Learning Android Frameworks and APIs – Fall 2014

Successfully Ran

Date & Time: Saturday, November 8; 9AM – 5PM
Location: Constant Contact, Reservoir Place, 1601 Trapelo Road, Third Floor, Waltham, MA 02451
Speaker: C. L. Kim, Millennial Media
Sponsored by

By Oct 29:

Members: $225
Non-Members: $245

After: Oct 29:

Members: $245
Non-Members: $265
Decision: Friday, Oct 31

Course Summary

Android is the world’s most popular mobile OS, widely used in smartphones and tablets, and now in device categories such as wearables and TVs. So, it behooves technical professionals to keep up with this technology by learning how native mobile apps are developed using the Android framework. This introductory course would cover the basics of the Android platform and framework APIs with the help of a demo native app that writes, gets (and then speaks) data to/from a web services server.

Who Should Attend

This course is aimed at technical professionals in the software, mobile, media, communications, or other high-tech industries, who would like an introduction to developing apps using the Android application platform and framework APIs.

Prerequisites

The Android SDK uses Java, so in order to follow the course material we require good familiarity with that language, or at least good working knowledge of other object-oriented languages such as C++ or C#. Familiarity with XML and the concept of using a markup language for page layout would also be helpful. We would be using the Eclipse ADT (Android Developer Tool) IDE to show code of the demo native app.

Reference material

Primary reference would be “Learning Android, 2nd Edition” published by O’Reilly Media, and the Android Developer http://developer.android.com/develop/index.html website, such as the API Guides section.

Course Objectives

To gain some basic understanding of the major App Components (not to be confused with UI widget components) of the Android application framework.
To gain understanding of how the App Components can be connected together using Intents and Intent Filters.
To learn some of the practical aspects of developing a native Android app.
To use a working demo native app to help students understand better and relate to the materials covered.

Course Instructor

C. L. Kim is in Software Engineering at Millennial Media, the leading independent mobile ad platform company. He has an MBA and MSE in Computer & Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and is developer of a fun Android app.

OUTLINE

Concepts/Topics (to be finalized)
Android SDK
Android Architecture
4 App Components
Activity Life Cycle
Intent, Intent Resolution
Application Context
Page Layout
Activity component
Logging
Fragments
AndroidManifest file
Text To Speech
Threads
Service component
Broadcast Receiver component
Lists and Adapters