your unofficial guide to the google android
Posts tagged development
Android Drive
Sep 2nd
I like when people do not get – is the market willing to turn.
Last week, Google released a geek Gizmo interface makes it possible for average people to create Android applications a simple user interface-term brain. was the reaction of the technical community involved in hysterical laughter, ridicule the instrument and the alleged restriction on trade rules. Evenly, giggling noting that, while Apple's App Store, download the software loaded polished professionalGoogle has been encouraging point-and-meow. They used the Nexus news beat Google with a laptop that had a life before mobile carriers just started selling its own Android phones.
The technical community is not replaced, which means that the market is shifting in the process.
Nexus One and the Android App similar Inventor served, namely seeding the market. Android was a relatively new entrant in the mobile operating system market and go against AppleMicrosoft, RIMM, Symbian and other established players. The adoption of Android is a threat to all – mobile phone manufacturers, software developers, operators and consumers. To reduce the risk and the acceptance test required Google to a phone in the hands of the people get. So he moved to build HTC Android One, and that HTC was (this essay to take this opportunity for their development and production possibilities). This ensures that developers earlyAdopters, carriers, analysts, journalists and even competitors see what could be done in the Android market and, in turn, created pleasure and in FUD.
Google Android uses Nexus to move past a market barrier.
remaining most important advantage of Apple's market is the App Store (face it, Android, Symbian ^ 3, WebOS, and perhaps even Windows Mobile-what-are-called-by-7 this week similar/identical/good- enough capacity to operational level). Apple AppWealth is a market barrier. To overcome past requires people to believe that Android East is a good environment for creating applications (and how well things Durn sell Android Apps is a redundant phrase Asia). Android App Inventor is a simple tool for creating applications, and the Nexus One of the application development tools – is to reduce the risk of discovery and as a side effect, perhaps because users the next great idea for an incentivemobile application.
Misreading the intention of an event is indicative of a shift in the market, because this cycle that inert missiles wrong rhetorical thought. If conventional view prevail, able to think unconventional. Google recognizes the obstacle app market while a number of technology experts and industry do not. “The goal is to empower people to become creators, not just the consumer, in this mobile world,” was expressed as the Android App Inventor Project. “IInventor thinks Google App tool that allows anyone to Android application program could deep, “says one wag.
Unconventional thinking is the same that drove the social networks. The people are the unruly crowd, which together ideas less than all professional developers, and raised several orders of magnitude, then sleep multiplied by the number of trainees, with politicians (the last item, an incredible amount). Each of these users can never be perfectan app, but they can invent more applications that Steve Jobs has invented her wet dreams digital. Android App unleashed imagination.
The best parallel I can recall was Borland. In the early days of MS-DOS, a compiler 1980 will cost a few thousand dollars. Borland Turbo Pascal put it on the market for $ 49 and write every two-bit hack applications began. Borland and shareware market places, not Microsoft, MS-DOS made successfully. Rough hack were created by enthusiasts and kidnappedconverted into mainstream applications. Android App Inventor follows the same path, taking a step further programming power in the hands of every man, woman, child and dog, well-functioning (though still members of Congress have not yet advanced enough).
Android App Inventor is a game changer. Experts do not understand the game.
Tags : Android Apps
HOWTO : App Inventor for Android on Ubuntu 10.04
Sep 1st
App Inventor for Android is another example of Cloud Computing. You can build your Android apps from the Java enabled browser and sync to your Android device at ease. In addition, everyone can build Android apps by App Inventor for Android without any deep knowledge of Java and/or programming.
Go to Register Form to register your account for App Inventor for Android. You may require to wait for several weeks in order to receive the access permission email from Google.
On your Android device
Download and install “AppInventor Toggle” from the Market of your Android device.
Run “AppInventor Toggle“, press “Menu“, enable “Cable Detection” and disable “AppInventor Orientation“.
Exit “AppInventor Toggle“, Press “Menu“, “Settings“, “Applications” and “Development“, then enable “USB Debugging“
On your Ubuntu 10.04 desktop
Ubuntu 10.04 comes with OpenJDK (open source version of Java) and it is ready to go. You can download OpenJDK at Ubuntu Software Centre if it is not installed. Or, you can use Sun Java instead but you are required to enable the repository at “System”, “Administration”, “Synaptic management”.
Be keep in mind that App Inventor for Android official site recommend Sun Java instead of OpenJDK. If you encounter abnormal behavior on the web application, please install Sun Java instead.
Go to Extra Software page and download the Debian package. The current version at this writing is 1.02.
sudo dpkg -i appinventor-extras_1.02_all.deb
You may encounter “Unable to get SyncService for device” when you are connecting to your Android smartphone from Blocks Editor of App Inventor web application. The following is the procedure to solve this problem.
sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rule
Append the following line.
