your unofficial guide to the google android
Posts tagged marketplace
Some useful links for building Android Apps
Jul 15th
Working on Android Application Development I came across some very useful links that every Android App Developer must follow. Here is my “Delicious.com” account, you can look for all the bookmarks I have saved.
In this post I am recommending some of the important Android forums and websites. By this time you must obviously be familiar with the official Android Developer Website where you can find the entire documentation of the project. Do add yourself to the Android Google Group for asking all your queries. For hosting your applications access its Official Marketplace.
Besides these regular sites which everyone accesses, I m here to share some more websites that can help novice get started and go on further with the Android App development.
(Click the titles for opening the pages)..
Here’s Lars Vogel with his tutorial for getting started with Android App Development. Besides getting started, it also teaches to build a hello world app, demonstrates how to build menus and work with preferences, a nice content provider example and how to make a file browser. At last it demonstrates how to deploy your app onto a real device.
This is one of my best recommendations. Some very nice demo projects are hosted on the site. Studying Motto Twitter project can help understand the concepts in depth. Certain API’s have also been explained in the tutorials. The use of bluetooth and camera may become very clear refering to their API tutorials.
Nice tutorials by Nithin Warreir. The blog contains some code snippets that help during development of big projects. One can learn implementation of various tools of Android development easily here. I have even added the admin to my gmail contacts and regularly ask him to review my applications.
Anddev forum is pretty famous for having a large number of online users everytime. For any query you can easily post a question in this forum. Wait for the help that comes in just a few minutes. One can also use the android tag of Stackoverflow, but mind you, it’s lame..!! Too slow responses and you’ll end answering your own question later which doesn’t contribute to the repo at all.. 
Besides the Official Marketplace, this is another marketplace that hosts developer’s applications. For registering as developer in the official marketplace, one needs to pay $25, here lies the advantage of joining SlideMe, it is free..!!
Register yourself and deploy all your apps. The apps may be free or paid. The paid apps can only be downloaded from Android Phone through SlideMe market app. The website asks for copies of your project’s “.apk” file and forms an inventory and on downloads you need to generate an invoice to redeem the money. Here is link for viewing my apps.
Happy developing 
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More cluelessness
Jul 10th
MacRumors has a report on some slander about Apple:
Reuters reports on comments from Google executives, at this week’s Allen & Co. media industry gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, that Google co-founder Larry Page has accused Apple CEO Steve Jobs of “rewriting history” in comments over the past few months suggesting that Google followed Apple into the smartphone business with its Android platform.
Jobs recently told a conference that Google was responsible for the change in the relationship between the two companies, because Google elected to compete with Apple’s iPhone by developing the Android smartphone software.
Google’s Page suggested that Jobs’ assessment was “a little bit of rewriting history. We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace,” Page said. “I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted, however, that Apple and Google continue to maintain a number of partnerships, and that there is room in the mobile space for both companies to thrive.
Fortune has put together a timeline of the Android/iPhone relationship, showing that Google purchased the Android platform in August 2005, a full year before Schmidt joined Apple’s Board of Directors and nearly a year and a half before Apple officially announced the iPhone. According to the report, an Apple insider claims that the relationship between Apple and Google did not begin to deteriorate until Google and T-Mobile finally introduced the G1, the first Android-based handset, in September of 2008.
According to a former Apple employee, the day that the Apple-Google relationship started to crumble was the introduction of the T-Mobile G1. According to him, Steve Jobs and Apple Mobile Software VP Scott Forstall had only seen Android prototypes that looked like Blackberries. The new form factor was ‘way too similar to the iPhone for Jobs’ tastes’.
Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board in August 2009, and tensions between the two companies have continued to increase as they have begun to compete head-to-head in a growing number of markets.
My Note to Google On Nexus One
May 22nd
Hi Friends at Google
Just bought a Google Nexus and finally I have written the following note to Google
I am quite a techy person and have my own blog as well www.mobilityexclusive.com
I have been a user of PDA’s , Pocket Pc Phones and smart phones since the day I starting using Original Palm Pilot by 3Com back in 1994 I guess.
Currently I am using BlackBerry 9700 and an iphone 3GS.
I was quite excited about Android platform and yesterday I bought an unlock version of Google Nexus One but I am sorry to say that I am done with it after 8 hours of use.
I believe its good when its your first device but when coming from Iphone, ITS COMPLICATED
Its not a device which you can give to your mom and dam unlike iphone or even BlackBerry. Its powerful platform, notifications are excellent but there is some UI problem.
Its not friendly as compared to other platforms.
One more thing, we cant buy paid apps in Pakistan and you have to root it to get. Its like what we have jail breaking in phone. Lots of apps like Ebay and Paypal are not available on my marketplace, dont know why though they have been released.
So finally after 8 hours I am going back to my Iphone 3GS.
Best regards
Aamir Barry
Streaming KAXE on Android
May 11th
by Chad Haadvedt, IT Connections
Do you have one of the cool Android based smart phones and want to be able to listen to KAXE on the go? If so, there is a cool, free and easy to install application in the Android market to get KAXE on your phone.
While there are several streaming applications in the Android Marketplace, I like the one called StreamFurious. It’s pretty easy to install, just follow these steps….
1. Open the Android Marketplace application on your phone:
- you need a data connection of some type: (over the air, 3g or wifi)
- if you have never used the market place before, you will need to create a Google account before you can proceed
2. Use the “Search” on the Marketplace screen to find “StreamFurious”. It may give a few results, and I recommend you try the “free” version of the program. (There are some additional nice features of the “Pro” version, but you can make that call after you have tried out the free one. )
You’ll be presented with a screen showing some information about StreamFurious, along with user ratings and a button to install it.
