New Resources for Developers

We're back in action after a Thanksgiving break filled with turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. Now it's the holiday season (at least, here in the U.S.) and we're filled with good will toward developers. Today I wanted to talk about a couple things we just finished polishing up.First, the Android 1.0 SDK, release 2 is now available. Like the previous 1.0_r1 release, this new 1.0_r2 build creates applications that are compatible with Android 1.0 devices,...

Touch Mode

Designing and developing user interfaces for Android is very different from doing so in a regular desktop environment. Because Android runs applications on mobile devices, application designers and developers must deal with numerous constraints that are not always obvious. To help you design and develop better applications, we are publishing a new series of posts focusing on Android user interfaces....

Behind the apps: Amazed

This week's developer video features Jason Tomlinson of Hands-On Mobile. He wrote Amazed, an application open sourced in the apps-for-android project. Things Jason mentions in the videos include:Amazed was built primarily to get familiar with the accelerometer. This helped him in his work on Guitar Hero® World Tour Mobile for Android.Using traceview to track down which methods take the most CPU cycles.This and other Android developer videos can be...

Behind the apps: Amazon and imeem

Last week we introduced a couple Android developers who shared how they built their Android apps and gave their insight into Android app development. This week, we have videos of two developers who've built music-related apps.The first is of Allan Hsu—he wrote imeem's Android app. A couple of things he mentions in his videos:Using SQLite databases and regular expressionsCompleting the app, including rewriting many of their Activities and web service...

The stories behind the apps

As we mentioned yesterday, the Android Market is now open for developers to upload their applications. I'm pretty excited because Market, along with the availability of the first Android-powered phone and the Android 1.0 SDK, puts the basic pieces of the Android platform into place for developers to create and distribute their apps.To help developers better understand what's available to them, we've collected stories from some Android application...

Android Market: Now available for users

Last month I outlined some details around Android Market. Today, Android Market launched for users to download applications along with the first Android-powered phone—the T-Mobile G1.With Android Market, users can easily download apps to their Android-powered phone. Users can also rate the apps they've downloaded and leave comments. These users' ratings along with anonymous usage statistics help determine...

New Android Maps API Terms of Service and Key Enforcement

When we released the 0.9_r1 beta SDK, we mentioned that the Maps API included with Android would soon require an API key to function correctly and load map tiles. Part of the reason for this was that the Terms of Service (ToS) for the Maps API had not been finalized.Today, I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the new Android Maps API ToS are now finalized and they're actually pretty exciting. Most of the restrictions present in the old ToS are...

Android is now Open Source

Over the past year, we announced Android, released several SDKs (eventually resulting in the 1.0 SDK), gave out the first half of the $10,000,000 prize money for the Android Developer Challenge, and prepared the first Android-powered device for users. Tomorrow, the T-Mobile G1 goes on sale.But today, we're making what might just be the most exciting announcement of all: we and our Open Handset Alliance...

Announcing the Android 1.0 SDK, release 1

About this time last year, my colleagues and I were preparing for the first of the "early look" SDK releases. I remember being a little freaked out—November 12 was starting to sound awfully close! But I think I can safely speak for the entire Android team when I say that we were all very excited about that upcoming release. In the year since, we've run and concluded the first Android Developer Challenge, given away $5,000,000, released more SDK builds,...

Panoramio

The Panoramio web site has a great collection of photos from all over the world, and they also have a very convenient web API. I thought it would be a lot of fun to use Android to access this content while you are out walking around – and especially to have Android find interesting photos based on your current location. The resulting open source application is now available in the apps-for-android...

Using WebViews

I've written a small application called WebViewDemo that shows how you can add web content to your application. You can find it in the apps-for-android project. This application demonstrates how you can embed a WebView into an activity and also how you can have two way communication between your application and the web content. A WebView uses the same rendering and JavaScript engine as the browser,...

Divide and Conquer

Years ago I was addicted to a simple game that I played on my then state-of-the-art Pentium-75. In this game, balls would bounce around, and I would try to partition them into small enough spaces so that I could go to the next level where more and more balls would be added. As of a couple of months ago, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of this game. So when I sat down to write an...

Three new Samples: Triangle, SpriteText and Downloader

I've posted three new open source samples to the apps-for-android project: Triangle, SpriteText and Downloader.The first two samples, Triangle and SpriteText, show techniques that would be useful to anyone using the OpenGL ES 3D graphics APIs to write Android applications. The samples contain several reusable classes that may eventually be incorporated (in some form) into the SDK. Chief among these...

Android Photostream

I'm pleased to announce that a new open source sample application—called Photostream—has been added to the apps-for-android project. Photostream is a simple photos browser and viewer for Flickr. All you need to use it is a Flickr screen name or user name (the application offers a default user name if you just want to try it.)This application serves as an illustrative example of several Android features...

Presenting the Winners of the Android Developer Challenge I

Since we started the first Android Developer Challenge late last year, we all have been eager to see who the winners of $275,000 and $100,000 would be. All 50 applications that emerged from Round 1 of ADC I showed great promise, and these teams have been working intensely for the past several months to polish their apps for the final round.Similar to round 1 we sent laptops preconfigured with the...

