This one-of-a-kind short book walks you through creating fantastic entertainment apps for one of the newest Android platforms. Android TV Apps Development: Building Media and Games will demystify some of the newest APIs and present the tools necessary for building applications that run on Android TV. Walking through example applications, you will learn the vocabulary necessary to solve real-world problems and how to present your content on the television through Android. In addition to practical code examples, you will learn about various design considerations that will make using your apps an enjoyable experience for users. What you'll learn: How to design for Android TV How to create a media app for Android TV What are the game design/development considerations for Android TV How to distribute Android TV apps Audience:Developers with some experience with Android development who are interested in building applications for the Android TV platform.

Learn WatchKit for iOS covers the development of applications for the new Apple Watch using the WatchKit framework in iOS 8 and the Swift programming language. In this book, an Apple Watch application is an extension to an existing iOS app and is packaged and submitted to the App Store along with it. Using a suite of simple examples, Kim Topley, co-author of Beginning iPhone Development with Swift, introduces and explains every feature of WatchKit and the associated technologies that you'll need to understand to build Apple Watch applications for iOS 8, culminating in a complete WatchKit application that shows weather forecast information for various cities around the world on the Apple Watch.

Learn Android Studio covers Android Studio and its rich tools ecosystem, including Git and Gradle: this book covers how Android Studio works seamlessly with Git, for source control, and Gradle, a build and test tool. In addition, this book demonstrates how to develop/collaborate with remote Git web-hosting services such as GitHub and Bitbucket. Four complete Android projects accompany this volume and are available for download from a public Git repository. With this book, you learn the latest and most productive tools in the Android tools ecosystem, and the best practices for Android app development. You will be able to take away the labs' code as templates or frameworks to re-use and customize for your own similar apps. Android Studio is an intuitive, feature-rich, and extremely forgiving Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This IDE is more productive and easier to use for your Android app creations than Eclipse. With this book you will quickly master Android Studio and maximize your Android development time. Source code on the remote web-hosting service is targeted to the latest Android Studio release, version 1.2.

Leverage Xamarin.Forms to build iOS and Android apps using a single, cross-platform approach. This book is the XAML companion to the C# guide Xamarin Mobile Application Development. You'll begin with an overview of Xamarin.Forms, then move on to an in-depth XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language) primer covering syntax, namespaces, markup extensions, constructors, and the XAML standard. XAML gives us both the power of decoupled UI development and the direct use of Xamarin.Forms elements. This book explores the core of the Xamarin.Forms mobile app UI: using layouts and FlexLayouts to position controls and views to design and build screens, formatting your UI using resource dictionaries, styles, themes and CSS, then coding user interactions with behaviors, commands, and triggers. You'll see how to use XAML to build sophisticated, robust cross-platform mobile apps and help your user get around your app using Xamarin.Forms navigation patterns. Building Xamarin.Forms Mobile Apps Using XAML explains how to bind UI to data models using data binding and using the MVVM pattern, and how to customize UI elements for each platform using industry-standard menus, effects, custom renderers, and native view declaration. What You Will Learn Create world-class mobile apps for iOS and Android using C# and XAML Build a XAML UI decoupled from the C# code behind Design UI layouts such as FrameLayout, controls, lists, and navigation patterns Style your app using resource dictionaries, styles, themes, and CSS Customize controls to have platform-specific features using effects, custom renderers, and native views Who This Book Is For XAML and C# developers, architects, and technical managers as well as many Android and iOS developers

Beginning Android Wearables gives you the skills you need to make effective apps for Android Wear-based smartwatches, fitness bracelets, connected home wearable controllers, and Google Glass. Delight your users by giving them access to the information they'll need at the tips of their fingers. This book is very practical and contains many examples that not only show you how to write code for Glass and Android Wear, but also demonstrate how to apply this code in the context of an app.