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0ff9", MODE="0666
Create a shell script.
nano android-syncservice
Append the following lines.
#!/bin/sh
# Solve the problme of "Unable to get SyncService for device" while connecting to Nexus One under Blocks Editor of App Inventor
cd /usr/google/appinventor-extras/commands-for-Appinventor/
./adb kill-server
./adb devices
cd ~
exit 0
Copy the shell script to /etc/init.d and make it running automatically on every boot.
sudo cp android-syncservice /etc/init.d/
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/android-syncservice
update-rc.d android-syncservice default
Or, you may require to reboot your system when need.
Now connect your Android device to your Ubuntu 10.04 desktop with the USB cable. You are ready to go ….
Follow the instructions at Connect App Inventor to Your Phone.
Then, study the Tutorials.
Finally, Live Development, Testing and Debugging.
Known Issue
The size of the apk (application package) is quite large, it is at least about 3 to 4 MB of size for a very simple application, such as tutorial apps.
That’s all! See you.
Maximize productivity with your Android phone
Sep 1st
When the issues of productivity, the system or you need to keep in place with your needs. work for the mobile professional performance of a laptop so rarely and not always the best way to maximize productivity. slow as the basis for the draft charter and task lists, mass and limited skills quickly, even the best plans.
Fortunately, the development of smart phones reached a critical point. Much more than a mobileCommunications, smart phones are an efficient and effective manner to maximize productivity. I studied and experimented with different smart phones and landed directly on android operating system. Not only on my handle communication needs but also help design and implementation of my organization and productivity of the system.
As a small business owner from undertaking part-time sales manager for a Fortune 250 International Corporation, an official in my town, a husband and father ortwo are necessary to maximize the time, become more productive and more organized. With the help of a couple of applications based on android on my phone, I can perform all tasks I have for my career and still have enough time to the quality of my personal life.
Here's what I do.
Google Apps
The android operating system integrates with many of the free Google Apps. Especially for productivity, Google Calendar, Google Mail, Docs, Tasks, and Voice. Each of these applications are free and require onlyCreate a Google Account.
Google Calendar integrates and automatically updates the calendar on my phone android, where I am. With the added ability to share my calendar, my business partners can view, edit and add events to my calendar. These changes are synchronized directly to my phone. Since I rarely in my office, with live updates from the Google Sync app on my phone, I can trust that I know always what it seems my days in constant evolution.
The integrated e-mailBox on Android is capable of handling many of my personal and business e-mail, including Gmail account. My split in box from my Gmail account to another, as I use this account for personal use only. Maintain separate personal and business productivity is wonderfully made easy with the Android operating system.
Google Docs allows me to store files for future review and file sharing for cooperation. His response to my clients in my area and criticalhas the capacity for cooperative file sent directly to my phone, gave me the opportunity to return to customers quickly and accurately.
Google Voice is by far my favorite Google App Google Voice Application, which is a free download from the Android Market works well with my voice account. I can not get copies of my voice mail via e-mail on my phone, but I can also set up multiple outgoing messages. I've got news for customers in particular, my companyPartners, family and friends, as well as unknown caller. The degree of customization is incredible and it can be used creatively to make a major customer feel as if they are the most important person in the world. The ability to manage and edit all my duties Google Voice of my phone is a powerful productivity gains which now depends on my activity.
For those who are timid, as well as all the free Google Apps, Astrid is a simple but effective application, which is a free download is available. Withits ability to sync with your account at “Remember The Milk.com” Astrid the application can be automatically synchronized and backed up directly to and from the Android phone. Astrid provides another measure of control over tasks,'s clean and simple interface and Google does the project management to-do lists or pleasant.
As I have already used or possessed a variety of smartphones, I am confident when I say that the Android operating system and the large number of Android applications efficiently and effectivelycombination of productivity available. Although there are many other applications for the Android operating system and other smartphones, this combination did wonders for me and my company. Also, all apps can be listed here 100% free!
[How to] Change fonts on Nexus One
Aug 30th
Few days back, I had rooted my Nexus One using the article I had posted about rooting the Nexus One. One of the main reasons behind that move was the inability of Android to render the text in my mother tongue (Tamil). The plain vanilla Android 2.2 does support only a limited set of fonts and it has no support for Unicode yet. DroidSans is the default font used on Android devices. Fonts are placed inside /system/fonts folder of the Android system. After rooting my device, I tried installing few fonts which support Unicode char-set and my Nexus One is able to render Tamil characters now. However, some special glyphs of the Tamil language are not getting rendered properly. This is something to do with the position of the characters. Anyways, now I can read my favorite Tamil blogs on my dearest Nexus One.
