I have an old Kindle Fire HD device (running FireOS), which I do not use anymore.
Now I would like to test it for my mobile app development in regards to Android. I read about being able to run Android, instead of FireOS (which for sure is unsupported by Amazon).
However I wonder, whether it is possible to install something like a boot loader in order to be able to switch to different Android OS versions?
Yes, it is posible on certain devices using specialized kernel with multiboot feature, for example Siyah kernel for SGS3. I don't know anything about kernel with this feature for Kindle HD.
Maybe it's possible to run multiboot by modifying /etc/fstab...
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I am building an application with React Native but the app not working well on a few android devices. So I need to see what's going wrong but I don't know how to set up an emulator for a specific device. Are these problems depends on phone's brand and model or it just depends on their android versions?
Its not really possible. There's two major problems:
Software. Real devices don't ship pure AOSP like runs on the emulator. They add patches and features and there's no way to know what they actually run.
Custom UIs. Many phones provide custom UIs like TouchWhiz and the like which can override Android behavior
Hardware. If your app depends on things that are very hardware specific, like GPS or Camera, they could have issues due to hardware bugs.
If you just want to emulate a specific OS version like KitKat, or specific low memory conditions its possible via emulator configuration. If you really need to test on a device, either buy one or use a service that allows you remote control over specific devices. Amazon has a nice device farm that you can rent over AWS.
One of the biggest challenges when developing for Android is the wide variety of devices and "optimizations" manufacturers make to their Android versions.
The Android emulator is based on AOSP (vanilla Android) and was only recently published with Google services included. This is the most clean version of Android. You can use the emulator to test UI scaling for different screen sizes but it will always behave like an AOSP Android. Google packs a bunch of hardware configurations into Android Studio which you can simply select when creating an virtual device. You can always create a custom hardware profile with custom screen size and resolution. Some manufacturers also change the DPI value of the OS causing the UI to be bigger or smaller, keep this in mind when creating a custom hardware configuration.
Further, you can use the emulator to test the default behaviour on different Android versions. Again, manufacturers change their Android usually causing slightly different behaviour.
I assume that your question is focussed on different behaviour of e.g. Samsung phones having crashes only occuring in Samsung phones (Samsung can be exchanged with any other brand here). Unfortunately, there is no simple way to test this but getting your hands on the faulty device. One option is to use a cloud based test lab (e.g. Firebase Test Lab, App Center or AWS device farm) to test your code on the faulty device or rent the device at a local shop. Most bigger cities have companies renting phones and tablets on a daily or weekly basis.
In the end you will need if statements checking for a specific device, manufacturer or Android version or any combination of them and doing something slightly different to fix the undesired behaviour.
I know that this is not the answer you are looking for, but it's the best I can offer. To tell a little tale of my worst experience: I had once a bug were calling a crypto function caused a kernel panic on HTC (?) phones. This means the user opened my app and the phone rebooted. I was required to implement the entire encryption logic again just for HTC with Android 6.0.
I've never made an app before and am looking to get into it. I also need to upgrade my phone because it's really old. I've heard people say that it is best to test your app on stock android. But I really wanted to buy a Huawei, which might be running an older version of android not stock. What extra benefit would I get by spending the extra $500 to buy a Google Pixel phone for testing. Or is it fine, if I go ahead and test my app on a Huawei? What would be the pros and cons?
Android is an open-source operating system, which means companies can modify it to their liking. They do so by adding what’s known as a custom skin or user interface on top of the OS, which changes its look and feel as well as adds new features. These skins include Samsung Experience, HTC Sense, EMUI (Huawei), and OxygenOS (OnePlus), to name a few.
Some skins, like Huawei’s EMUI, change the overall Android experience quite a bit. For example, until EMUI 5.0 came along, owners of Huawei smartphones didn’t have an app drawer. All the apps installed on a device were placed on the home screen, just like on iPhones.
With stock Android, you get none of that — you only get the features developed by Google.
You can see the comparison of "Stock OS" and "Forked OS" here
https://www.androidauthority.com/what-is-stock-android-845627/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-stock-android/
With stock android, you get updates a little faster than other OS.
Coming to your scenario, you can even test an Android App without a physical device and by using Android's Emulator(Virtual Device) which has an Android Stock OS. You can select any version of Android(latest to old) and test your app there. If you are looking only for the purpose of testing I would not recommend you to buy PIXEL you can go ahead with your instincts.
People say it is best to test your app on stock android because the functionality you implement in pure android must work in the other OS as it is a layer on top of the stock OS but there are some chances(very few & negligible) that the functionality you implement in other OS might not work in stock OS. You can always use an Emulator for testing.