Migrating to Swift From Web Development gives you the ability to create native iOS apps using the latest Swift programming language. Starting with preparing your latest Xcode 6 Integrated Development Environment and introducing just enough iOS application framework fundamentals, you'll understand how to create a simple but meaningful Hello Swift application for iOS 8 immediately. After the short IDE setup guide, this book will show you how to structure your iOS project from an existing mobile web app. Every topic comes with a tutorial project that you will create by yourself. You'll plan and structure your iOS apps using Xcode Storyboard, implementing use cases with detailed screens, and learn about managing data and working with remote services. Finally, you'll experience a recap of the whole porting process by translating a mobile web app to iOS 8 from start to end. When you finish reading Migrating to Swift from Web Development, you'll be an iOS developer as well as a front-end web developer.

Combining actionable, real-world source code with graphics, Pro Android Games, Third Edition shows you how to build more sophisticated and addictive Android game apps with minimum effort. Harness the power of the latest Android 5.0 SDK to bring countless legendary, action-packed PC games to the Android platform. With actionable real-world source code, this one of a kind book shows you how to build more sophisticated and addictive Android game apps, by leveraging the power of the recent advancements found in the new Android 5.0 software development kit as well as those you've counted on in earlier releases. Multi-touch code gives these games and their players dynamic input and exchange ability, for a more realistic arcade game experience. Faster and better performance offers Android game players a more seamless, fun arcade experience like never before. There is also improved native C/C++ integration with Android's NDK as well, which makes coding, compiling, and converting both productive and efficient with gains in app performance. Pro Android Games, Third Edition features the following improvements: Updates to the latest version of the Android SDK, NDK, plus the latest Android Studio and Eclipse IDEs Greater focus on tablets, ever changing device resolutions, and hardware specs Native game development and hardware accelerated graphics Bigger and better real world engines, such as Quake I and II plus an oldie from the previous edition: Doom Coverage of the new Android TV SDK APIs, UI, UX, multi-touch and multi-tasking features available with the Android 5.0 release Advanced techniques for improving your game playing experience including better multi-tasking, improved performance optimization, battery management and more A "Quake 3D"-like game app case study You'll definitely have fun, and perhaps you'll even make some money. Enjoy! In the last few years, Android has progressed with the debut of better fonts, new User Interface and Experience (UI/UX) APIs, tablet considerations, multi-touch capabilities, multi-tasking, faster performance, improved battery management techniques, and now the new Android TV SDK Apps for the Android game app developer repertoire.

Xamarin Mobile Application Development is a hands-on Xamarin.Forms primer and a cross-platform reference for building native Android, iOS, and Windows Phone apps using C# and .NET. This book explains how to use Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin.Android, and Xamarin.iOS to build business apps for your customers and consumer apps for Google Play and the iTunes App Store. Learn how to leverage Xamarin.Forms for cross-platform development using the most common UI pages, layouts, views, controls, and design patterns. Combine these with platform-specific UI to craft a visually stunning and highly interactive mobile user experience. Use Xamarin.Forms to data bind your UI to both data models and to view models for a Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) implementation. Use this book to answer the important question: Is Xamarin.Forms right for my project? Platform-specific UI is a key concept in cross-platform development, and Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS are the foundation of the Xamarin platform. Xamarin Mobile Application Development will cover how to build an Android app using Xamarin.Android and an iOS app using Xamarin.iOS while sharing a core code library. SQLite is the database-of-choice for many Xamarin developers. This book will explain local data access techniques using SQLite.NET and ADO.NET. Build a mobile data access layer (DAL) using SQLite and weigh your options for web services and enterprise cloud data solutions. This book will show how organize your Xamarin code into a professional-grade application architecture. Explore solution-building techniques from starter-to-enterprise to help you decouple your functional layers, manage your platform-specific code, and share your cross-platform classes for code reuse, testability, and maintainability. Also included are 250+ screenshots on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone and 200+ C# code examples with downloadable C# and XAML versions available from Apress.com. This comprehensive recipe and reference book addresses one of the most important and vexing problems in the software industry today: How do we effectively design and develop cross-platform mobile applications?

