Category: Android
August 29th, 2008
New Android Market is YouTube for mobile applications
Google released early details yesterday about their plans for Android Market, an online bazaar for programs that run on Android phones. Essentially an Android version of the iPhone’s popular App Store, it offers three key advantages over Apple’s offering:
Initially all content in the Market will be free, but the next phase will include paid apps, probably purchased through Google Checkout. Google hasn’t said what their “cut” of the price for non-free programs will be, but it will most likely be less than the 30% Apple takes from App Store sales.
You can find high resolution screenshots of Android Market after the break…
[ Catch the latest Android news and opinion on Planet Android! ]
August 27th, 2008
Suddenly, Android is hot again
![[image]](http://mowser.com/img?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.zdnet.com%2FBurnette%2Fimages%2Fandroid_robot_124.gif)
After months of silence, the double-whammy of new software and hardware has gotten everyone talking about Android again.
Earlier this month Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch was wondering if anybody cared about Android any more. Now TC is practically gushing over the mobile platform. What happened? Two things:
First, Google released a long awaited update to the Android software development kit. Developer Advocate Dan Morrill wrote:
The beta SDK that we’re releasing today is the first big step on the SDK’s road to compatibility with 1.0. Since this is a beta release, applications developed with it may not quite be compatible with devices running the final Android 1.0. However, the APIs are now pretty stable and we don’t expect any major changes. If you’re one of the many developers who were waiting for something a bit more mature, this might be a good time to take another look.
You’re probably wondering what’s actually new in the SDK. Well, you should read the Release Notes, the Change Overview and the API Delta Report for all the details.
Unfortunately the details released by Google were, shall we say, incomplete, but the good folks over on the Android discussion groups have been striving to fill in the gaps.
The second thing that happened is that news started to leak out about the new G1 phone from T-Mobile (formerly known as the HTC Dream). A shout-out goes to the folks over at AndroidGuys who broke the story. Rumor has it that the phone will be available for pre-sale in September and we might have it in our hot little hands by October. Of course, if a demo unit were to *happen* to be sent to a certain ZDNet blogger before then, that would be much appreciated (hint, hint). Hopefully current SunCom customers will be able to use it too.
According to the latest update, the T-Mobile G1 handset will pack a ton of features including:
Two features which aren’t confirmed yet but everybody is assuming the G1 will have is GPS and a touch screen. Remember that this is just the first Android phone; because Android is an open platform any number of manufacturers will be free to create their own version.
New software… new hardware… Android is back, baby! (Now if they could just find someone to update that crappy OHA web site…)
[ Read: More about Android on Dev Connection ]
August 4th, 2008
The astounding $14million Ethernet extender
I was helping a friend find a good price on a powerline Ethernet extender like the one I bought a few months ago, and stumbled upon this bargain:
Luckily I found one cheaper here:
When I showed this to my friend his first comment was “For 1/5 of a mil you’d think they’d include shipping”. True, but at least there was no tax.
I don’t have any inside knowledge on how the shopping site gets its prices, but I suspect they’re using a method called “screen scraping“. In this method you just fetch every product web page and try to parse out the HTML to find where the number you want is located. This is fairly straightforward but it doesn’t always work, especially if the site you’re scraping changes its format. Also some sites don’t appreciate being used in this manner.
A better solution is to use a web service. Web services are sort of like web pages in that you access them with an “http://something” address. But instead of returning an HTML page they return the answer in a form that is easier for a computer program to understand, like XML or JSON. If the site you’re querying provides a web service then you can write a program (like a price comparison server) that calls the service and gets the result.
Here’s an example of a web service. When you click on this link, you will actually be calling a service from Google that translates the text “thank you” from one language to another, in this case English to French. Go ahead and click it; there’s no code that runs in your browser or anything dangerous. Here’s what I get:
{"responseData": {"translatedText":"merci"},
 "responseDetails": null, "responseStatus": 200}
The answer comes back in a JSON format that can easily be loaded by Javascript, Java, or any other language. When web services first started out, most of them used a protocol called SOAP that wrapped both the request and the response in a standard XML “envelope”. This was very general, but also very cumbersome. Nowadays, many web services are “REST-ful”, meaning the query is encoded in a regular HTTP request (like the one in that link) and the results come back in a simple format.
