considering new high-end smartphone, so choices are hard.
Been looking at OnePlus One but it says it's running it's own OS cyanogen which is based off 4.4 .
Question: If I get that phone, can I still develop apps the normal way? or is there any problems that arise?
You can never precisely know what kind of stuff the vendor did.
But... considering that OnePlus One is just an Oppo child brand (used to fool the buyers :) ), it could be assumed that they have some experience in the field and haven't done anything utterly stupid to the native layer that would make it non-usable.
I believe it should be OK, as it is still mostly android, sometime even more orthodox than other vendors.
Related
I am an experienced Apple developer who is looking to develop for Android. I do not currently own any Android devices, so I am considering purchasing a B&N Nook HD for development purposes, which now runs Android. From the research I've done, it seems that the spectrum of Android devices is quite varied and disorganized compared to the Apple world (no offense intended). So, my question is, even though there are better (more expensive, too) devices to purchase (Nexus tablets), will a Nook HD suffice for beginning Android development? By the way, my intentions are to develop mostly tablet utilities with emphasis on networking and data manipulation. I'm not really interested in hardware-specific areas like graphics and sensory input (with the exception of the touchscreen, of course). Thank you for your advice.
In a general sense, yes. Your device will do just fine. However, a caveat is that you must take into consideration the flavor of android you are planning to target. e.g. Working on a Froyo flavor won't necessary guarantee it will run on the latest Jellybean and so on.
Hell, I started developing android almost 2 years ago (but stopped indefinitely) but it was only this year that I took it upon myself to get a PHYSICAL android device when I continued to develop my app. For no particular reason I just dropped by the local gadget mall and randomly picked the Samsung Tab 3. Yes, reviews are bad and it kernel panics a lot but these are trivial things for my specific use.
The one major problem I had? Dealing with REAL input from REAL data on a REAL device. My app worked sufficiently fine on the emulator. When it ran on the Tab it was breaking everywhere!
This is related to question Android Emulator vs Real Device
What is the current state of art of Android emulators and what are the differences that developers should be aware of. I'm working on an app that uses bluetooth and thinking of adding a feature related to phone calling. Since I can't afford to test on all real devices so what should be the guidelines for developer to test such apps on emulators ?
Genymotion rocks. According to the blog post of Cyril Mottier it is even much better then the hardware devices.
http://www.cyrilmottier.com/2013/06/27/a-productive-android-development-environment/
I test basically everything on several real devices. The only thing I use an emulator for is making sure layouts look good on the configurations I don't have available(I don't have a 7" tablet, for instance). This is only after just about everything else is done.
Functionality is going to be nearly the same on any real device, and the emulator is no guarantee, since it doesn't seem to act like any real device in some cases(openGL, for instance).
Testing usability on a desktop with a mouse just doesn't make sense, unless you're writing something that going to be using that input method. There's a big difference between swiping with a finger and click-dragging with a mouse.
Even if you have the fastest emulator/virtualizer in the world, how can it be any faster than just picking up the phone next to you?
We want to place a device in a store that operates as sort of a kiosk device. As in customers walk up to it and start interacting with our custom app. The app could be developed for Android or the iPad, so I'm trying to decide which one to use and would like comments on the following ideas:
Is it possible for Android or iOS to access services over the USB port? This would enable us to disable the network.
Is one particularly better for 24 hour always on?
I like the iPad as I think its supply will be more constant as we move forward and need to replace devices due to ones gone bad. Also, our app will probably work on future generations of the iPad. With Android, I'm not sure there will be that sort of consistency from the tablet vendors.
Kiosk mode? I think with the iPad by putting it in a kiosk case that removes access to the home button and turning on the restrictions we'll get what we want. What about Android? I'd rather not have to get into rooting devices and replacing their firmware.
Remote control? Any way to remotely control iOS or Android in a standard means? Our app will be a client to a master server which will obviously be able to control the app somewhat (when used purely as a display device to a customer, controlled from behind the counter).
My feeling is that neither Android tablets or the iPad is best suited for this. Are there other options?
