sdk - 5/6 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Dec

For Developers: Live On The Edge - Upgrade To The Latest Eclipse ADT (Currently v9.0.0) Before It Is Released [How-To]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News, Tips & Tutorials

We, Android developers, spend our days staring at a computer screen, most likely at one of Eclipse's windows. Eclipse is an amazing IDE in theory, but it never quite feels complete and polished, mostly due to the fact that it's powered by open source enthusiasts and is based almost entirely on plugins (if you want to get it to do anything useful, that is).

Being Android developers, the plugin we are using every day is ADT - Android Development Tools, written by Google engineers, mostly @tornorbye and @droidxav who I've been conversing over twitter lately and annoying with filing numerous ADT bugs (hi, if you're reading!).

Dec

Gingerbread SDK Closes A TapJacking Vulnerability

Posted by Stephen Tenerowicz in Development, Gingerbread 2.3, News

With Android 2.3, users will have not only a slew of new features (I can't wait!), but also a fix to a security issue present in the previous versions of Android: TapJacking. TapJacking occurs when a malicious application displays a fake user interface that you can interact with, but actually secretly passes interaction events, such as finger taps, to a hidden user interface behind it. Using this technique, a devious developer could potentially trick a user into making purchases, clicking on ads, installing applications, or even wiping all of the data from the phone. All around, TapJacking is not good!

In previous versions of Android, an attacker was able to display the fake user interface by creating a customized notification (called a Toast) to obscure the real interface.

Dec

Awesome: Android-Gingerbread-Skeleton-Zombie Painting Found In The Official Gingerbread SDK

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News, Off-Topic

Google loves putting Easter eggs into their products, and whoever sneaked this late Halloween piece into the official Gingerbread SDK release over at Google is a real master. This is art, people! Found among the boring buttons and icons in the depths of the new Android SDK at this path: platforms\android-9\data\res\drawable-nodpi\platlogo.jpg, this painting is a work of a pure genius:

Source: Android Central

Dec

Walkthrough And Hands-On With The Gingerbread UI And The New Gingerbread Keyboard In All Its Sexiness

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

As you may have seen, Google took the covers off Gingerbread today and released the new SDK, which allowed me to immediately jump into an emulated Gingerbread instance. After playing with the new UI for a while, I've taken a bunch of screenshots, which you can find below, along with some of my notes.

Before I dive into the Gingerbread screenshots, here is a side-by-side comparison of the same Settings screen in Donut (1.6), Froyo (2.2), and Gingerbread (2.3):

^{From left to right: Donut, Froyo, Gingerbread}

As you can see, not much has changed since Froyo, except for most of the elements getting darker and/or greener.

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.

Nov

How To: Install The Android Market In The Android Emulator

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News, Tips & Tutorials

Ever since I started developing Android apps, I've been baffled by the absence of the actual Android Market in the Android SDK. None of the virtual devices created for the emulator have the Market anywhere in the vicinity. Maybe Google is trying to reserve it for actual devices, so that you don't go rating or trying out apps on something that isn't even a real phone, but it makes it quite inconvenient for us developers because we can't easily install our favorite apps, such as the Astro file manager or DiskUsage. With necessary limitations in place (like disabling the rating functionality), Google should have included the Market app as part of the SDK to make the emulator experience closer to real life.

Nov

PapayaMobile Announces A 3D Scripting Runtime Game Engine For Android, Integration With The Social SDK

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, News

Papaya Mobile, the maker of the popular Papaya game and the social SDK behind it, today announced the upcoming release of the Papaya Game Engine for Android. The new engine is completely free to use and offers a number of benefits to developers looking to write Android games. It isn't available for download just yet, but it should be available shortly.

Before I proceed to the features, have a look at this quick video showing Papaya's 3D aquarium developed using the new engine in about 2 weeks.

So what are some cool things about the new engine?

it's free
it lets you write OpenGL 3D applications using PapayaMobile's scripting support.

Nov

ADT (Android Dev Tools) Source Code Commits Suggesting Imminent Gingerbread SDK Release?

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Gingerbread 2.3, News

Today, I was looking at the Android Development Tools (ADT) commit history, as I normally do on a Tuesday morning at 3am, and I noticed something that made my heart skip a few beats. But let me back up for a second.

Every Android SDK release is normally accompanied by an ADT release that adds support for the new functionality and fixes existing bugs. ADT, in turn, is an Eclipse plugin, which is essentially a set of developer tools for one of the best free open source editors out there (that's Eclipse), which also happens to be the IDE of choice of Android core developers.

Nov

3 Years Ago, The World Saw Android For The First Time, And This Is What It Looked Like. Happy 3rd Birthday, Andy!

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Editorials, News

Exactly 3 years ago, on November 5th, 2007, Google, along with its partners, publicly announced 2 very important things: the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and Android. Up until that pivotal moment, the media speculated on the existence of a mysterious gPhone and not many were prepared for something that turned out to be much-much bigger.

Brief Android History

I know that there is some confusion around Android related dates, so let me explain, in my favorite bullet point style:

In July of 2005, Google acquired Android, which was a very small mobile oriented startup.
In the 2 year period following the acquisition, rumors regarding Google's possible entrance into the mobile phone market were aplenty, but the confirmation didn't arrive until November 5th, 2007.

Oct

Rumor: Android Gingerbread SDK To Drop Next Week

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3

Take this with a large grain of salt as it's just a rumor at this point, but one of our sources very close to the Android core who has been testing and working with Gingerbread for quite a while recently shared a little tidbit of info. According to the source, we won't have to wonder what exactly Gingerbread, the next Android OS, is going to bring to the table for too long because the Gingerbread SDK is going to go public next week.

Getting access to the latest revision of the Android SDK means we'll find out all the new API calls showing new OS functionality and, more importantly, will have access to the latest emulator showing exactly what the stock Android Gbread will look like.