Now I want to install my own developed app on smart phones with android os or ios. Since my app will do many mathematical calculations, thus I want to use off-the-shelf math libraries like Atlas and MKL, could any one tell me whether I can use these libraries on smart phones?
MKL seems not to be available yet:
https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/281168
ATLAS should build in the Android NDK (i.e., Native Development Kit)...
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1046726/414125
...unless it relies on System V calls for something:
http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/faq.html#where
In general, however, you may want to architect your app to do any serious number crunching on the cloud. Android is power-optimized, so even if you succeed in installing one of these libraries, they probably will end up performing poorly and using too much power.
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I am developing a program that is going to be very performance-intense for Android/smartphones. Because I do this on a pc (Windows) I do not really know how my application will perform on a mobile device. I do not want to port this program to android until I have a good working version for Windows (this will be my first Android-app and I don't want to try to troubleshoot something when I'm not even sure whether my program is working).
I am searching for some database where I can compare pc-GPUs with mobile GPUs. I know that an accurate comparison is difficult between such different architectures, however, a small hint about the expected performance would be very helpful.
By the way, I am developing on a machine with an integrated Intel® HD Graphics 4400 and ideally, I want to compare it to something like an Adreno 306.
Rather than using benchmarks for the GPU, look at existing cross-platform applications with similar performance and see how it compares. Install it on your computer to make sure the intensiveness is similar (using whatever benchmarks you want), then install it on your android device to see if it can keep up to your expectations. You can find benchmarking apps or you can use the profilers on Android Studio to see how the device in question is handling the application.
This is about as good as you're going to get. Like you said, so much relies on the implementation and the vastly different architecture. Lastly, if you're building on a framework that builds to other platforms (libgdx, xamarin, etc), you should present a specific question to other users of that framework.
I am pondering the idea of a Wine-ish compatibility layer on Android.
The idea is to run Symbian apps on it as both OSes share ARM hardware.
I have no knowledge of Symbian but I think that given the hardware capabilities of Android devices this could be done with less effort than Wine's windows emulation.
What would be the most significant difference to overcome in this emulator? (threading, storage, ...)
The real problem is not going to be code execution, but the API's to do things like graphics, interact with hardware, accept input, etc. If you have documentation of the original and android has the capability, API translation layers would be possible.
But android's security model outright prevents a number of things that are possible on other phone platforms, and combined with it's "java apis only" allows only inefficient means of doing things that can be done more efficiently on others.
This is of course all about application-level emulation/api translation. If you are willing to modify the android platform itself, supporting just about anything else for which you have documentation (and licensing?) within the hardware capability of the device should be possible.
Hardware capabilities of a device have nothing to do with complexity of an emulator to be hosted. It depends on Symbian's design and complexity.
And, even more, licencing. Even if one could make a Symbian emulator for Android, its legality would be questioned.
It's difficult to answer your question in detail, but since Symbian is open sourced (and Android too), if you've got the time, it shouldn't be too hard to see what sets them apart.
QT is used for the latest symbian OS, and has been ported to Android, you could write apps in QT build for each platform
the problem for writing an emulatir are variouss.
If the Symbian apps are written in in an interpreter language like Basic or similar then an emulator couldn't be too difficult to write. I did such stuff once to make the same code run on linux and windows, and I used a translation API for all calles coming from the software directed to UI, input/output.
I wound guess that the UI capabilities of Symbian are a subset of the Android functions so it would be not too difficult to write a WINE alike thing or an interpreter that runs the Symbian code on different hardware - IF it is only in high language.
But be aware there could be some machine code in the appps and that is processor specific. Most of the Android tabs nowadays run on Tegra, Tegra2 or (soon) on Tegra3, some may run on StrongArm or Arm, some may run on Intel Atom (x86 architechture), so this might get more or less impossible if the CPU isn't binary compatible like ARM / ATOM. Then you need to emulate the CPU as well and that might eat so much performance that you need a 4-5 times stronger machine to run that stuff smoothly.
It won't be too difficult to crack Android to execute Linux-alike binaries, but for sure this "mod" will affect the ability to use or download stuff from regular appstores.
With some apps you might have even more headache, e.G. my MP3 player from Korea runs on Strongarm, but it also executes Flash games from various sources. When there is no Flash player - and Google announced something like dropping support for Adobe Flash - it won't be usable.