I am an Android developer. In my 5 years experience, I used both pixel and Oneplus, I did not find any advantages for stock android over Oneplus's Oxygen Os.
I have a Nexus 5 and want to begin making apps in the future, but I personally want to use CM instead of the stock OS.
Can you test android apps on CM and is it representative of how apps would behave on the stock OS?
Yes you can test apps on Cyanogenmod.
Remember that Android is an open source system and that Cyanogenmod is possible because of the fact that Android is open source. If you look at Smart phone makers like Oppo are actually using Cyanogenmod in their phones.
Android APK's can be tested on pretty much any device that is capable of running that APK.
For example if you make an android Game that supports lots of devices then yes but if you make a highly demanding game that supports only high end devices then you can only test on those high end devices.
http://www.techlivewire.com/tag/android
My boss recently gave me an HTC Wildfire phone for doing an Android version of one of our mobile apps, which is all fine and good, except that the app requires API level 8 (ie Android 2.2), and the phone itself only has Android 2.1 installed. After much googling, I discovered that this phone does support Android 2.2, and carriers will be rolling out updates over the air for this model phone "in the near future".
Since I'm not entirely certain what our lazy carrier's definition of "near future" is, it would be nice if I could download images for particular releases and install them on my phone. Coming from the world of the iPhone, it seems that this should be something rather necessary in order to successfully develop an Android app.
Yet, it doesn't seem that Google offers any Android OS updates themselves. Have I no choice but to wait for the carrier to release an update?
Edit: Thanks for the suggestions regarding the emulator, but I'm asking about testing on hardware only. I already have a working 2.2 emulator image, but I need to test on hardware now, since the emulator does a very poor job of things like video playback and audio processing.
There's a few ways you can test your application on Android 2.2:
1) You can use the Emulator provided by Google in the SDK. It is possible to create a virtual machine of any version of Android with various hardware options. However, the emulator does have some limitations such as not supporting certain hardware options (such as bluetooth) and it's also dreadfully slow to boot.
2) If you have to use an actual phone with 2.2, you can root your phone and flash a custom ROM. I'm not particularly familiar with how to root the Wildfire, or what custom ROMs are available for that specific phone, but Cyanogen Mod has pretty good ROM support for HTC phones, as well as an active forum with tutorials.
No, it's not possible to download images before OTA. You could check CyanogemMod from time to time - they're working on Wildfire support. Also you could use an emulator.
If you are wanting to bounce around with newer versions, I recommend the Nexus One as a dev phone if you can get your hands on one. Or, if you can deal with the constraints, start with a built-in AVD emulator with API 8 until your phone gets the OTA update.
The Motorola Droid is also getting/has 2.2 on it. At least in the States, in seems that most of the phones on Verizon already have it (non-scientific, just from talking to people I know). So if that phone is available, it may be a decent choice.
I am an iphone application developer, all iphones have very similar Operating systems, and the size and everything is the same, so I don't need to create applications specific for each iphone.
But with android there are different phones, different sizes, So How can I possibly know that my app works, and looks fine on all these devices
I don't already own an android but I completed my first application using the simulator. Which android phone do u suggest for testing? I am an AT&T user and Iuse an iphone. Can I simply insert my sim-card in the new android to be able to test my app on the device?
The android virtual device lets you change the virtual hardware to match all of the current shipping phones. There are ways to receive device crash reports from a shipped application to help diagnose force closes or other grievous errors.
You need an unlocked phone to use another SIM card. The Nexus One is available unlocked out of the gate, and comes with an AT&T version. The only AT&T (as sold by AT&T) Android phone (Backflip) is stupidly crippled and should be avoided. You can also buy an Android Dev Phone, which is currently "middle of the pack" in terms of hardware. You can also easily find numerous other Android capable handsets - pick depending on your target market. Some phones are now old: for instance, the G1 is on its way out.
you won't need to worry about different screen size . take a look at Supporting Multiple Screen article . I'm not sure for the late ones because I'm also working with Android Emulator .
1 - Take a look at this Google IO session for load of tips on making your app work across devices. It's not that hard at all really
2 - I'd recommend the Nexus One if you need a phone just to develop on. It's representative of what you'll be seeing in devices in the coming years. If you want a current representative phone take a look at the HTC Legend (Mid-end) or the HTC Wildfire (Low-end). There's also the Droid and things like that but you can only get them on Verizon I think. I'm not too knowledgeable about availability in the US, I'm from the UK.