Computing continues to become more and more personalized and accessible. Handheld devices have largely transformed into computing platforms. Mobile phones are no longer just for talking—they have been capable of carrying data and video for some time. Be it a phone or a tablet, the mobile device is now so capable of general-purpose computing that it’s becoming more like a PC. A number of traditional PC manufacturers such as ASUS, HP, and Dell are producing devices of various form factors based on the Android OS. The battles between operating systems, computing platforms, programming languages, and development frameworks are being shifted and reapplied to mobile devices.

We are also seeing a surge in mobile programming as more and more IT applications start to offer mobile counterparts. In this book, we’ll show you how to take advantage of your Java skills to write programs for devices that run on Google’s Android platform (http://developer.android.com/index.html), an open-source platform for mobile and tablet development.