You can see an example of code that uses web services in the downloadable examples from my upcoming book, Hello, Android. I wrote a program that prompts for some text, calls the service to translate it to another language, and then translates it back into your original language to see how it comes out. The examples are free; from the home page select the Code link, download the zip file, and open up the Translate project.
For more info on the Google Language API used in the example, including the terms of use, see their site.
[ Read: More programming tips on Dev Connection ]
July 16th, 2008
Beta version of Hello, Android book is out
![[image]](http://mowser.com/img?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.zdnet.com%2FBurnette%2Fimages%2Fhelloandroid247.png)
Ever since Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance announced the Android platform last November, I’ve been working on a book to help developers write programs for it. The book, called Hello, Android, is now available in Beta form at the Pragmatic Programmers web site. The current version is Beta 4.
There is a PDF version and a Paper version. By ordering both versions at the same time you can save $13.20. You’ll be able to download successive releases of the PDF as I add material, and you’ll have more input into what goes into the book. You’ll get new beta updates for free every 3-4 weeks, and then you’ll get the final PDF and a paper copy when the book is finished. Alternatively, the paper version only is available for pre-order from Amazon, O’Reilly, and other outlets.
From the introduction:
Getting started developing with Android is easy. You don’t even need access to an Android phone, just a computer where you can install the Android SDK and the phone emulator that comes with it. Within minutes, Hello, Android will get you creating your first working application: Android’s version of “Hello, World.†From there, you’ll build up a more substantial example: an Android Sudoku game. By gradually adding features to the game throughout the course of the book, you’ll learn about many aspects of Android programming including user interfaces, multimedia, and the Android life cycle.
If you’re a busy developer who’d rather be coding than reading about coding, this book is for you. To help you find what you need to know fast, each chapter ends with “Fast forward†section. These sections provide guidance for where you should go next when you need to read the book out of order.
A basic knowledge of programming in Java is assumed, and experience using the Eclipse Java development tools is helpful but not required. The final release date depends on Google’s release of Android version 1.0 and the availability of handsets from manufacturers.
For more information see:
June 24th, 2008
Nokia Symbian deal winners and losers
After an expansion phase that saw the introduction of the iPhone, Android, LiMo, and JavaFX Mobile, the mobile phone platform landscape is shrinking again. Nokia today announced it plans to spend $410 million to acquire the pieces of Symbian Ltd. that it doesn’t already own, and then give it away as open source under the Eclipse Public License. If that weren’t enough, they got several of their competitors to chip in their own front-end assets and join a new Symbian Foundation that will provide overall governance to the combined project.
At first the Symbian Foundation will simply repackage the existing software and assets, allowing it to produce product right out of the gate next year. Everything won’t be open source from day one. But eventually the differing interfaces will be unified, and within 2 years we should expect to see a single open-source platform supported by all the Foundation members. You can read the details on the Foundation’s web site.
So who does this deal benefit or hurt the most? How will this affect the iPhone, Android, and other mobile platforms? Read on to find out…
June 23rd, 2008
There is no Google Android delay
When Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance announced the Android platform last November, they predicted that phones loaded with the software would hit the market in the 2nd half of 2008. So when you read that (*gasp*) Android phones have been “delayed” until the 4th quarter of 2008, keep that in mind. Last I checked, 4th quarter was still considered part of the 2nd half of the year, folks.
As a consumer waiting for a hot product, one always hopes that “2nd half” means “June 1st”, but realistically (and chronologically) that could always have meant as late as December 31st. Sure, it would have been nice for the devices to come out earlier (especially for developers!), but c’est la vie. When you take something as technically complicated as a mobile phone platform and mix in dozens of OEMs, carriers, and software partners all trying to work in tandem, I’d say even December 38th would be fine.
