Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By : John Horton, Paresh Mayani
Book Image

Android Programming for Beginners

By: John Horton, Paresh Mayani

Overview of this book

Android is the most popular OS in the world. There are millions of devices accessing tens of thousands of applications. It is many people's entry point into the world of technology; it is an operating system for everyone. Despite this, the entry-fee to actually make Android applications is usually a computer science degree, or five years’ worth of Java experience. Android Programming for Beginners will be your companion to create Android applications from scratch—whether you’re looking to start your programming career, make an application for work, be reintroduced to mobile development, or are just looking to program for fun. We will introduce you to all the fundamental concepts of programming in an Android context, from the Java basics to working with the Android API. All examples are created from within Android Studio, the official Android development environment that helps supercharge your application development process. After this crash-course, we’ll dive deeper into Android programming and you’ll learn how to create applications with a professional-standard UI through fragments, make location-aware apps with Google Maps integration, and store your user’s data with SQLite. In addition, you’ll see how to make your apps multilingual, capture images from a device’s camera, and work with graphics, sound, and animations too. By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to start building your own custom applications in Android and Java.
Table of Contents (37 chapters)
Android Programming for Beginners
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Using singletons for the model layer


A singleton, as the name suggests, is a class where there can only be one instance of that class. If you think about data storage, this makes sense. If you have more than one place to store the same set of data, it is possible, if not highly likely, that at some point you will attempt to store or retrieve something inconsistently.

Think about having two identical sets of folders to manage your e-mails. If you have two (or more) folders marked as Urgent, how will you know where to store that urgent e-mail. And when you need to check if you have any urgent emails, you will need to check both. What if you forget and only check one?

Also, consider a shopping app, where the user browses from page to page and each page is, perhaps, a separate Fragment/Activity. If they add something to the cart on more than one page, they could end up with two separate carts instead of one with both the items in it.

When we are making straightforward apps, it is possible that...