Creating apps for Google Glass is more involved than simply learning how to navigate its hardware, APIs, and SDK. You also need the right mindset. While this practical book delivers the information and techniques you need to build and deploy Glass applications, it also helps you to think for Glass by showing you how the platform works in, and affects, its environment. In three parts - Discover, Design, and Develop - Glass pioneers guide you through the Glass ecosystem and demonstrate what this wearable computer means for users, developers, and society as a whole. You'll learn how to create rich functionality for a consumer technology that's radically different than anything currently available. Learn the Five Noble Truths of great Glassware design Understand the Glass ecosystem and learn why it's different Sidestep Glass's societal concerns in your projects Learn how Glass adapts to the user's world, rather than the other way around Avoid poor design by identifying Glassware antipatterns Build cloud services with the Google Mirror API Use the Glass Development Kit to develop client applications Submit your project for review in the MyGlass directory

The Android Quick APIs Reference is a condensed code and APIs reference for the new Google Android 5.0 SDK. It presents the essential Android APIs in a well-organized format that can be used as a handy reference. You won't find any technical jargon, bloated samples, drawn out history lessons, or witty stories in this book. What you will find is a software development kit and APIs reference that is concise, to the point and highly accessible. The book is packed with useful information and is a must-have for any mobile or Android app developer or programmer. In the Android Quick APIs Reference, you will find a concise reference to the Android SDK and its APIs using the official Android Studio IDE. This reference is small and handy and ideal for taking with you to your appointments with your clients.

Learn how to use your Kindle Fire with ease and no jargon. Clear, concise, short and to the point... Using Kindle Fire HD, is the essential guide to getting around Amazon's tablet/e-book reader. This book explores setting up your new Kindle and registering; navigating around the interface and what all the buttons, lists and icons are for; configuring your WiFi; keeping your kids safe when they use the device with parental controls; setting up, sending and receiving emails using Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail; and browsing the web with the new version of Amazon Silk. This book also looks at the relationship of your device to cloud storage; buying and downloading games and apps from the Amazon App Store; buying and reading books; buying and listening to music; transferring your own tunes from your PC; sending documents to your Kindle Fire. Furthermore, this book shows you how to watch videos, use YouTube, and project movies onto your TV from Kindle. Lastly, you learn how to use the built-in camera; share photos with your friends on Facebook; and Skype. Techniques are illustrated step-by-step using photography and screen prints throughout, together with concise, easy to follow text from an established expert in the field, provide a quick guide to the Kindle Fire. Whether you have just bought your first Kindle or a keen user, this brief book will provide you with a firm grasp of the underpinning foundations and equip you with the skills needed to use a Kindle Fire.

Pro iOS Persistence explains how to build apps that persist and use data most effectively including the popular Core Data framework. Covering common and advanced persistence patterns, this book prepares any iOS developer to store and retrieve data accurately and efficiently. This book starts by giving you a solid grounding in Core Data, providing a foundation for the rest of the book. With this knowledge, you'll have all you need to master Core Data and power your data-driven applications. You'll see how to work with SQLite and how to create an efficient data model to represent your data. Once you've established your data model, you'll learn how to work with data objects and refine result sets to get the most out of the stored data. The advanced portions of the book begin by showing you how to tune your apps' performance and memory usage, to give you a truly professional edge. You'll see how to version and migrate your data as well, to ensure your data stays organized and efficient. Finally, the book covers managing table views with NSFetchedResultsController.What you'll learn How to persist data using the iOS SDK, Xcode, Core Data and more How to organize data appropriately How to persist data efficiently How to effectively use Apple tools How to build Core Data applications How to use Core Data in advanced settings How to version and migrate data as your applications evolve How to tune and optimize persistence Who this book is for This book is for iOS app developers who have some experience building iPhone or iPad apps. Recommended Reading before using this book: Beginning level iOS books

GUI Design for Android Apps is the perfect-and concise-introduction for mobile app developers and designers. Through easy-to-follow tutorials, code samples, and case studies, the book shows the must-know principles for user-interface design for Android apps running on the Intel platform, including smartphones, tablets and embedded devices.This book is jointly developed for individual learning by Intel Software College and China Shanghai JiaoTong University, and is excerpted from Android Application Development for the Intel (R) Platform.

