So whatever your next hot app is going to be you can almost certainly make it better with a bit of added functionality from an Intent. And I definitely recommend this book to show you how.
Very simple things like pass data to another section of your own app, make a phone call, capture a picture or image, use any of the Android sensors like accelerometer or gyroscope and engage with network tasks like Bluetooth and WiFi and NFC. And allot more.
The list of things you can do with just a few lines of code is quite vast. But if it' can be done with Intents. it's probably in the book.
They expose the basic functionality of just about any Android system feature at the same time as hiding any hint of complexity behind the Intent API. So whatever your next hot app is going to be you can almost certainly make it better with a bit of added functionality from an Intent. And I definitely recommend this book to show you how.
March 24, 2014
I have just finished reading this book and I cannot wait to recommend it to fellows Android developers.
The book is easy to read yet covers its topic very extensively. It provides a very broad but detailed enough overview of what Android intents are for. Each chapter has a clearly defined scope and is illustrated with well chosen examples, of which enough source code is shown and commented to be easily understood.
Hints, tips and best practices are also given by the authors and highlighted as such.
All in all, most if not all possible used are covered, from mere activity switching to sensor acquisition and data exchange.
This book should appeal to many Android developers, regardless of their level of proficiency with the platform.
Well done! and therefore, highly recommended.
The book is easy to read yet covers its topic very extensively. It provides a very broad but detailed enough overview of what Android intents are for. Each chapter has a clearly defined scope and is illustrated with well chosen examples, of which enough source code is shown and commented to be easily understood.
Hints, tips and best practices are also given by the authors and highlighted as such.
All in all, most if not all possible used are covered, from mere activity switching to sensor acquisition and data exchange.
This book should appeal to many Android developers, regardless of their level of proficiency with the platform.
Well done! and therefore, highly recommended.
March 24, 2014
I have just finished reading this book and I cannot wait to recommend it to fellows Android developers.
The book is easy to read yet covers its topic very extensively. It provides a very broad but detailed enough overview of what Android intents are for. Each chapter has a clearly defined scope and is illustrated with well chosen examples, of which enough source code is shown and commented to be easily understood.
Hints, tips and best practices are also given by the authors and highlighted as such.
All in all, most if not all possible used are covered, from mere activity switching to sensor acquisition and data exchange.
This book should appeal to many Android developers, regardless of their level of proficiency with the platform.
Well done! and therefore, highly recommended.
The book is easy to read yet covers its topic very extensively. It provides a very broad but detailed enough overview of what Android intents are for. Each chapter has a clearly defined scope and is illustrated with well chosen examples, of which enough source code is shown and commented to be easily understood.
Hints, tips and best practices are also given by the authors and highlighted as such.
All in all, most if not all possible used are covered, from mere activity switching to sensor acquisition and data exchange.
This book should appeal to many Android developers, regardless of their level of proficiency with the platform.
Well done! and therefore, highly recommended.
March 22, 2014
This book offers students and researchers an excellent guide for studying Android Intents.
Well written, it also describes the very basic concepts of Android in such away that the book is also a good starting point for beginners to Android.
The authors introduce the basic key concepts of Intents and expand throughout the book to the more advanced and difficult topics with examples and code that everyone can easily follow.
Android Intents is very powerful and by the end of the book you can get the most from it. I definitely recommend this book for everyone that wants to develop applications for Android platforms.
Well written, it also describes the very basic concepts of Android in such away that the book is also a good starting point for beginners to Android.
The authors introduce the basic key concepts of Intents and expand throughout the book to the more advanced and difficult topics with examples and code that everyone can easily follow.
Android Intents is very powerful and by the end of the book you can get the most from it. I definitely recommend this book for everyone that wants to develop applications for Android platforms.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews