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Dec

The Android Team Launches Online Android Training - Free Classes With Lessons And Sample Code For All

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

In order to make it easier for Android developers to get started with creating robust applications, the Android team today formalized and unified various coding tutorials into one clearly defined area of the Android dev site: Android Training. The tutorials, or classes, are very well put together, with splits into logical steps to make them flow well, along with sample code you can utilize to "do your homework." There is no fee for taking any of them - think of Android Training as a collection of well organized and curated tutorials.

I counted 11 general sections with 34 distinct lessons, and this number is going to be increasing in the future.

Dec

Google Adds 'Email Developer' Feature To The Web Market, Makes Addresses Public - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Google, News

I sure love these Google Fridays - the Android team tends to release quite a few little updates to the web Market that make us feel warm on the inside, and it turns out this week is no exception.

You can now email developers with a question or a bug report right from the web Market - a feature previously available only in the device Market. For example:

The email url is a simple mailto: link, which should pop up your favorite email client (Gmail in my case). This change should most definitely increase helpful feedback to developers as well as provide users with an ability to ask pre-sales questions.

Dec

CyanogenMod Posts CM9 Progress Report – Original Droid To Lose Support

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

In a reassuring blog post, Cyanogen recently told readers that "things are slowly starting to come together," regarding progress on the hotly anticipated Cyanogenmod 9, which is based on Android 4.0.

The entry goes on to explain that the devices most likely to see CM9 first are those based on OMAP4, MSM8660/7X30, and Exynos chips, as well as a few Tegra 2 tablets (including the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and ASUS Transformer).

That's the good news. The bad news is that owners of the OG Droid will be left in the cold, come CM9. The team is also facing challenges due to framework changes in Android 4.0 that "break compatibility with older proprietary camera and graphics drivers." Despite such setbacks, however, Cyanogen writes "I am confident that the team will be able to overcome these issues like we have in the past."

The progress update also promises shorter "spin-up time" when compiling Cyanogenmod from source, and a few other enhancements, including an overhauled music app, a brand new file manager, and a new launcher based on Ice Cream Sandwich.

Nov

Developer Goodies: Eclipse ADT 16/Tools r16 Will Introduce Android Lint To Help You Automatically Catch Those Pesky Errors Early

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

To help Android developers automate some things and catch certain errors early on, the Android Tools team is pushing ahead with a new dev tool called Android Lint. Android Lint will be available in the next release of ADT (16) and Tools (r16).

If you're not familiar with the "lint" paradigm, a lint tool generally helps you validate your code using a certain set of rules in order to avoid common pitfalls. For example, PHP has PHPLint, JSON has jsonlint and so on.

As for Android Lint, its features at launch will include the following:

Missing translations (and unused translations)
Layout performance problems (all the issues the old layoutopt tool used to find, and more)
Unused resources
Inconsistent array sizes (when arrays are defined in multiple configurations)
Accessibility and internationalization problems (hardcoded strings, missing contentDescription, etc)
Icon problems (like missing densities, duplicate icons, wrong sizes, etc)
Usability problems (like not specifying an input type on a text field)
Manifest errors
and many more

You can find all the current checks Android Lint performs here.

Nov

[Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Book Giveaway #12: Win One Of Five Books On Creating Honeycomb Animations Courtesy Of Packt Publishing

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Contests / Giveaways, Development

Last Updated: November 19th, 2011

Packt Publishing is back again with another new book, and to celebrate, we've teamed up for a giveaway. The book in question is Android 3.0 Animations: Beginners Guide, available now for $41 for a print copy or just $23 for the eBook (or $45 for both).

The Giveaway

Written by Alex Shaw and spanning 304 pages, the book is devoted entirely to what is (sadly) an oft-neglected aspect of Android development: creating and utilizing animations. Though the emphasis is on Android 3.0+, many of the techniques can be used for previous versions of Android. You may be asking yourself why you would deal with animations in particular?

Oct

[Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Book Giveaway #11: Win One Of Six Books Courtesy Of Packt Publishing And The 2011 Open Source Awards

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Contests / Giveaways, Development

Last Updated: November 3rd, 2011

While most of you have heard of Open Source software at this point (I hope you have, anyway), you probably aren't aware that each year Packt Publishing puts on a contest to highlight the best and brightest Open Source projects across all platforms. The contest is currently in its voting stage, ends on October 31, 2011.

The contest features applications in six different categories, including Mobile Toolkits and Libraries, CMS, Most Promising Open Source Project, Business Applications, JavaScript Libraries, and Multimedia Software; with five contenders in each category.

The Giveaway

As such a big supporter of open source software, Packt Publishing has offered to let us give away three print books and three ebooks to six lucky Android Police readers, just for simply checking out the Open Source Awards.

Oct

Samsung Stratosphere Rooted, Here's How To Do It

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, News, Stratosphere

So, you recently picked up the Samsung Stratosphere on Verizon and want to get the most out of your new toy. It's no secret that when it comes to getting the most out of any Android device, root access it the key. Fortunately, KnightCrusader over at RootzWiki just dropped the info on how to gain root on the Stratosphere.

The process seems to be pretty straightforward: a little ODIN action, some adb commands, and a kernel flash -- that's pretty much it. If you're feeling up to it, check out the instructions below. If you happen to hit any snags along the way, hit up the source thread over at RootzWiki for help.

Oct

There's A Bounty Out For The Kindle Fire: $200 For Reversible Root, $800 For "Basic" Honeycomb Or Ice Cream Sandwich Port

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Kindle Fire, News, Tablets

It looks like the HP Touchpad isn't the only tablet to have a bounty placed on its head - Kindle Fire Forum is now offering a substantial reward to the first person who's able to provide a reliable, reversible root method, or either a Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich port for Amazon's Android tablet.

The forum is offering a prize of $200 for a root method, and a whopping $800 for a "Basic" Honeycomb or ICS port. The original post outlines the goals like so:

Reliable Reversable Root Method - This one is self explanatory.

Basic Android Port – The stock Android home screen and apps boot.

Sep

Android Developers, Listen Up: ADT 14 And SDK Tools r14 Previews With Much Needed Improvements Are Now Available For Download

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, News

As an Android developer, I don't think I've been this excited for an ADT and Tools releases in a long time. The Android tools team (Tor and Xav) just dropped off the latest ADT and SDK Tools at the Android Tools download site, bringing both up to version 14.

Among a sizeable list of improvements I'm mostly excited about these (and by excited, I mean ecstatic):

Improved incremental builds. Resource compilation is run much less frequently. It is no longer run when strings are edited, or when layouts are edited(unless a new id is introduced), and it is no longer run once per library project.

Sep

Samsung Epic 4G Touch Rooted And Running ClockworkMod Recovery

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Development, Epic 4G Touch, News

It has only been a couple of days since Samsung released the source code for the Epic 4G Touch and it looks like the device has already been rooted. Developers Shabbypenguin and Tanimn of Android Creative Syndicate (ACS) have released a pre-rooted tar file and instructions (XDA link) on how to root the shiny new phone. Similarly, XDA member zedomax has also released his method of rooting the device. Both methods are broadly the same, but zedomax's build appears to be more complete (see below).

Android Police disclaim all liability for any harm that may befall your device, including, but not limited to bricked phones, voided manufacturer warranties, exploding batteries, etc.