I will try to answer your points, but know that I am probably biased towards Android, because that is where my experience lies.
With Android 3.1+, at least with the Xoom, you have full USB host capabilities. Things like USB flash/hard drives, keyboards, mice, even digital cameras, all work. If you need custom interop with a USB device, you could go as far as to write a driver for it.
24 hour always on is not good for any device with a battery, but neither is better in this situation.
While android apps are forward-compatible, bad programming practices and/or deviations from "vanilla" Android software and hardware CAN break forward compatibility. That being said, if you grab a Google Experience device like the Xoom, you won't meet as many surprises.
In Android 3.0, the navigation bar is built-in at a low level, and it is not possible for apps to remove it. Therefore, it is trivial for anyone to break a "software nanny."
I know that it is possible to control android devices remotely, but without knowing your specific needs, I can't really offer more information than that.
Good luck!
iPad NOOO believe me I am a convert to Apple for my home and business but when we went to launch kiosk the iPad FAILED Big Time.. Here are a couple of little (Big) issues we ran into.
If the device reboots you cannot auto launch you iPad app since Apple does not allow that.
There is a serious memory leak in the iPads browser. We were running javascript / CSS3 and it cratered intermittently. I literally spent 2 hours "today" on the phone with Apple getting the MAJOR run around. I finally said let me speak to an Enterprise Sales Manager as my project could mean thousands of iPads and I got NO WHERE. One Apple employee even told me they don't have enterprise sales managers.
If those weren't enough even though we are just in the proof of concept phase, we are already getting request for other options. These other options are going to require access to the OS which Apple yea right. We are moving to Android immediately.
Sorry Apple I love you but you loose here.
If your using an Ipad you should consider if it can support the power for the USB thing. Watch this Using Powered USB Port
Your idea about putting the tablet behind another piece of glass/plastic is neat. To then deal with remote controlling, you might consider doing some Bluetooth programming.
My mobile development has been primarily with iOS, so I am biased toward that SDK. I will mention that the data/sync/charge port for iOS has (I believe) never changed. Your Gen 1 iPhone sync cord works on your iPhone 4... and your iPad or iPad 2. So, in terms of third party hardware, you may see more consistency with Apple.
I haven't found a good answer regarding whether it is easier to do Bluetooth programming for iOS or Android, but I think to stay cost-effective, you might see which one is more open to third-party devices. Here is an SO post/answer about iOS and third-party Bluetooth devices; I've not found anything on Android regarding third-party Bluetooth remotes, but considering a lot of hardware running Android is third-party, your chances from a naive perspective seem pretty good. Here's the Android Bluetooth API.
Buying an iOS or Android handheld to remote control an iOS or Android tablet does seem a bit steep, but then again, maybe not. Cost also depends on your ratio of remotes to tablets. 1:1? 1:N? N:1? N:M?
The lowest end iPod goes for $229 as of May 20, 2011. Android does have more variety in terms of hardware. You may be able to get a cheap Android phone with no service plan to act as a Bluetooth remote for an Android tab.
I have provided a solution for the kiosk mode using iPad here Lock-down iPhone/iPod/iPad so it can only run one app
I am afraid that I don't really know for Android if the same thing is possible.
To address the issue of crashing applications you can use an exception trampoline (see discussion here https://blog.compeople.eu/apps/?p=275) to catch the crash and reboot your app.
If the entire device is restarted however then other apps that are on the device can be started and will subsequently be locked in.
To answer your other points:
You can use a configuration profile to control network access. Force it to use a VPN or Proxy that only allows your custom app with embedded credentials to use. That way other network access can be prevented.
Your concern over future compatibility is spot on. The Android marketplace is so fragmented then maintaining a fleet is difficult.
If you have an app that is behaving as a server and is locked in then remote control is possible.
We manufacture tablet kiosks that support both android and iPad devices. In fact we are the only iPad kiosk that has achieved apple approval.
Generally speaking i think you will have an easier time with an iPad as the software and hardware will remain more consistent over time. Which is important if you have to change out a fault unit or deploy more kiosks 6 months or year from now when the original device is no longer manufactured.