3. Go ahead and tap the Install button to get it. When prompted, confirm that you want to proceed.
4. When the installation is complete, you can open your application list and start StreamFurious. Accept the user agreement, and when it finishes loading, it will present you with a listing of existing feeds. Tap the Menu button on your phone, and tap the “More Stations” option.
5. On the more stations screen, tap the icon that will take you to “Shoutcast.com” This will load the web browser on your phone, and take you to the Shoutcast home page. You can search for KAXE on this page, and Shoutcast will find two results: the first entry is a high quality stream and the second one is a low quality stream.
- choose the high quality stream if you want to listen via a 3G or wifi connection
- choose the low quality stream if you don’t have 3G or wifi handy when you want to listen
6. Tap the button for the stream you want, and it will be loaded as the top most entry on your Strea
mFurious screen.
Sound Quality
I think the high bitrate feed sounds like an FM signal would on most portable devices. The low bitrate feed sounds just fine for voice content, but leaves a little to be desired for music. As long as you are in an area that has good cell service, the stream seems to keep clear and constant.
Battery Consumption
Streaming KAXE (or any audio feed) is going to suck the juice out of your battery. So, don’t expect to listen to KAXE for hours on end. I can get a couple of hours on my battery, maybe a little more if I have a strong signal.
Stay In Touch
StreamFurious is the perfect way to listen to KAXE on the road when you are not in the Northland. If you have a car charger for your phone, or an AC charger in the hotel, you do not have to worry about battery life.
Streaming on the iPhone?
Do you stream KAXE on your iPhone? If so, can you give our readers some advice on a good application to use? Post your suggestions here.
Have a big day.
Chad
Advanced Task Manager
Apr 3rd
Alright… today I’m gonna start blogging about apps that I feel are worthy to be written about. I’ll try to stay on topic and not write too much but if it’s an important app, the size of the post may be longer.
So the first app I’m gonna write about is….
Advanced Task Manager – Developer = Arron La (paid and free version available but I’ll be talking about the paid version).
So you use your awesome android phone a lot during the day (installing apps, playing games, browsing the www, etc..) and you notice it starting to get a little sluggish switching between apps or doing something the iDon’t can’t… that being multitasking. This is where Advanced Task Manager comes in the help.
This app will display apps that are currently running on your phone that could being causing lag. If you want to end this app, long press on it and click “End task” and that app will stop running. The user interface (UI) is fairly easy to understand. An awesome feature about this app is the “Auto-End” feature. I chose to enable “Auto-End Running Apps” and I have my frequency set to 15 minutes”. If you have this set… you’ll want too add any apps that give you notifications to the excluded list (Messaging, Gmail, Email, Facebook, Calendar… etc – you’ll be notified of this when you first install the app – If you have an app that your not sure if you should add, you can ask me)
Another neat feature is the “Shake to-end-all”, I didn’t have this checked before writing this review but I just checked it too explain how it works. Uhh…. okay, so pretty much all you do is shake your phone and it ends all running apps… pretty simple.
There is also a widget that you can add to your home screen (If your one of those people that don’t know how to add a widget, long press on an empty space on your home screen and select “Widget” then find your widget of choice… and there you have it). Once you add it (space = 1×1), you click it and it ends any running apps… fast and effective.
If you don’t want this app to end any running apps, you’ll wanna long press on the certain app that you don’t want it to end and select “Exclude”.
I’ll wrap things up there, if your interested you can try the free version first to get an idea. The paid version has more features and I’ve had no force close problems. The price is $0.99, search for “Arron La” in the Marketplace 
. I may have missed some stuff since it’s my first review so…
Any questions? Message/comment here or on Facebook.
. I may have missed some stuff since it’s my first review so…Any questions? Message/comment here or on Facebook.
Another smartphone app – for Google’s Android
Mar 10th
Today, we’re announcing the launch of another service-based app for smartphones, specifically the ones that run on Google’s Android
Gowalla Gets An Early Native Android App. Prettier, More Social Than iPhone …
Feb 21st
18 Essential Apps For Your Android Phone
Feb 16th
18 Essential Apps For Your Android Phone: “Like any other operating system, most Android phones come preinstalled only with a minimum set of applications that are sufficient to get you started. But to really get the best out of it, you have to go into the Marketplace and grab the third-party apps.”
45+ Cool Google Android Apps – The Perfect iPhone Replacement
Feb 2nd
45+ Cool Google Android Apps – The Perfect iPhone Replacement
snip:
Is the mobile operating system Android a threat to the iPhones high standing in the marketplace? Not quite, but it could be…..In this post you will find 45 Google Android Apps that demonstrate the potential power of Android. And yes, it is the perfect iPhone replacement.
Full article at: http://speckyboy.com/2009/09/15/45-cool-google-android-apps-the-perfect-iphone-replacement/
45+ Cool Google Android Apps – The Perfect iPhone Replacement
Feb 2nd
45+ Cool Google Android Apps – The Perfect iPhone Replacement
snip:
Is the mobile operating system Android a threat to the iPhones high standing in the marketplace? Not quite, but it could be…..In this post you will find 45 Google Android Apps that demonstrate the potential power of Android. And yes, it is the perfect iPhone replacement.
Full article at: http://speckyboy.com/2009/09/15/45-cool-google-android-apps-the-perfect-iphone-replacement/