Beginning Android Web Apps Development: Develop for Android using HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript

With Beginning Android Web Apps Development, you'll learn how to apply HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Ajax and other Web standards for use on the Android mobile platform, by building a variety of fun and visually stimulating games and other web applications! If you've done some basic web development, and you want to build your skills to create exceptional web apps, you'll find everything you seek in the discussions and examples in this book.

Each application you'll build in Beginning Android Web Application Development will show you solutions that you can apply to many of your own projects. Each example shares techniques and coding solutions that will inspire your own work.

You'll learn how to tie your Android apps into Twitter through two apps that you'll build: Who's that Tweet?!, a quiz game based on celebrity accounts, and I Love Ham, a coding investigation into search phrases and rhyming.

Your Android web app development skills will then proceed in another direction, as you discover the power of HTML5 in two game apps: Scavenger Hunt, which introduces you to the HTML5 GPS location API, and Spies!, a location-based application that shows you how to use CSS3, Ajax, and HTML5 within multi-player environments.

You'll also create an Android web application which checks the arrival time of buses and light-rails through the use of Portland, Oregon's open Tri-Met data API! This app is a great template for other apps you may want to build in the future, and showcases the important techniques for incorporating cloud-based apps into web games.

After reading Beginning Android Web Apps Development, you will have built real apps and developed along the way the skills you'll need to create highly interactive, professional web applications... and, your journey will be engaging and enjoyable!

What you’ll learn

• Coding solutions that you can use time and again in your own Android web apps
• Key methods and techniques for contemporary Android web app development
• How to take full advantage of CSS3 in the mobile environment and how to handle a multitude of screen resolutions
• How to build feature-rich user interfaces with navigation, colors, and professional styling
• How to add audio and video for highly interactive sites
• How to optimize Ajax within your site
• How to access and use the HTML location API
• How to integrate JavaScript and JavaScript frameworks into your site

About the Authors

Jon Westfall is associate director for research and technology with the Center for Decision Sciences at Columbia Business School. As a researcher and technologist working in New York City, his work focuses on how individuals make economic and public policy decisions, as well as consumer behavior. In addition to his research, he also maintains an active career in information technology, where he has worked as a consultant since 1997, founding his own firm, Bug Jr. Systems. As a consultant, he has developed custom software solutions (including native Windows 32 applications, Windows .NET applications, ASP, ASP.NET, and PHP web applications), and served as a senior network and systems architect and administrator (on both Windows and Unix networks, and hybrids). He also writes for the Thoughts Media Network, serving as executive editor of Android Thoughts, and news editor of Windows Phone Thoughts. He has been recognized as a Microsoft "Most Valuable Professional" in Windows Mobile/Windows Phone since 2008, and holds a Ph.D. in cognitive experimental psychology.

Grant Allen has worked in the IT field for over 20 years, as a CTO, enterprise architect, and database administrator. Grant's roles have covered private enterprise, academia and the government sector around the world, specialising in global-scale systems design, development, and performance. He is a frequent speaker at industry and academic conferences, on topics ranging from data mining to compliance, and technologies such as databases (DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL), content management, collaboration, disruptive innovation, and mobile ecosystems like Android. His first Android application was a task list to remind him to finish all his other unfinished Android projects. Grant works for Google, and in his spare time is completing a Ph.D on building innovative high-technology environments. Grant is the author of Beginning DB2, and lead author of Oracle SQL Recipes and The Definitive Guide to SQLite.

Rocco Augusto is a Web Developer based out of the City of Roses – Portland, Oregon. Rocco first started dabbling in the art of Web Design and Development in middle school when the code bug bit him and refused to let go.