Android + Training + Philippines

The job market for mobile applications is already huge and is growing at an enormous pace. People are using their mobile devices more than they are using their notebook or desktop computers, and Android based devices are being launched frequently.

As of May 2012, the number of apps that have been created and released for the android platform is over 500,000 (source: DISTIMO: Google Android Market). Considering that the Google Playstore started late in 2008, in a little over four years, there has been an explosion of mobile apps.

While IOS enjoyed an early lead in terms of number of apps, the IOS dominance is no longer secured (source:TechCrunch: Android overtakes IOS ...). It is plain to see that the momentum of mobile apps development is rapidly increasing. This creates a demand for programmers on the android platform. Excellent opportunities await those who are early and ready into this growing market.

There are many ways to learn android, you can read lots of books voraciously then practice; you can keep on reading tutorials available on the internet then practice; you can attend meetings of the local user groups, then practice; you can sign-up for workshops (hopefully this one) then practice some more. A combination of one, some or all of these things will ramp up your skills on android development but the fastest way is to attend a workshop because the materials have been prepared coherently and designed thoughtfully so that you can progress in a methodical and time-efficient way.

The learning material was painstakingly and carefully put together in a way that will let YOU grow into the direction of skill, the quickest possible time. The course material was written using the following philosophies:

1. Use of vocabulary - You need to be able to talk about the things you are learning and working on---either with your fellow attendees or co-workers or people within your on-line group. By stressing vocabulary your mental handle on the concepts increase rapidly
2. Cut the cruft, amplify what's important - The more esoteric parts of android programming has been downplayed. The material focused on key areas that are rich in concept and low on (less important) code acrobatics
3. Idea recursion - some concepts are more difficult than others. Some take time to sink in. These more difficult concepts are repeated throughout the workshop so that they maybe reinforced and YOU can remember them more effectively
4. Think like a programmer - To write a program, YOU need to understand how the algorithms works, see them in action and debug them. The workshop will force you to go through this workflow

The code samples used in the course material will be available for download as zipped files. They will also be publicly available either via git or google-code hosting so you can pull them into your dev environment either via git or svn.

Course contents

• Introduction to the platform
• Key Concepts
• Building blocks of an Anroid app
• Android Activities
• Android Intents
• Android Broadcast Receivers
• Android Content Providers
• Android Services
• Tools and other dev instruments
• Programming basics
• Creating basic user interfaces - Using views and view groups
• Build Event driven apps
• Apps life cycle
• Learn Tabs and TabsActivity
• Use Android Intents (Implicit and Explicit)
• Handle screen rotations
• Icons
• Building menus
• Beyond basics
• Database programming (SQLite)
• Using logcat and adb for testing and debugging
• Threads and AsyncTask
• Alerts
• Network programming
• 2D and basic animation
• Using the camera
• Linkify
• Using the Preferences

Which API level will we use

We will use API level 8 (Froyo) and 9 (Gingerbread). As of 2.July.2012 Gingerbread and Froyo are the most dominant versions of android in the user's hands; 64% and 17% respectively.