/dev/reading
Category

Android

7 books
Order by
View
The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
by Bryan Sills, Brian Gardner, Kristin Marsicano and Chris Stewart

Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide is an introductory Android book for programmers with Kotlin experience.

Based on Big Nerd Ranch's popular Android Bootcamp, this guide will lead you through the wilderness using hands-on example apps combined with clear explanations of key concepts and APIs. This book focuses on practical techniques for developing apps in Kotlin compatible with Android 5.0 (Lollipop) through Android 8.1 (Oreo) and beyond.

Write and run code every step of the way, using Android Studio to create apps that integrate with other apps, download and display pictures from the web, play sounds, and more. Each chapter and app has been designed and tested to provide the knowledge and experience you need to get started in Android development.

An In-Depth Guide to Android's Security Architecture
by Nikolay Elenkov

There are more than one billion Android devices in use today, each one a potential target. Unfortunately, many fundamental Android security features have been little more than a black box to all but the most elite security professionals—until now.

In Android Security Internals, top Android security expert Nikolay Elenkov takes us under the hood of the Android security sys­tem. Elenkov describes Android security archi­tecture from the bottom up, delving into the imple­mentation of major security-related components and subsystems, like Binder IPC, permissions, cryptographic providers, and device administration.

You’ll learn:

  • How Android permissions are declared, used, and enforced
  • How Android manages application packages and employs code signing to verify their authenticity
  • How Android implements the Java Cryp­­­tog­raphy Architecture (JCA) and Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE) frameworks
  • About Android’s credential storage system and APIs, which let applications store cryptographic keys securely
  • About the online account management framework and how Google accounts integrate with Android
  • About the implementation of verified boot, disk encryption, lockscreen, and other device security features
  • How Android’s bootloader and recovery OS are used to perform full system updates, and how to obtain root access

With its unprecedented level of depth and detail, Android Security Internals is a must-have for any security-minded Android developer.

The Team That Built the Android Operating System
by Chet Haase

In 2004, Android was two people who wanted to build camera software but couldn't get investors interested. Today, Android is a large team at Google, delivering an operating system (including camera software) to over 3 billion devices worldwide. This is the inside story, told by the people who made it happen.

Androids: The Team that Built the Android Operating System is a first-hand chronological account of how the startup began, how the team came together, and how they all built an operating system from the kernel level to its applications and everything in between. It describes the tenuous beginnings of this ambitious project as a tiny startup, then as a small acquisition by Google that took on an industry with strong, entrenched competition. Author Chet Haase joined the Android team at Google in May 2010 and later recorded conversations with team members to preserve the early days of Android's history leading to the launch of 1.0. This engaging and accessible book captures the developers' stories in their own voices to answer the question: How did Android succeed?

A Visual Introduction to Building Apps
by Lyra Blizzard Logan

Build a mobile phone app!

You've swiped and tapped your way through countless apps, but have you ever created one? Now you can, thanks to Learn to Program with App Inventor. In less than an hour, you'll be able to build and run your first app!

App Inventor is a free software for making Android apps. All you need is a PC with an Internet connection to build your app, and a mobile phone for testing. You'll use a simple drag-and-drop interface, which minimizes errors and avoids too much typing.

A certified App Inventor Master Trainer, Logan breaks down each project into logical steps, lists the components you'll need, and then shows you how to create screen designs, control program flow with conditionals and loops, and store data in variables and lists. Once you've tested the app on your phone, you can test what you learned with challenges at the end of each chapter.

You'll build cool apps like:

  • Hi, World!: Use your voice to send a text message
  • Practice Makes Perfect: Rehearse a speech or dance routine with this video recording app
  • Fruit Loot: Catch randomly failing fruit in this exciting game
  • Beat the Bus: Track a friend’s journey using location services and maps
  • Virtual Shades: Take a selfie, then try on some virtual sunglasses

Join the 10 million people who have tried App Inventor, and make the journey from app user to app inventor.

Developing iOS and Android apps with JavaScript
by Nader Dabit

React Native in Action gives iOS, Android, and web developers the knowledge and confidence they need to begin building high-quality iOS and Android apps using the React Native framework.

by Timo Tuominen

RxJava for Android Developers teaches you how to build fast, fluid, and reactive mobile apps for Android with RxJava.

Detection and Analysis by Human and Machine
by Qian Han, Salvador Mandujano, Sebastian Porst, V.S. Subrahmanian, Sai Deep Tetali and Yanhai Xiong

This groundbreaking guide to Android malware distills years of research by machine learning experts in academia and members of Meta and Google’s Android Security teams into a comprehensive introduction to detecting common threats facing the Android eco-system today.

Explore the history of Android malware in the wild since the operating system first launched and then practice static and dynamic approaches to analyzing real malware specimens. Next, examine machine learning techniques that can be used to detect malicious apps, the types of classification models that defenders can implement to achieve these detections, and the various malware features that can be used as input to these models. Adapt these machine learning strategies to the identification of malware categories like banking trojans, ransomware, and SMS fraud.

You’ll:

  • Dive deep into the source code of real malware
  • Explore the static, dynamic, and complex features you can extract from malware for analysis
  • Master the machine learning algorithms useful for malware detection
  • Survey the efficacy of machine learning techniques at detecting common Android malware categories

The Android Malware Handbook’s team of expert authors will guide you through the Android threat landscape and prepare you for the next wave of malware to come.