But wait, you ask, what about the phones the WSJ says will be coming out in early 2009? Well what of it? There will be Android phones in early 2009, late 2009, 2010, and so on. Android’s compelling value proposition - a single zero-cost open source customizable platform that covers a wide range of hardware from disposables to PDAs - will ensure its longevity for years to come.
June 6th, 2008
Google I/O 2008: It’s a wrap
This is my last posting on the Google I/O developer’s conference held last week in San Francisco. Even though the conference was only two days long, I took about 12,000 words of notes and nearly 200 photos so it took a while to sift through. Here are a few closing thoughts.
For some reason this is the most popular photo in my flickr photoset of the conference. And yes, I realize the irony of posting pictures of a Google conference on a Yahoo site, but what can I say, I paid for the flickr Pro account and it works well.
The Moscone West center was a good venue for the conference but it felt a bit cramped. Every session was standing room only. They’re now saying over 3000 folks showed up, which was more than Google anticipated. The WiFi system was frequently overloaded, though that’s a complaint I have of every conference I’ve been too lately.
Google employees were everywhere, of course, and they were always courteous and knowledgeable. It was good to put some faces to names I see often on the forums, such as Dan Morrill and Jason Chen, above.
Once again, MacBooks were the #1 choice of conference attendees, followed by Lenovo Thinkpads. You could not escape the friendly Apple logo staring back at you, especially in a darkened room. Whoever put the glowing apple on the back was a genius. Also, kudos to whoever decided to toss bean bags all over the place. Now if there had just been about 10x more power strips…
Of course no retrospective can be complete without a picture of the Flight of the Conchords. They were great. ’nuff said.
Thanks to Google for putting on this developer’s conference. Hopefully this will turn into an annual event.
Check out all my other Google I/O 2008 posts here.
June 5th, 2008
50 questions asked and answered on Android
At the very end of the Google I/O 2008 conference last week the Android development team hosted a great fireside chat on the new mobile platform. The session was free-form, completely driven by questions from the audience. Although Google was trying to keep mum on a number of issues, several interesting tidbits slipped out. You might be surprised at who was asking a few of the questions, too.
From left to right: Andy Rubin, Brian Swetland, Dan Bornstein, San Mehat, Mike Cleron, Grace Kloba, Dave Bort, Steve Horowitz.
Since it was the last talk of the day, it went on rather long, but there were no complaints from the attendees. Besides, I had arrived early and snagged a nice comfy bean bag chair up front. The following is one of my trademark transcript/paraphrases of the session, taken down as fast as I could type for your enjoyment. There were 50 questions in all.
Q. Should we jump in to Android? What’s the guarantee that’s what I will see on a phone? Will service providers turn off things?
We’re going to provide a compatibility test suite.
A. Keep in mind it hasn’t shipped yet, This is the most interesting time. Once it’s open source, it could be locked down… they could create a derivative work.
We’re going to provide a piece of technology that tests the APIs. No time frame yet. The script will exercise the system. It’s a compatibility test suite, to make sure nothing got disabled or broken by accident, and also ensure that apps will work across OEMs.
Q. What if my app uses location api, and service provider shuts that off, can they?
A. They can do that… it’s not a perfect world. Rather than having us dictate what carriers and OEMs support, we let developers develop killer apps that will require it.
We want to ensure all the application development that goes on for Android… we want to give OEMs an incentive to keep things open. It’s a positive, self fulfilling vision.
Q. If I’m a game developer and I’m building piece of content and I want to sell it, how do I do that and realize revenue.
We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t consider distribution.
A. Content distribution — we’ve thought of that. It’d be great if there were a place where people could go to safely download and pay for content.
Q. What about copy protection?
A. We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t consider distribution.
[Note, at the opening session Google showed a new version of the Android home screen, which featured an icon for “Market”. Presumably this is the as-yet-unannounced Android application store. -Ed]
Q. (Question from Verizon). We use SMS interception for system signalling. Is there a mechanism for an app to respond and stop the signaling chain? Is there security around that so that one vendor can’t hijack a message and respond to it?
