Android-iPhone-Smart Phone-Applications: November 2012

Friday, November 23, 2012

Are Mobile Apps Here To Stay?

A mobile app is similar to a website in its overall design; however a mobile website is a conversion of a typical website forcing it to fit on a mobile platform. A mobile website cannot take advantage of all the functionality of a mobile device and is generally cumbersome in its access and use. It is good that so many people today see phones as devices for more than just calling or texting, and the iPhone and its suite of native apps is largely to thank for this.

A mobile app is software designed to take advantage of the functionality a mobile device has, while providing content significant to a potential customer. If you want to keep pace with the mobile wave that is being driven from the use of Smart phones by your employees, keeping with these demands is becoming increasingly difficult. This certainly seems to be the case with companies who are struggling to mobilise their workforce.

A mobile device can interact with customers and provide two-way communication. This gives a business owner the power to control their market offerings in real time, for example: A business can decide to run a special for one hour during the day and be able to communicate this offering to their customers immediately.

Apps are used to get the news, communicate with friends, check flight times, share photos, get recipes, listen to music, and of course play games. It is easy to see how someone may get into trouble with spending too much time and money on apps. A business app can build customer loyalty.

Mobile apps and push notifications are a great way to communicate offers, specials, events and more, to your customers. The emergence of mobile marketing is in its early stages and is a new interactive approach to marketing. This is a way to create interaction with your customers and also see immediate results.

Is the mobile app destined to be a transitory phenomenon, something that will fade away as mobile browsers become capable of delivering the same functionality? A mobile app can provide value for a business. In addition the trends are showing that the mobile app market is just beginning and will explode within the next eighteen months. The truth is – mobile is here to stay and there is no escaping that fact. The mobile landscape is evolving fast so ensure that your mobile applications that you build can be upgraded to advanced versions later when newer technologies come up within the mobile field.

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Getting Started with Android Development

Since I’ve been following this blog, I’ve never read a post related to Android application / game development. So I thought writing something in that area would be helpful to any beginner. Android is an amazing and fun platform to work on. Anyone can come up with their own unique idea, create a good product and make it available to thousands and thousands of customers.

In this tutorial, we will create a “Hello World” Android app, get it working on the emulator or a device if you have one, and create a simple master/detail app that shows a list of quotes by our favorite hero, Steve Jobs. I’ll even show you how to build the app for distribution on the Google Market! And yes, it is a little ironic to make a Steve Jobs quote app on an Android device, but hey this is mainly an iOS blog after all. So keep reading to dive into the wild world of Android!

Anyone who wants to buy an android device has a large variety to choose from. There are more than 300 android devices in the market each with their own hardware features. If your primary concern is development, get the best phone that matches the lowest API level that you wish your software to support, so you can test with it. Use the emulator to test other API levels. If your primary concern is having a good phone, get the best phone and use the emulator to test other API levels.

For app development, it doesn’t really matter which phone you get aside from API levels, for game development you might want the slowest phone that you intend to support so you are forced to write efficient code. Considering all this if you want to buy a phone for software development I recommend buying the Samsung Galaxy Ace, Htc Wildfire S, or Motorola Droid X2. Any should meet your development needs, and you can pick up a fairly inexpensive used one from the links above.

However if you’re looking for the latest and greatest, I recommend Google’s new Galaxy Nexus. This just came out in December and is one of the most powerful devices out there, and is running the latest version of Android (Ice Cream Sandwich).

content from http://www.raywenderlich.com/5527/getting-started-with-android-development

Android platform - The most Preferred

Android is open source platform and provides all information and services to all sans any license fees. It has capacity of getting compatible with almost all browsers hence you can make it compatible with any browser. Competition between mobile developers is increasing due to new versions of mobile platforms developed in the market. No doubt that everyone wants to and tries to corner Androids sizable portion of market share. This open source platform attracts android application developers to build fabulous mobile applications. This is the main reason for Android, since its launch Android has become vastly popular and admired by many mobile application development communities.

Android mobile platform consists of Android operating system and Android SDK as well as android middleware. SDK is the basic platform which provides android app developer required tools and technical support for developing apps and APIs. The best thing about Android is, it is based on Linux platform hence it facilitates absolutely easy accessibility to environment and the core functionality for building fabulous applications for the smart mobile phones. It has capacity of scaling up from its current level and provides the best solutions.

Android platform is powerful in providing accurate information required by users with quick information gathering techniques. It has capacity of greatly reducing development time and efforts required and this helps in completing the project quickly and easily. This will help you to stay ahead of your competitors all the time. Android Development tools are easy to use and implementation so any android app programmer can use this platform quire easily. It does not require learning any language for Android application development and one can easily perform better with the existing knowledge and ability or qualification. The following are the reasons why it is preferred by many of the Android developers / users:

* Biggest advantage is Android is an open platform and free. So many manufacturers can design a variety of software loaded on the Android system.