Fueled by falling display hardware costs and rising demand, digital signage and pervasive displays are becoming ever more ubiquitous. Such systems have traditionally been used for advertising and information dissemination, with digital signage commonplace in shopping malls, airports and public spaces. While advertising and broadcasting announcements remain important applications, developments in sensing and interaction technologies are enabling entirely new classes of display applications that tailor content to the situation and audience of the display. As a result, signage systems are beginning to transition from simple broadcast systems to rich platforms for communication and interaction. In this lecture, we provide an introduction to this emerging field for researchers and practitioners interested in creating state-of-the-art pervasive display systems. We begin by describing the history of pervasive display research, providing illustrations of key systems, from pioneering work on supporting collaboration to contemporary systems designed for personalized information delivery. We then consider what the near future might hold for display networks -- describing a series of compelling applications that are being postulated for future display networks. Creating such systems raises a wide range of challenges and requires designers to make a series of important trade-offs. We dedicate four chapters to key aspects of pervasive display design: audience engagement, display interaction, system software, and system evaluation. These chapters provide an overview of current thinking in each area. Finally, we present a series of case studies of display systems and our concluding remarks.

Android Fragments is a 100-page quick start accelerated guide to learning and quickly using Android fragments. You'll learn how to code for fragments; deal with config changes; code for regular vs. fragmented dialogs; work with preferences and saving state; work with the compatibility library; and handle advanced async tasks and progress dialogs. After reading and using this book, which is based on material from the best-selling Pro Android, you'll be an Android UI savant. At the very least, your apps' user interfaces and event handling will be more competitive and better performing, especially for tablet-optimized UIs and events.

The team that brought you the bestselling Beginning iPhone Development is back again for Beginning iOS 7 Development, bringing this definitive guide up-to-date with Apple's latest and greatest iOS 7 SDK, as well as with the latest version of Xcode. There's coverage of brand new technologies, with chapters on storyboards and iCloud, for example, as well as significant updates to existing chapters to bring them in line with all the changes that came with the iOS 7 SDK. You'll have everything you need to create your very own apps for the latest iOS devices, including the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and the latest iPod touch. Every single sample app in the book has been rebuilt from scratch using latest Xcode and the latest 64-bit iOS 7-specific project templates and designed to take advantage of the latest Xcode features. Assuming only a minimal working knowledge of Objective-C, and written in a friendly, easy-to-follow style, Beginning iOS 7 Development offers a complete soup-to-nuts course in iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch programming.The book starts with the basics, walking through the process of downloading and installing Xcode and the iOS 7 SDK, and then guides you though the creation of your first simple application. From there, you'll learn how to integrate all the interface elements Apple touch users have come to know and love, such as buttons, switches, pickers, toolbars, and sliders. You'll master a variety of design patterns, from the simplest single view to complex hierarchical drill-downs. The confusing art of table building will be demystified, and you'll learn how to save your data using the iPhone file system. You'll also learn how to save and retrieve your data using a variety of persistence techniques, including Core Data and SQLite. And there's much more You'll learn to draw using Quartz 2D and OpenGL ES, add multitouch gestural support (pinches and swipes) to your applications, and work with the camera, photo library, accelerometer, and built-in GPS. You'll discover the fine points of application preferences and learn how to localize your apps for multiple languages.* The iOS 7 update to the bestselling and most recommended book for Cocoa touch developers * Packed full of tricks, techniques, and enthusiasm for the new SDK from a developer perspective * Written in an accessible, easy-to-follow style What you'll learn * Everything you need to know to develop your own bestselling iPhone and iPad apps * Filled with examples * Best practices for optimizing your code and delivering great user experiences * What is data persistence and why is it important * Get started with building cool, crisp User Interfaces * What and how to use Table Views * How to do graphics with Quartz and OpenGL ES * What geo app development features the new iOS brings to the iPhone * How to get your app to work with the Cloud and more Who this book is for This book is for aspiring iPhone app developers, new to the iOS SDK. Some prior experience with Objective-C is recommended but not required.

