Screaming Penguin

Android is a popular open source mobile platform. Android in Practice is a teaching and reference book intended to go beyond the basics and demonstrate real world usage patterns for developing, testing, and maintaining Android applications. Android in Practice at Manning

Just a quick update here to shamelessly plug a new book I am working on: Android in Practice. This is intended to be a more in depth Android book with many practical real-world examples and tips (from guys like me, Michael Galpin of eBay, and Matthias Kaeppler of Qype, my co-authors). We are still working on a lot of stuff, so it's a moving target, but the book is coming along nicely so far (we have 6-7 chapters in various stages of development). It's available in MEAP form (early access) right now: http://www.manning.com/collins/

Cooper (kebernet), is doing the 2D/3D chapter for Android in Practice for us (because I know nil about that stuff). The other day he sent me this, just in a hey "check this out" sort of way: Cooper is awesome, that is all.

A quick post on the status of Unlocking Android. I am heads down working on updates to make a few key changes and additions to the book, and working on an overall update to add some 1.5 (cupcake) stuff. There isn't a ton that has changed (we updated the book before the first printing to make it up to date with 1.1, so we just need a few things to cover the 1.1 to 1.5 gap), but there are a few differences that we plan to cover to make the book more up to date and comprehensive. Anyone who already has the book will get a free PDF update. As for how the current printing is going, well, pretty damn well if I do say so myself ;). The book hit about #1200 on Amazon at one point. We have gotten really good reviews all over the place, including on Amazon and at Slashdot (and even with overall good reviews, we have already addressed some concerns too, like getting all the code samples in one shot). Today I also noticed that it's number 2 on the Manning best sellers list!:

http://books.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/139256/Unlocking-Android?from=rss

Both on my dev G1 with 1.5, and with the new SDK, the sample apps seem to all work fine (as long as you set a target, as expected). http://code.google.com/p/unlocking-android/

It took much longer than I anticipated, and a lot more effort than planned (but that's usually the case, especially with a moving target ;)), but Unlocking Android is now officially a book, in print - I got a box at the house yesterday. It should be available in stores any day now, and Amazon says it will start shipping as of April 28.

From Manning:

Unlocking Android Update ...plus save half on a few related books

Unlocking Android is in the final stage of production and will be going to press in a day or two. Your final ebook will be available at the same time, and print copies will ship just a few weeks after that. We hope you found Early Access to this book helpful as you learn and use Android.