Smartphone (Android) Applet Developer Training Program (ICONapps) with Daniel Freeman
Aug 24th
I will be joining a 5-day intensive boot camp on Smartphone (Android) Applet Developer Training Program - ICONapps (Batch FOUR) which will be conducted from Sept 1-7, 2010 by Daniel Freeman.
Who is Daniel Freeman?
- Android, Java application development expert, with well-regarded accomplishments in the field.
- Joined British Telecom Laboratories. Became involved in the ‘Skyphone’ development and has beat four worldwide competitors to become an AEEC aeronautical standard.
- Involved in standardization for the first Pan-European Digital Mobile (GSM) standard and CCITT standards committees in the USA.
- Involved in My Voice Activity Detector for mobile telephony use, which became a European Standard. This algorithm is still implemented in every GSM mobile phone worldwide. (There are over 3.3 billion phones, and most are GSM).
- Awarded the ‘IPU4+ Inventors Prize’ by the Intellectual Property Unit of BT for patented inventions.
How to Run Android Apps on Your Windows PC?
Aug 12th
Android is an Operating System invented by Android Inc and then was modified by Google after taking over the company. We know that Android is for mobiles, smart phones etc. It is also used in netbooks and tablet computers.
Now, one can experience the Android edge on home or office computers too. How? To do this , one needs to download and install the Android Software Development Kit. This Kit is even used by developers to create more Apps and utilities for the Android OS.
Once the kit is downloaded and installed a few settings needs to be configured and a virtual Android Phone will be ready on the computer. But there is a limitation- This virtual android phone can’t be used as a normal phone to make/receive calls. Moreover this virtual android is much slower than the actual one.
How do you install Android Apps on Your Windows PC? Before installing the kit, one needs to make sure that Java is installed on one’s pc. It also needs to be checked, that the installed Java is the latest version. If not then the latest java updates needs to be installed. Once the Java update is complete the Android SDK starter package needs to be installed.
The installer comes in a zip file, unzip it and install it. Once the installation is complete you are now ready to create a virtual android device. Once you are done configuring the Android , its time to access the Android Market. For further tech support, talk to a computer services company.
Reader Feedback: On Log Tags
Aug 10th
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Rapid cloud development using App Engine for the Cycle Hire Widget Android application
Aug 5th
This post is another entry in our ongoing series of guest posts contributed by App Engine developers. Today we partner with Little Fluffy Toys Ltd to tell the story of how they were able to learn App Engine (plus Python) and launched their service paired with their Android application in less than a week!
Introduction
Last week, Little Fluffy Toys Ltd (LFT) launched an Android app to help its users find bicycles and rental locations in London. While this story doesn’t sound particularly phenomenal, how they accomplished this using Google App Engine (and Android) makes their application and its launch one of the most exciting success stories so far in 2010.
The development team at LFT were able to quickly come up-to-speed on learning a new programming language and development environment in order to build and launch the App Engine backend service for their Android mobile app to the world in less than one week. The executive summary:
- Attended 1-hour Thursday night presentation on Google App Engine (Jul 22)
- Started to learn Python and App Engine on Saturday afternoon
- Launched live service Wednesday, announcing their Android app with an App Engine backend (Jul 28)
Before we get to the good stuff, a brief backgrounder on the project which spawned the application: metropolitan bicycle-sharing systems, specifically London’s. Based on the success and popularity of the Paris Vélib’ system, the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme originated mid-November back in 2008 from its mayor, a strong cycling proponent.
The system launched on July 30, 2010; however a month before the project neared its completion, a call for apps was given by the mayor seeking independent developers so that there would be a variety of mobile and web apps available by show time. Enter Little Fluffy Toys Ltd, creator of Cycle Hire Widget app for Android. Shortly after announcing their app and London’s bicycle system going live, I had a chance to discuss how their project came together with the help of App Engine.
NOTE: Cycle Hire Widget is only available in the Android Market if you are located within the UK. If you wish to view the application from outside the UK, please download and install it from within your Android browser via this link — bear in mind that the distances to your nearest rental/hire location will be ridiculous!
App Engine and LFT
As we mentioned above, the sole purpose of their App Engine app is to receive data from and provide data to the Android app running on users’ mobile phones. The App Engine stored data is “global” for all mobile clients out there, and this includes names, locations, and dynamic specifics related to each bike station such as the data found in the app’s screenshot below. Take note all the valuable data that is provided in real-time by App Engine:
If you’re a bit familiar with App Engine, you would no doubt have heard about it as a platform for web applications, but this is a use case highlighting App Engine for a non web-based server-side application where no part of the app is user-facing save for what gets sent back to the mobile app. While this type of app doesn’t get much press, it’s more common than people think.