If you're an Android application developer, chances are you're using fixed, scrolling, swipe-able, and other cutting-edge custom UI Designs in your Android development projects. These UI Design approaches as well as other Android ViewGroup UI layout containers are the bread and butter of Pro Android User Interface (UI) design and Android User Experience (UX) design and development. Using a top down approach, Pro Android UI shows you how to design and develop the best user interface for your app, while taking into account the varying device form factors in the increasingly fragmented Android environment. Pro Android UI aims to be the ultimate reference and customization cookbook for your Android UI Design, and as such will be useful to experienced developers as well as beginners. With Android's powerful UI layout classes, you can easily create everything from the simplest of lists to fully tricked-out user interfaces. While using these UI classes for boring, standard user interfaces can be quite simple, customizing a unique UI design can often become extremely challenging.

Android continues to be one of the leading mobile OS and development platforms driving today's mobile innovations and the apps ecosystem. Android appears complex, but offers a variety of organized development kits to those coming into Android with differing programming language skill sets. Android Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, Third Edition offers more than 100 down-to-earth code recipes, and guides you step-by-step through a wide range of useful topics using complete and real-world working code examples. It's updated to include the KitKat Android 4.4 SDK as well as earlier releases. Instead of abstract descriptions of complex concepts, in Android Recipes, you'll find live code examples. When you start a new project you can consider copying and pasting the code and configuration files from this book and then modifying them for your own customization needs. Crammed with insightful instruction and helpful examples, this third edition of Android Recipes is your guide to writing apps for one of today's hottest mobile platforms. It offers pragmatic advice that will help you get the job done quickly and well. This can save you a great deal of work over creating a project from scratch!

Beginning Android 3D Game Development is a unique, examples-driven book for today's Android and game app developers who want to learn how to build 3D game apps that run on the latest Android 5.0 (KitKat) platform using Java and OpenGL ES. Android game app development continues to be one of the hottest areas where indies and existing game app developers seem to be most active. Android is the second best mobile apps eco and arguably even a hotter game apps eco than iOS. 3D makes your games come alive; so in this book you'll find that we go in depth on creating 3D games for the Android platform with OpenGL ES 2.0 using an original case study game called Drone Grid. Moreover, this book offers an extensive case study with code that will be modular and re-useable helping you create your own games using advanced vertex and fragment shaders. Drone Grid is a game app case study that is somewhat similar to the best selling Geometry Wars game series utilizing a gravity grid and colorful abstract graphics and particles. After reading and using this book, you'll be able to build your first 3D Android game app for smartphones and tablets. You may even be able to upload and sell from popular Android app stores like Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Android Best Practices by Godfrey Nolan shows you how to make your Android apps stand out from the crowd with great reviews. Why settle for just making any Android app? Build a brilliant Android app instead that lets your users praise it for ease of use, better performance, and more. Using a series of example apps which gradually evolve throughout this book, Android Best Practices brings together current Android best practices from user interface (UI)/user experience (UX) design, test-driven development (TDD), and design patterns (e.g., MVC) to help you take your app to the next level. In this book you'll learn how to: * Use Android design patterns for consistent UI experience on many devices * Use agile techniques such as test-driven development, behavior-driven development, and continuous integration * Improve the speed and overall performance of your app * Organize an Android app using design patterns such as MVC/MVP * Create and consume REST and SOAP web services Designing and developing an app that runs well on many if not all the leading Android smartphones and tablets today can be one of the most daunting challenges for Android developers. Well, this book takes much of the mystery out of that for you. After reading and using Android Best Practices, you'll become a much better Android app designer and developer, which in turn can make your apps better placed and more successful in the market place.