The "most wanted" is obviously the Ovi Maps, probably that stuff could be easily converted to another app having offline navigation capability :-) People wrote "Gaia" some years ago, an open source viewer for Google Earth (and later forced to give up) so it can't bee too difficult to realize at least this.
I have been developing for Android since some time now and I found Java as proper way of doing development in it. But, now there are number of options available for developing in Android such as Titanium, PhoneGap and Adobe AIR.
The question is who will come as a winner for Android development. I have read lot of comparisons between Titanium, PhoneGap and native Android development. Now, with Adobe entering into it too, what is the future of Android Developers who develop with Java as the programming language.
Since, if one can develop for Iphone and Android with Titanium and Adobe AIR then why will one want to waste time and money for separate development.
The biggest reason I can think of is that using the native language/libraries of the platform (in this case iPhone or Android) is that it will allow you to provide a user interface/experience that is more in line with what the system designers intended over what will likely be possible with something like Adobe AIR.
That doesn't necessarily mean that AIR is bad, or that you might not be able to develop a good application, but since you'd be targeting multiple platforms with the same application code, and each platform has it's own subtle (or major) differences that you can't always account for, you will inevitably be forced to take a "least common denominator" approach to building an application that will run on all of your target platforms and behave consistently across them as well. This might not sit well with some users who expect a certain level of capability as you may not give them a consistent user experience compared to other native applications.
This is a long-standing issue with cross-platform application development -- the design philosophies and behavior of each system are intentionally different (otherwise why would anyone use them?), so your bound to run into problems making an application work 100% the same across them all.
As someone that has done cross-platform development in the past, I can say that while you can do it well in some cases, and using something like Adobe AIR might be a good avenue towards getting more familiar with a particular platform, but a lot of times it's just more prudent to buckle down and build an app using a system's native libraries/languages over a cross-platform solution.
It is quite simple actually. Developing an Android application using Java (the normal APIs) will allow you to a) target possibly all Android devices as all share the same base API and b) it won't put limitations on your application (or at least no limitations with the only limitation being the API).
Now PhoneGap, Titanium and Senza are all web-based frameworks which have certain limitations. You can't access certain functions of your phone as they simply are not some kind of replacement API it's just a framework.
Now Adobe AIR is another story. I'm not sure what functional limitations Adobe AIR will have but I know that there is quite a limitation when it comes to what devices you can target. There are some minimum requirements for Adobe AIR to operate which are
Android Device Requirements for Adobe
AIR
Google Android 2.2 Operating system
ARMv7-A Processor OpenGL ES2.0 H.264 &
AAC H/W Decoders 256 MB of RAM
Which means you can target devices with earlier API versions.
Titanium compiles to native platform controls, but you must to use web languages like HTML and js to develop your application.
With special version for each platform you can design UI following system guidelines.
There seems to be an overall confusion regarding what Titanium is... It compiles to native platform controls.
The majority of the respondents have incorrectly stated that it is web based and that is not true.
However, that is true when it comes to phoneGap
Has anybody blogged about this comparison, or does anyone want to give it a shot here? Would be nice to see some reasoned thoughts on Adobe AIR on Android vs. the "native" Android SDK (in Java).
Edit: Despite few views and no answers, I'm leaving this question up here since it's a topic that needs to be covered at some point... but if it gets no attention I'll delete it in a few days.
I think it's ultimately very similar to the question of whether to use AIR or Java for a desktop application. Ultimately it comes down to three points:
Does AIR do everything you need? Obviously the android SDK gives you complete access to device capabilities, but AIR purposely doesn't, in order to stay portable. For example, AIR may not support intents, at least initially (I don't think Adobe has announced yet one way or the other). Also, AIR requires Android 2.2. If those limitations are troublesome, regular android SDK may be best.
Are you looking to make something that would be well-suited to doing in Flash? If you're planning a design-heavy app with animations, video, sound, or the like, then building it in Flash may be significantly easier than using Java. On the other hand, if your app will be pure code using only standard visual components, then it might not make a lick of difference which platform you use. Or on the gripping hand, if you'd have existing Flash animations or the like, then trying to shoehorn them into a Java app will be bothersome.
