This was a good read if you are interested in adding animation to your android applications. It shows several different methods, from frame animation to tweening objects around on screen.
The book is titled for “Android 3.0”, but almost all of the examples will work for any version of Android. You just need to change the build target of the project properties to whatever SDK version you are using, and change the android manifest file from build 10 to 3.
It does touch on what the new animation methods are for Android 3.0, and you have a warning in the chapter for the exercise file that uses a newer version.
The examples may not all look pretty (especially the first one), but it teaches the main concepts, and you can fill in your own graphics, using the concepts, to add some nice ‘flair’ to your applications.
One of the more interesting examples shows you how to create your own, animated, and interactive ‘live wallpaper’, which you could use to create pretty much any type of live wallpaper.
The book does not go into OpenGL programming, but does introduce the concept of a “game loop”, which would be useful for someone to see who has never created a game before. A lot of the concepts might seem simple to someone who has experience using tweens, or frame by frame animation.
I would recommend this book to someone who has programmed on Android application before, but would like to add more “polish” to their application, using animation to liven it up.
