NDK - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

May

Google Bumps Google TV To Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, LG Confirms It Will Update GTV Devices, Finally Support NDK

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Google TV, LG, News

Last Updated: May 17th, 2013

Google TV is the project no one in Mountain View likes to talk about. It was announced with much fanfare, but the platform has languished on an ancient version of Android 3.2 Honeycomb for far too long. Well, Google didn't see fit to mention it at the keynote, but Google TV is getting a fresh coat of paint with an Android 4.2.2 update.

The update should appear on compatible Google TV devices in the next few months and bring new core functionality and support for newer builds of Google Chrome. Google says the update to Jelly Bean will allow OEMs to build updates for Google TV devices in weeks rather than months.

Nov

Android 4.2 SDK (API Level 17), SDK Tools r21, NDK Released Along With API Docs

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Development, Jelly Bean 4.2, News

Today, with the official release of the Nexus 4, Nexus 10, and Nexus 7 HSPA+, Google has released the Android 4.2 SDK, "a new and improved Jelly Bean."

Along with the SDK release, Google has made available SDK Tools r21, the Android NDK, and of course some helpful API documents. Highlighting some of the benefits of the new SDK (and, by extension, Android 4.2), Google touts "Renderscript computation directly in the GPU" for the Nexus 10, "a first for any mobile computation platform," lock screen widgets, Daydream, incredibly enhanced support for external displays, and optimizations for international users.

A full list of changes (specifically those pertinent to developers) can be found in the API docs, linked at the end of this post.

Apr

[For Developers] ADT 20/SDK Tools r20 Previews Are Here - Brand New Property Editor(!), NDK Support, Performance Improvements, Bug Fixes Galore

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

As an Android developer, I like to keep tabs on the tools I use every day, especially ones as important as ADT for Eclipse and SDK Tools. As was the case several times before, the Android team in charge of both of them posted previews of upcoming releases of ADT 20 and SDK Tools r20, available for manual download ahead of the final releases.

Yup, you heard me correctly - 20, not 18 or 19. Even though the previous major release was 17, 18 followed up shortly after with some minor changes, and 19, even more minor, wasn't even posted to the downloads page (see here for the reason).

Dec

[Updated] Google Announces 2.3 Gingerbread! Here Is Everything You Need To Know

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

Last Updated: December 10th, 2010

The moment we've been waiting for so many months - it's finally here! I can hardly contain my excitement as I'm writing this, but both Gingerbread and the Samsung Nexus S were officially announced 30 minutes ago. As expected, the new OS bears the version number 2.3 and brings updates to the SDK and the NDK as well SDK tools and the Eclipse ADT plugin.

As expected, a lot of the OS improvements are under-the-hood, which will result in better gaming, responsiveness, and overall Android experience.

New Features/Enhancements

OS/SDK/NDK

The new OS features and enhancements include:

enhancements for game development, including a new concurrent garbage collector, more native APIs, faster event distribution, updated video drivers, and new sensors (gyroscope) - this is amazing for developers; expect gaming to get a lot more responsive and versatile
lots and lots of attention in the above bullet point has been given to the NDK - the Native Development Kit.

Sep

Fruit Ninja Now Available For Android

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Games, News

We told you it was coming today, and indeed here it is - Fruit Ninja, one of the most popular iOS games just entered the Android world, powered by OpenFeint.

Download

You can download the game for $0.99 by clicking or scanning the barcode below:

A Few Notes

it is quite big - almost 14MB, but it doesn't yet support apps2sd in Froyo. I'm sure that is coming later
the graphics, physics, UI - everything is very well done. It's a direct port from the iOS version using the NDK (Native Development Kit) - not a Java rewritten version
in my opinion, the copycats, such as Ninja Kaka and Fruit Pirate are nowhere near as good
the new Arcade mode is coming soon - for now it's only available on iOS