This document was written for developers who have worked with Java before and want to start developing for the Android Platform. I tried to make this as much hands on as possible, placing example codes everywhere it fit. Also I tried to insert as many picture as possible, because they liven up the learning process and relax the reader's eyes. But unfortunately  coding is not everything; one has to learn about some basic facts of the Android Platform to fully understand. That is what is described on the first ~XXX pages. It is not necessary to read all those describing pages, but it is preferable. You could decide to treat it as a kind of reference. What you would read there is also explained when it occurs during the "hands on" process. So you could directly start at Hello World - The Android Way.

The Open Handset Alliance released the Google Android SDK on November 12th, 2007, having announced it about a week before. The impact was unbelievable, almost every IT/programming-related news-page dumped a news-post about the SDK release - the Google Groups was overwhelmed with over 2000 Messages within the first two Days. The idea of the Android Platform was and still is amazing and is of course attracting more and more programmers every day. Especially the open architecture based on Intents and the possibility to replace even the Home-application grant a really large amount of flexibility to the whole platform.