A. There’s a mechanism where an application can register to receive a message with a certain signature and prevent others from getting it.
We have a system of permissions apps are able to declare, enforce, and require to perform certain operations. Things like dial the phone, get to contacts, etc.. But these aren’t things that are baked in the core of the system. An arbitrary app could declare custom permissions.
As far as restricting another app, the model we’ve been going by… the phone is not controlled by the application vendor, it’s controlled by the user. Whether or not the permissions are granted is up to the user that owns the phone. If you created a protocol that intercepts an SMS and another party wrote an app that intercepts the same SMS and the user wants to use that, the user could be free to stick that in.
Q. Can the user set a priority?
A. Don’t know, post your question to the developer’s community board.
Q. (Question from Media Power Group). In a previous release, XMPP was turned into GTalk. Will a future version have XMPP?
A. Goal is to have XMPP support after 1.0. [Later they said both GTalk and XMPP were post 1.0 features. -Ed]
Q. Java is more than a language. Google implemented its own VM. Could we use the Sun JVM? Explain the reasoning behind having your own.
We needed something with an Apache license.
A. We can have a more efficient interpreter and less memory pressure (by having Dalvik). You have to consider the holistic system performance. We had no choice but to run multiple VMs and processes. Share read-only memory across processes was important. Dalvik does that.
Also we needed something with an Apache license. At the time, nothing was available.
Q. Does Android support the Bluetooth serial port profile?
A. Yes.
Q. Can an application be started on powerup?
A. Yes.
June 4th, 2008
Patrick Brady dissects Android
Patrick Brady of Google’s partner group provided a detailed technical tour of the internals of the Android platform during his recent talk at Google I/O 2008 titled “Anatomy and Physiology of an Android”. Topics included Linux kernel enhancements, the Bionic library (Google’s slimmed down version of libc), Android functional and runtime libraries, native servers, and more.
[ Read: More coverage of Google I/O 2008 and Android. ]
Linux kernel
At its foundation, Android is based on Linux 2.6.4. Patrick said they would stay with that release until there was some reason to move. Google made a number of kernel enhancements for Android including: alarm, ashmem, binder, power management, low memory killer, kernel debugger, and logger. All the kernel enhancements have been contributed back to the community under the GNU Public License (GPL), so if you’re interested in looking at the code you can find the source repository at http://git.android.com .
Bionic library
Google developed a custom library for the C compiler (libc) called Bionic. This was necessary for three main reasons: Read the rest of this entry »
June 2nd, 2008
Jason Chen answers questions about Android
At the recent Google I/O 2008 conference, Jason Chen from the Android team presented a 90 minute introduction to Google’s new software platform for mobile devices. Since I’ve written about Android basics before I’ll just cover some of the points that were new or previously unclear.
All the source code to Android is currently available to Google’s Open Handset Alliance (OHA) partners. The general public will gain access to the source code when the first handset ships. At that time, Android will be called “version 1.0″.
[ Read more about Android at Dev Connection ]
Once version 1.0 comes out and the source is available, anyone in the world will be able to download and port Android to any phone (or other device) they want. This question came up several times during the conference so it bears repeating: You don’t have to be an OHA member and you don’t have to sign anything or ask anyone’s permission to put Android on a new phone. But you do have to wait until version 1.0 is released.
And when will that be? Google would not give any specific dates other than “the 2nd half of 2008″. When pressed, a Google source said it wasn’t really their call alone. The release date is largely up to OHA members, especially the manufacturers making the phones and the carriers who will sell and distribute them.
After his presentation, Jason opened up the floor for questions…
Ed Burnette has programmed everything from device drivers and compilers to video games and multi-user servers. He is currently writing enterprise software in a variety of languages including C, Ruby, Python, and Java. For disclosure of Ed's industry affiliations, click here.
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