The beginner's first stumbling block

Unfortunately, for those that do share my enthusiasm, there is a kind of glass wall on the path of progress that frustrates many aspiring Android developers.

Android uses Java to make apps. Every Android book, even those aimed at so-called beginners, assumes readers to have at least an intermediate level of Java, and most need an advanced level. So, good-to-excellent Java knowledge was a prerequisite for learning Android.

Unfortunately, learning Java in a completely different context to Android can sometimes be a little dull, and much of what you learn is not directly transferable into the world of Android anyway. You can see why beginners to Android and Java are often put off from starting.

But it doesn't need to be like this. In this book, I have carefully placed all the Java topics you would learn in a thick and weighty Java-only beginner's tomb and reworked them into four multi-chapter apps and more than a dozen quick mini-apps, starting from a simple memo app and progressing to a cool drawing app, a database app, and a playable game.

If you want to become a professional Android developer or just want to have more fun when learning Java and Android, this book will help.