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Jun

SDK Tools Revision 20 And ADT20 Now Available – Developers, Start Your Engines

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Jelly Bean 4.1, News

Coinciding with the announcement of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Android developers can now pull down a new revision of Android's SDK tools – revision 20, along with a new version of the ADT Plugin, also r20 (which Eclipse users will need to use SDK r20).

The revised SDK tools bring several improvements. One of the notable additions to the SDK tools is System Trace (otherwise known as systrace), a tool (included in Project Butter) that helps monitor system activities, allowing developers to pinpoint graphical rendering or other issues. For those wondering just what else is new, take it from the revision notes found at Android's Developer site:

General notes:

Added new Device Monitor application, grouping Android debugging tools into a single application, including ddms, traceview, hierarchyviewer and Tracer for GLES.

Jun

Google Completely Revamps Android Developers Site, Not So Subtly Nudges Developers To The On-Screen Menu Button

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Google's Android Developer's site got a massive overhaul today, with a brand new UI, tons of new features, and a unified guide for developers on how to design, develop, and distribute their apps all in one place. The new site is fantastic-looking. Clearly Google wants to engage developers more and give them more guidance on how to succeed on the Play Store. So, what say we take a tour?

About Android

For anyone who's been kept in the dark, or just doesn't know everything there is to know about Android yet, Google's provided newcomers with a section just to tout the advantages of developing for Android.

Jun

[Like A Boss] Google Play Store Now Allows Developers To Reply To Reviews

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Apps/Games, Development, News

Google has done a lot to improve the web version of the Play Store since it was launched, but there has always been one major flaw: one-way comments. Users could leave comments about what is good, bad, or broken about an app, but developers had no way to reply to the comments. Ergo, many developers started to include a disclaimer at the bottom of their listings that states they cannot reply to comments, so users should contact them via email with issues.

Now, however, Google is rolling out an update to the Play Store that will change that. Beginning today, developers with a "Top Developer badge" will be able to directly reply to user reviews.

Jun

Oracle Wants Some Karma Back, Sues Patent Troll Lodsys, Wants All Its Patents Invalidated

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in News

What an interesting turn of events - Oracle just sued a notorious patent troll Lodsys, seeking invalidation of four of Lodsys' patents. In fact, these are all the patents Lodsys owns - if Oracle wins, Lodsys will have nothing to threaten innocent developers with.

If you haven't been following the Lodsys drama for the past year+, let me step back for a brief history lesson. Lodsys LLC, a Texas patent troll shell corporation, has been harassing various developers since early 2011, including many with Android apps in the Play Store. The patents Lodsys used to threaten Android developers, large and small, are 7,222,078, to which everyone refers to as simply "078" and 7,620,565 ("565").

May

Because We May – Coalition Of Game Developers Set To Offer Deep Discounts In Celebration Of Pricing Freedom

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Games, News

From May 24th to June 1st, a boatload of your favorite Android games will be going on sale in celebration of pricing freedom. Because We May, a coalition of game developers that is "preparing for launch," announced the sale recently, explaining that the purpose of the sale is to "celebrate online stores that give us control over pricing."

The stores involved include the iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Steam, Google Play, and a few others (including a "Direct from Developer" option).

Games in the Google Play category (so far) include favorites like World of Goo, Osmos, Smuggle (and Snuggle) Truck, Canabalt HD, and 26 other great games.

May

Google I/O Schedule Is Now Live, Get A First Look At All The Cool Android (And Other Google) Session Topics

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

In case the parade of trade shows and device announcements in the first half of the year aren't enough to keep you excited, Google I/O stands as the centerpiece of Android and Google hype. If you're just too eager to see what's going to happen late this June, then here's something to whet your appetite: The Google I/O schedule is now live at Google's developer site.

The schedule includes information for all tracks, including Android, Chrome, Google TV, YouTube, and all your other favorite Google products. As always, we can expect some great announcements at the keynote sessions, which will likely be the highlight of the event for most of us.

Apr

Sony Wants To Make Sure Apps Work Properly On Xperia Devices, Offers Loaner Phones To Developers For Free

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Development, News, Sony

All manufacturers want to make sure that apps work properly on their devices. Of course, the best way to make sure an app works on any given phone is to actually test the app on the device in question. For developers, though, that could cost a substantial amount of money - just think about how many Android devices are out there at the moment.

As an answer to this quandary, though, Sony has come up with a unique plan to allow developers to borrow Xperia devices. For free.

The deal is pretty simple: Sony is willing to offer up a few of its more popular devices as loaners for developers to test their apps on for 30 days.

Mar

Google Launches Translator Toolkit, Makes It Easier To Bridge The Language Gap In Your Apps

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Google must be trying to warm my heart lately. After a video circulated of a legally blind man behind the wheel of Google's self-driving car made its rounds recently, Google now announces its Translator Toolkit. The new toolkit offers developers a suite of services for localizing their apps. This is the future we all dreamed of.

The toolkit will allow developer to upload certain files from their apps to translate the text to another language. Of course, this will be about as good as Google's translations are already (read: okay, but not great). However, developers can then share their translations with local translators who can fine tune the results in the Translator Toolkit's WYSIWYG editor.

Mar

Big News For Big Apps: Android App Size Limit Bumped Up From 50MB To 4GB

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

In the past, Android apps have been limited to a 50MB file size. App developers who needed to add extra data, as is the case with most big games, would have to have a secondary, self-hosted download after the user first launched the game. Today, that changes with Google introducing support for up to 4GB of "expansion files". While APKs must still be under 50MB, Google will host two 2GB files that include extra data for developers' apps. Nice!

This will solve a lot of problems for a lot of people, not the least of whom are developers. Since Google is doing the hosting, it's no longer necessary for a game developer to host hundreds of megabytes, or even gigabytes of data on their own servers.

Feb

[Editorial] Virtual Game Tokens For Android Games Exist, And They're Even More Evil Than DLC

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, Games

To say that DLC is a growing problem would be an understatement. Of the last five games I've reviewed for this site, all of them have had some form of in-app purchases to expand the game or unlock content. Sometimes it's awful, sometimes it's not so bad, but all of them guarantee you only get most of a game. A new service called Pocket Change, however, wants to let game developers charge on a per-play basis. This is beyond scummy.

Going From Bad...

Back before DLC became a common term amongst gamers, we still paid for extra content. Whether we called them "expansion packs", "map packs", or "Pokemon Every Color Of The Friggin' Rainbow", we would pay money for new content to extend games we enjoyed.