I met Kenton Price, the director and chief architect of Little Fluffy Toys Ltd, at a developer event recently, and he seemed to think that App Engine would be the right tool for Cycle Hire Widget. It turned out to be true(!), and when I asked about LFT’s needs and how they were met by App Engine after their successful product launch, here is what he had to say:
“As you know we were massively against the clock with the launch of the cycle hire scheme, and we needed something we could get going with fast that would effortlessly scale to perhaps tens of thousands of mobile users. App Engine seemed the perfect choice from what we had read of it before the meeting, and after your presentation it was obviously the way to go. Your recommendation to use Python was scary given neither of us knew a thing about it, but then again we only knew Java from Android not from web development so we didn’t have the domain knowledge of building Java web services. So we went with Python, and it worked out really well. I’m astounded how we actually delivered this product in a very short space of time when we both have full schedules working on projects for our clients and other demanding outside interests. Particularly satisfying was having a solution that was agile and flexible enough to enable us to display live cycle availability data within hours of it becoming unexpectedly available at the launch, so we were live in the field with real-time data that very same launch morning, a feature our competitors are still struggling to replicate.”
Development experience
Reuben Harris, LFT’s chief technical officer, is the lead App Engine developer for the Cycle Hire Widget. He had a great experience even though he was new to Python as well as App Engine. What excited him the most, and what was his development experience like? He tells his story here:
“The single coolest thing about this project is that it was possible to go from a state of knowing nothing whatsoever about App Engine or Python (other than the mile-high view) to having a working and useful application inside of eight hours. We’re long-time geeks but we’re not geniuses. For us to pick up a new language, a new SDK, a new environment, a new way of doing things, and produce anything of value at all in such a short time speaks volumes about the value, potential, and quality of App Engine and Python.After installing the App Engine SDK, yes, the very first thing I did was your online tutorial. I did “Hello World” to find my feet then continued into webapp, since a clean URL handler with easy ways to get at HTTP variables seemed essential. Then I immediately jumped into learning about data storage. And wow, what an enlightenment that turned out to be! Goodbye SQL, don’t think I’m going to miss ya….
Since the app’s purpose is to manage just ~400 simple objects representing Cycle Hire Stations, each of which contains only Plain Old Data types — no object references or anything possibly messy — I felt I knew enough to implement it now, and so I dived in. And it was so easy! I started with a handler to rebuild the datastore from scratch. Then I wrote a “get” type of handler to retrieve information about groups of hire stations (returning the data in JSON). Finally I wrote an “update” handler so that updated information about cycle hire stations could be posted, and that was it. Job done.One thing that initially confounded me was an HTTP 500 error caused by our “reset” handler exceeding the 30-second request limit. For a while I was ready to despair; HTTP 500s to anyone with much ASP experience usually means a hideous low-level bug somewhere! However, once we discovered the problem, this was easy to fix by splitting the work into multiple requests (/reset1, /reset2, etc.) It’s an admin function that only we’d ever be using, so no harm done and no need to work out anything more clever.I know we’ve barely scratched the surface of what can be done with App Engine. We’ve yet to use Memcache, background tasks, batched updates, or anything beyond simple cloud-based data storage. But that simple thing alone seemed then, and still seems, not far short of miraculous. To not have to worry about databases, servers, uptime, upgrades and above all scaling… to not have to think about any of that at all is such an immense freedom. I’m completely hooked on it and am unlikely to go back to my traditional server tools of MySQL and PHP.
To see Reuben’s work in action, check out this video demonstrating how to use the Cycle Hire Widget app while roaming the streets of London seeking a bike to rent:
Conclusion
Since the launch, the Cycle Hire Widget has gotten rave reviews from CNET, The Guardian, and The Londonist. They have even been featured by the Press Association of the UK and Ireland! One user commented on Android Market: “Can’t really think of a way to make it better,” a sentiment reflected in its very high feedback rating. It certainly does sound like quite a success. What does the future look like? I asked Kenton about how LFT came about as well as how they’re looking to improve their succeeding offerings, and here’s what he had to say:
“We formed Little Fluffy Toys Ltd as a vehicle for Android development where we do consultancy work as well as our own stuff like the Cycle Hire Widget and Social Wallpaper. Whilst all custom development enquiries are very welcome, we’re also interested in hearing from people or organisations that would like us to customise Cycle Hire Widget for their particular domain, whether it’s cycles with availability in another city, coffee shops with opening hours in a geographic region, or dieting group meetings at pertinent times nearby. You name it, there are a gazillion applications for it!”
Well, here on the App Engine team, we’re happy for Kenton and his team on being able to implement the server-side solution they needed in such a short period of time on App Engine, and better yet, to help out a worthy cause. Google itself is a socially responsible company that applauds efforts like the Barclays Cycle Hire, so we’re proud that technologies we provide such as Android and App Engine can be used to help make London and the Earth more sustainable!
Posted by Kenton Price & Reuben Harris, Little Fluffy Toys Ltd, and Wesley Chun, App Engine team