Android Market: a user-driven content distribution system

When we talk to developers, a common topic is the challenge of getting applications in the hands of users. That's why today I'm happy to share early details of Android Market—an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices. The concept is simple: leverage Google's expertise in infrastructure,...

Some information on APIs removed in the Android 0.9 SDK beta

Earlier this week, we released a beta of the Android SDK. In the accompanying post, I mentioned that we had to remove some APIs from the platform for Android 1.0, and as a result they don't appear in the 0.9 beta SDK, and won't appear in 1.0-compatible SDKs. Today, I want to take a few minutes to explain why.GTalkServiceWe were all really excited when the "XMPPService" (as it was called, at first) was included in the first early-look SDK. Once...

Announcing a beta release of the Android SDK

I'm pretty happy today, for two reasons. First, I'm happy because I get to let everyone know that we're releasing a beta SDK. You can read about the new Android 0.9 SDK beta at the Android Developers' Site, or if you want to get straight to the bits, you can visit the download page. Once you've got it, be sure to visit our Developer Forum if you have any questions. Back in November, we made some SDK builds available that we referred to as "early...

Android at Google I/O and Developer Days

It was great to connect with everyone at the Google I/O event in San Francisco and at our recent Developer Days across the globe. We enjoyed meeting all of the Android developers and answering your questions - both at our booth and at the fireside chats.For those of you who were unable to attend, all of the sessions are available on video:http://sites.google.com/site/io/Enj...

AndroidGlobalTime

We are pleased to announce that a new open source sample application—called AndroidGlobalTime — has been added to the apps-for-android project. It's a 3D world clock developed by an engineer at Google and may serve as an illustrative example of how to use the OpenGL ES APIs in your Android applications. Just a quick word on how to use AndroidGlobalTime. When you launch it, you'll see a spinning...

Android Developer Challenge Judges and Top 50 Details

It's been a busy few weeks here as we've wrapped up the first round of the Android Developer Challenge. We'd like to share a couple pieces of information with you: The full list of judges is now available. It was fun to work with such a diverse group of judges from different companies all around the world. A slide deck of the Android Developer Challenge prize recipients is also available. The deck includes descriptions and screenshots of the 46 recipients...

A Challenge in More than One Way

Well, the submission deadline for the first Android Developer Challenge has come and gone, the apps are in, the judges are finished, and the waiting is over. We got a lot of great submissions, and I can tell you personally that the competition was fierce. I didn't see all 1,788 submissions, but I saw quite a lot of them, and I uttered more than one wail of despair as some of my favorite submissions didn't quite make the cut, by razor-thin margins...

The Top 50 Applications

As you may have heard, the results from Android Developer Challenge Part 1, Round 1 were announced to all the participants late last week. We're still working on pulling together a more extensive listing for each application that made it into the top 50, but in the spirit of releasing early and often, here's a list containing the name of the application and its author(s):AndroidScan - Jeffrey SharkeyBeetaun - Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri ShipilovBioWallet...

Android Developer Challenge: Round I Results are In

The last few weeks were both extremely intense and rewarding. Based on feedback from the judges, it was apparent that large number of applications were compelling, innovative and well implemented. The quality of these entries clearly reflects the creativity and hard work that developers have invested in building their apps. In addition to developers' participation and contributions, over 100 industry judges around the world spent weeks reviewing...

Android Developers Have Risen to the Challenge

I'm thrilled to share the news that developers from over 70 countries submitted 1,788 entries to the Android Developer Challenge!Here are a few facts that I thought were interesting. When we announced the Android Developer Challenge back in January, developers started submitting entries right away but it wasn't until the April 14 deadline approached that the flood really began. The rate of submissions spiked in the wee hours of Tuesday morning,...

Android Developer Challenge Judges

We have received a few inquiries regarding the judges who will be evaluating entries to the Android Developer Challenge (ADC). All Entries will be judged by a panel of experts in the fields of mobile devices, cellular telecommunications, software development, and/or technology innovation ("Judges"). Google will select the Judges from the member organizations of the Open Handset Alliance, Google and/or mobile experts.As a reminder, the deadline for...

Android University

Spring is on the way, and temperatures are rising. We're no exception, and things are starting to heat up over here in Android-land, too.The Android Developer Challenge deadline is approaching quickly. Wow, that's strange to me. On one hand, we've come so far that the first announcement back on November 12 seems like a prior geologic era, but on the other hand it seems like the Challenge just started! But it's been five months, so it's time to...

Android's First 5 Months

Originally by Sung Hu Kim, Product Marketing Manager for Android, Google mobile team As some of you may have heard, Wireless Week has chosen the Open Handset Alliance and Android for its Emerging Technology Award, noting that "Android's potential promises openness and innovation, perhaps changing not only the mobile Internet but the Internet itself." We at Google would like to congratulate all the members of the Open Handset Alliance and the fantastic...

WikiNotes for Android: Routing Intents

In the last article, we talked about using Linkify to turn wiki words (those that match a regular expression we defined) into a content: URI and defining a path to data that matched a note belonging to that wiki word. As an example, a matching word like ToDoList would be turned into a content: URI like content://com.google.android.wikinotes.db.wikinotes/wikinotes/ToDoList and then acted upon using the VIEW action from the Linkify class.This article...