Instant Android Systems Development How-to

Get your hands dirty with Android Systems Development through carefully thought-out source code examples with this book and ebook

Overview

• Learn something new in an Instant! A short, fast, focused guide delivering immediate results
• A gentle introduction to Android Platform Internals and how to make changes to the system
• Gain the skills necessary for building high quality systems code for the Android Platform
• Code examples are provided in a manner that facilitates the “Learning-by-doing” paradigm

In Detail

Android is by far the most popular open source mobile operating system. Learning to write high quality code at the platform level and learning how the systems works internally is a vital skill. This book teaches you these skills with clear and concise explanations and code examples.

Instant Android Systems Development How-to provides a gentle introduction to the platform internals without sacrificing depth. Source code examples are designed to be meaningful, but at the same time, do not disguise their real purpose, which is to illustrate systems development techniques and common design patterns in android systems programming. Readers will be guided through several examples that give a hands-on experience.

Readers begin by downloading the android source code, which is a topic of much discussion on android forums. They are then guided through the android boot process, and later on learn various common android systems development paradigms. More importantly, the book provides advice on when to use certain techniques which is often a mystery for the novice developer. Readers who complete the book will have high confidence in developing good systems code for Android.

The book discusses how to setup a development machine and how to obtain the android source code and kernel code. It describes the source code organization and how the system boots up with precise references to various points in the source code. It highlights the common systems design patterns followed and how to create a custom system service. It then covers the all important flashing of phones. This is a topic of much confusion and the book provides direct steps to achieve safe flashing of developer phones. It describes the user application library mechanism and the platform library mechanism. Native code is needed for certain operations and an example service utilizing native code is explained. Modification of core system applications is explained and useful tips are provided on how to speed up the build-test cycle. The book concludes with a case study of two real world android platform extensions which give the user a reference while developing their own extensions.

Instant Android Systems Development How-to is a well rounded book on platform internals that provides simple explanations without sacrificing depth and rigor.

What you will learn from this book

• Learn to correctly obtain the Android Platform sources and android kernel sources
• Gain knowledge about the Android boot process and new concepts introduced by Android into the Linux world
• Build custom system services and secure these using the correct security mechanisms
• Flash built OS images to several Google Developer phones and learn the concepts behind various flashing procedures
• Expose custom system services to SDK applications through user application linked libraries
• Understand the platform library mechanism and how this helps build platform extensions without changing the core system
• Modify the core Android system services and get knowledge about the rules to be kept in mind while doing so
• Gain tips and Tricks to shorten the build-test cycle