Are you targeting other platforms besides Android? If so, AIR may be a big win, as the same app content should run on windows, mac, linux, and later on, other devices that plan to support AIR, like Blackberry, some TVs, blu-ray disc players, etc. If you are only targeting Android, AIR may lose some of its appeal.
I hope that helps some. Realistically, unless you're effectively locked out of using AIR because you need something it doesn't give you, or effectively locked into using AIR because you're doing design-heavy work and you need the tooling, then I think the pros and cons of the two SDKs are largely questions of convenience. Either platform will work, so it's merely which will get you to the finish line the fastest and most reliably.
One issue to consider is compatibility with Android devices. Both fancy smart phones and cheap phones run in Android, but they don't have the same capabilities. Even if you application is simple or can be done beautifully in AIR, its relevant to mention that AIR is not compatible to all Android devices.
Some very popular devices currently sold (such as Samsung ACE and other "cheap" devices) use ArmV6 chips, and AIR or Flash are not compatible to this architectures, even when running on Android 2.2 or so.
AIR is interesting because same development works in different technologies, but consider that AIR doesn't run on "old" iPhones either, its only guarantied to work on new technology with big processors.
Check this Adobe link http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/certified_devices/
AIR should be ruled out in your decision of technology if in your requirements you are targeting as much phones as possible, including those that are not so fancy or new.
I have experience with AIR mostly and little with Android SDK when I was building a native extension to AIR. My biggest hurdle with AIR is it's immaturity, it's bugs, and it's inconsistent behavior. Yes, you can go to the shiny page at adobe.com and see how cool is the AIR... All bright with tons of features which seems to cover all your needs. Yet, once you start building your app you'll find many ugly surprises:
Stage text in not working appropriately. link besides this bug StageText has few other bugs, like behavior in Scroller for instance.
Sound() object doesn't play the stream (it does on emulator only). link
Lack of features like AEC makes AIR useless to whole list of chat applications, as you'll will hear echo and screaming noise. link
Overloaded (and immature for mobile) Flex SDK (I hope folks at Apache will rewrite it from 0 and make it more manageable).
No H264 support on iOS devices: link (yes, I know it's Apple problem, that they want to control HD delivery on their platform, still it's Adobe problem too, as they couldn't fight right to bring their technology to forefront).
Sound object doesn't take variable bidrate (only 44.1KHz is possible). Flash "second generation" Speex codec samples at 16Khz. Now, try playing this back through Sound and you'll enjoy a funny circus. At the end you will need to write your own upsample algorithm.
I'm sure people will add more to this list. So, my answer would be native SDK is more preferable for anything serious. You won't work like a QA person with it - testing countless little examples trying to understand why an AIR feature not working, shuffling internet for answers and looking at AIR bug database... only to find that critical bugs are sitting there from release to release. That is my experience with AIR. Going native SDK makes your application not really "cross-platform", but AIR SDK can't claim this title anyway for anything more serious then couple of "Employee directory" examples. And if you will need to build for the other platform, you will just use native tools for it.
GL.
I am going to develop a handheld device which has an Atom processor. I am thinking of using Android embedded OS for running telecom applications on this device. I have heard from my friends that Android is good for wireless applications. But my device does not need any wireless application. I will need only data (ping, traceroute...), IPTV and VoIP applications to run on this device. So is it advisable to use Android for my device?
In my opinion the biggest benefit you get from running a OS like Android as opposed to a tailored Linux distribution are:
An application ecosystem, that integrates well
A UI environment suitable for small screens
An Application SDK that makes developing new apps pretty straightforward
Drawbacks of using Android IMHO:
No standard libc. That means you will have to do some porting, to get mplayer or something similar to play your media content
Way less libraries than you have, when you use a "regular" Linux distribution
You can only create apps with UIs using Java (well there are other possibilities but you probably wouldn't do it)
It comes down to choosing what hurts less. My estimate if you have powerful hardware and a big screen (the combination of Atom and IPTV sounds like that) than using a LFS (Linux From Scratch), Ubuntu or something similar and create a flashy UI on top of that (using QT, OpenGL, GTK, Swing, ...) is less pain than porting your libs & apps to Android.
Of course you loose the sexy Android label which decreases probability of making it to Engadget :-)
Have fun tinkering!
Android uses a Linux kernel, and is designed to support Java applications. So perhaps you need to consider whether Linux and Java are suited to your application. You may be better off with a straight Linux kernel.