* Android display system can be changed to horizontal or vertical, making it easier for the user in finding an adequate picture.

* If one has a phone with Android consistently then s/he can download and install several free programs for Android and can open many windows at once.

* Many Android applications have been, until April 2011 has reached 250,000 applications for Android. With the support of many applications, the user can change the screen display.

* Android phones can also function as a router to share Internet.

* The ability for anyone to customize the Google Android platform will open up the applications playing field to small and new players who lack the financial muscle to negotiate with wireless carriers like AT&T and Orange.

* The consumer will benefit from having a wide range of mobile applications to choose.

* Although this will depend on the carrier, one will be able to customize a mobile phones using Android platform like never before, right down to the screen.

* Features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS feeds and even the icons on the opening screen will be able to be customized.

* As a result of many mobile phones carrying Android, companies has come up with such innovative products like the location aware services that will provide users with any information they might be in need of.

* This information could help developing further apps like knowing the location of a nearby convenience store or filling station.

content from http://mobileappsinfo.blogspot.in/2012/06/android-platform-most-preferred.html

A newbie’s guide to Android development

Android is a great platform. The development tools are free, all the documentation is online, and you don’t need to purchase a special developer phone or register your hardware as a development device. In fact, thanks to the very slick and functional emulator that comes with the Android SDK, you don’t even have to own an Android-powered device (not that I recommend releasing an app without running it on real hardware).

There are more guides on the Internet for setting up an Android development environment than your average java-script program has semicolons. And not only are there just as many tutorials for writing an Android version of the revered “Hello World!” program, but there is actually a wizard included with the Android Eclipse plug-in that will generate it for you.

Yet despite the wide availability of information and a low-to-no startup cost, I still hear complaints from new developers and experienced developers transitioning to Android from another platform that it’s overwhelming to know where to start. Setting up a development environment and writing a “Hello World” app is vastly different from understanding Android conceptually, and the unique approach required to writing an app that does something useful. I get asked all the time what an Android project looks like, how the layout manager works, and what are the overriding design best practices for implementing Android applications.

My goal with this guide is to answer some of the common questions, and also open a dialogue with TechRepublic readers. I’d like to hear lingering questions of developers new to Android, as well as insights from experienced Android developers. Perhaps collectively we can make the road to creating that first killer app a little smoother.

content from http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/app-builder/a-newbies-guide-to-android-development/1216

Android SDK Tools, Revision 21

Along with the Android 4.2 SDK, we also launched a brand new update of the Android SDK Tools (Revision 21). The update includes new tools and capabilities that can help you work more efficiently as you create applications. Tools such as a new multi-config editor, and new Lint rules will help you develop apps more quickly, while a new UI test framework will give you more ways automate testing and QA for your apps. For new developers, one-click SDK download and new app templates help you get started more quickly.

Multi-config editor

A new multi-configuration editor allows you to develop and prototype your UI across various orientations, screen sizes and locales. For example, while editing your layout in portrait mode, you can see if your edits aren't visible in the shorter landscape orientation. You can see previews for other screen sizes from small phones to large tablets, you can see previews for the layout using all the available language translations in your app, and so on. You can even see how the layout appears when it is included as a fragment in a different larger layout. Finally, Android allows you to create specialized layouts for any of these configurations, and the multi configuration editor shows you these overridden layouts.

Here is a screenshot of the layout editor showing one of the layouts from the Google I/O application, across a variety of screen sizes.

More app templates

Tools R21 brings three new app templates to help you to easily add new screens to your app. There’s a new full-screen activity for use as a photo or video viewer, a settings activity to handle basic user preferences and a login activity to capture username/password.

UI Automator Test Framework

One common approach to UI testing is to run tests manually and verify that the app is behaving as expected. UI Automator is a new software testing framework available in Tools R21 that provides you with tools to easily automate UI testing tasks. It provides a GUI tool to scan and analyze the UI components of an Android application (uiautomatorviewer), a library containing APIs to create customized functional UI tests, and an execution engine to automate and run the tests against multiple physical devices. UI Automator runs on Android 4.1 (API level 16) or higher. To learn more head over to the UI Testing documentation.

One-click SDK installer

New Android SDK developers now have a convenient way to download all the various SDK components like Tools, Platform Tools, Eclipse ADT, and the latest system image with a single click. Existing developers can continue to manage their SDK components and get updates through the SDK Manager.

Revamped AVD creation dialog

The new dialog makes it easier to create Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) matching real device profiles. The AVDs will also appear in the layout editor to show you how the layouts will look.

More Lint rules

And to wrap things up there are 25 new lint rules which catch several common sources of bugs, for example deviations from Android design guide for icons, checks for mismanaged wakelocks, common sources of locale-related bugs and so on. So make sure you upgrade and let Lint loose on your projects before your next app update!

content from http://android-developers.blogspot.in