Beginning iOS Cloud and Database Development gets you started with building apps for or that use Apple's iCloud. You'll learn the techniques which will enable you to devise and create iOSapps that can interact with iCloud servers. From the basics up, you'll progressively learn how to configure your app for iCloud, upload and download files, implement revisions, add conflict resolution policies, and work with custom documents.

There's more You'll learn how to integrate iCloudwith Core Data based applications. Besides technical advice, you'll find suggestions and best practices to design the interaction of iCloud-driven applications.

What you'll learn How to use, design, and develop for iCloud, including iOS data-driven apps, media apps and more How to work with documents in iCloud How to create custom documents in iCloud How to to deal with data escrow, file versionings, backups and conflict resolution and policies to deal with resolution How to work with Core Data and iCloud Who this book is for

This book is for iOS developers who want to build apps for or that use the new iCloud platform.

Think you have the next great BlackBerry 10 app idea? The BlackBerry 10 Application Sketch Book is an essential tool for any aspiring BlackBerry developer. This sketch book makes it easy to centralize and organize your ideas, featuring enlarged BlackBerry 10 templates to write on. Professionally printed on high-quality paper, it has a total of 150 gridded templates for you to draft ideas and doodle designs while providing ample room to make notes and document the app name and screen name. This book is an invaluable tool for bringing your next great BlackBerry app idea to life!

Think you have the next great Android app idea? The Nexus 7 App Sketch Book is an essential tool for any aspiring Android developer. This sketch book makes it easy to centralize and organize your ideas, featuring enlarged Android tablet templates to write on. Professionally printed on high-quality paper, it has a total of 150 gridded templates for you to draft ideas and doodle designs while providing ample room to make notes and document the app name and screen name. Its lay-flat binding makes it flexible and ideal for various uses. This book is an invaluable tool for bringing your next great Android app idea to life!

Android game apps are typically the most popular type of Android apps in the various Google Play, Amazon Appstore and other Android app stores. So, beyond the Android game tutorials out there, what about a day-to-day handy and complete code reference for Android game developers? Android Game Recipes is your first, reliable game coding reference for today's Android game apps. This book provides easy to follow real world game code problems and solutions, including source code. This book covers code recipe solutions that are common to 2D game development problems such as designing a game menu, collision detection, moving characters, moving backgrounds and more. This book also includes how to work with player data, how to add multiple levels, how to create game graphics for different screen resolution, and even a handy reference on game math and physics. After reading and using this book, you'll have the templated code snippets, solutions and frameworks to apply to your game app design to build your game, customize it, and then sell it on the Android app stores.

Geospatial mapping applications have become hugely popular in recent years. With smart-phone and tablet numbers snow-balling this trend looks set to continue well into the future. Indeed, it is true to say that in today's mobile world location-aware apps are becoming the norm rather than the exception. In Microsoft Mapping author Ray Rischpater showcases Microsoft's Bing Maps API and demonstrates how its integration features make it by far the strongest mapping candidate for business that are already using Windows 8 or the .NET Framework. Whether you want to build a new app from scratch of add a few modest geospatial features to your existing website Ray's carefully chosen examples will provide you with both the inspiration and the code you need to achieve your goals. What you'll learn * Fully working code samples that show the concepts in use with ASP.NET 4.5, Windows 8 and Windows Phone. * Complete solutions to the common problems of geospatial development: visualisation, hosting and localization of services are all explained.* Demonstrates how the Bing Maps API can be connected to the Azure Cloud in order to provide a stand-alone mapping bolt-on with little additional up-front cost and great reliability. * Unique coverage of how the Bing Maps API can be implanted within Windows Phone and iOS apps to provide a robust service tailored to the capabilities of each device. Who this book is for This book is for experienced Microsoft developers with a grounding in C# and .NET together with a basic understanding of WCF.