Beginning Android 3 is a fantastic introduction guide by Android developer and CommonsWare founder Mark Murphy.

This book is an almost essential text for anybody who wants to get started with building Android applications and who has some programming experience behind them already. Presenting topics covering everything from getting the Android SDK installed to the most advanced Android programming and design discussions, this book presents an excellent ramp-up for just about anyone with a little programming behind them who wants to find out just about everything you could possibly want about Android.

It is currently held that if you want to make a move in mobile, you have to build native applications. This means Java for Android, .NET for Windows Phone 7, and Objective-C for iOS – all completely different and requiring very different skill sets and tools. However, since the rise of HTML 5 on the desktop, developers are starting to push the boundaries with web apps on mobile devices. Google, for instance, push not only search but document viewing and editing through the browser onto mobile devices. The great thing about HTML 5 is that if you build an app once, it should work just the same on whichever mobile phone people are using.

The Pro Android Web Apps book, published by Apress, is a fantastic guide to just about everything you could want to know about optimising web applications for Android-powered devices.

A couple of days ago, the Android Market (unofficially) surpassed 200,000 applications – and is now nearly 70% the size of the iOS App Store. As a result, Android is becoming a more and more attractive proposition for developers looking to make some money or gain in the mobile space.

So how do you get started building Android apps? If you’ve got a bit of programming experience but not necessarily in Java (the language of choice for Android apps), then I have the perfect book for you.

With web development it’s always absolutely vital to keep up with the latest hot topic, be that the latest JavaScript trick, CSS techniques, optimisations for serving data faster, or new technologies.

Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as easy as it sounds! Web technology moves at such a breakneck pace that it is near impossible to keep on top of the latest trends and cool code.

This is very much the case with HTML 5. Now that major browser support has arrived, the collection of technologies that come under the general heading “HTML 5″ have been propelled into the limelight, both for developers looking to build web apps with awesome functionality and users expecting great experiences online.

This is where Pro HTML 5 Programming comes in.

This book covers pretty much every topic any web developer could possibly want regarding building the latest client-side interfaces. A sample of its content includes:

• HTML 5 Overview
• Canvas
• Audio and video
• Geolocation
• Communication
• WebSockets
• Forms
• Web Workers
• Web Storage

All of these take a truly cutting-edge approach, describing in detail how the new technology works, and covering all of the improvements to pre-existing technologies.

With each section, there are real-world examples and code showing you how the principles and APIs can be put into practice, clearly walking you through each of the design decisions you would need to make upon implementation, and providing information on the options and cross-browser support of the features. Somehow this book has managed to take an excellent snapshot of HTML 5 technologies that, despite the fast-paced advancement and changing landscape every day, provides a solid introduction and reference to experienced developers looking to move to the HTML 5 world.

I have had this book on hand for some days now and already find myself reaching for it on many occasions to make use of its guidance when implementing a feature of HTML 5 I have not worked closely with previously.

You can get your hands on the book from Amazon today.

Initially I had somewhat dismissed iBooks on the iPad – I hardly read at all, and had very little use for it.

Now, however, it has somewhat come into its own as new features have been added and I’ve discovered things I didn’t know about.