Book excerpt: The Android(tm) Developer's Cookbook, Second Edition, has been extensively updated to reflect all Android 4.2.2 releases. You'll find all-new chapters on advanced threading and UI development, in-app billing, push messages, and native development, plus new techniques for everything from accessing NFC hardware to using Google Cloud Messaging. Proven modular recipes take your students from the basics all the way to advanced services, helping them to make the most of the newest Android APIs and tools. The authors' fully-updated code samples are designed to serve as templates for your students' own projects and components. They'll learn best-practice techniques for efficiently solving common problems and for avoiding pitfalls throughout the entire development lifecycle.