I am looking to write an Android app for a device that has not been released to the market yet, and so I will not have the hardware to test upon. I have created an AVD (Android Virtual Device) with as much information as is currently available on the web, so assume that this is as like the device as is possible to get.
However, does anyone have any tips or ideas to make the process of developing for this platform as easy as possible? My current apps have been for personal use on my own phone, so can test performance on the hardware etc. which is obviously not possible in this case. Any gotchas to watch out for (apart from the possibility of the device never being released..!!)
Just follow the SDK.
AVD behaves similar to a real device. I really can't think of something it behaved different on a device and on the AVD.
The only device that brought me trouble is the HTC Hero, first phone with HTC Sense. It didn't follow the SDK and they were calls that weren't there. Newer phones with HTC sense doesn't have this issue, as far as I can tell.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 8 years ago.
Improve this question
I've been intrigued by all the android world since I first learned about it and would like to get my hands dirty developing for it. The question that comes to mind is if it's worth buying the unlocked phones that Android sells directly or not.
Those phones (link) quoting the Android page:
Run and debug your Android™
applications directly on a device.
Modify and rebuild the Android
operating system, and flash it onto a
phone. The Android Dev Phone 1 is
carrier independent, and available for
purchase by any developer registered
with Android Market™.
Please note that this device is
intended for development purposes, and
may not include certain features found
on consumer Android devices.
So will it be worth it to purchase one of those as a tool for app testing as opposed to developing and testing just on Eclipse or one of the other IDEs and emulators.
-Have you tried it, do you own one?
I'm assuming they have the same specs as the HTC Dream and the HTC Magic, since they look exactly the same although they have a 'developers edition' custom black design not that I really care about the design for this particular item.
All comments are welcomed,
Thanks in advance.
Update:
I'll leave it open until tomorrow to see if there are any more answers, then I'll just pick the most voted since it's really a subjective question with no good or bad answer.
It depends what sort of applications you wish to develop. I find that the emulators very accurately reflect how things work on genuine devices; you can seamlessly connect to either an emulator or a dev phone using the command line tools, the Eclipse tools, the debugger etc.
Also, while you can flash your dev phone to a new OS version, HTC often lag behind (e.g. there's still no 2.0 image available) and it's much easier and faster to just use the emulators. The emulators also allow you to create and test with different screen resolutions, whereas the two dev phones available are only "standard" resolution.
I find it's quite rare that I need to use my ADP1 dev phone for development -- my rooted consumer HTC Hero works fine for most of the development I do.. allowing me to pull files from the device etc. Though the only reason I use my Hero rather than an emulator is because I've been working on an app that uses audio recording functionality.
However, where having a physical device would help is where you need to do specific stuff regarding the camera, audio hardware, orientation and compass sensors, GPS, wireless network access and so on. Should you need to connect a debugger to work on hardware-related issues like the above, then you would definitely need a dev phone.
Overall, it's definitely worth buying an Android phone for testing and demonstration purposes, but whether it's a development phone is up to your requirements.
If you plan on developing apps that you intend to put on the Android marketplace, it's absolutely critical to test on real hardware. You can get away with developing on the emulator for quite a while, but at some point, you'll want to use a real device.
That being said, you can use any android phone for development. There are some restrictions on locked devices, but if you're simply developing against the SDK, any phone will work. With android, you can install an apk directly on the phone without special permissions, so the only real advantage to a dev phone is that you can install new roms without having to root the phone.
Personally, I'd hold off on purchasing one of the older dev phones. From what I understand, they only support up to SDK 1.6, whereas the Droid and some of the other new phones are supporting SDK 2.0 ++.
Wait for the release of the Nexus One from G. The latest rumors are that it'll be released on Jan 5th. So it's just a week or so.
I think that you need a real android device whether it's the dev phone or another handset but a real phone is primordial. The emulator is great but you can't get an idea about the execution speed of your app until you use it on a real phone.
As said before there are a lot of rumors about the nexus one so wait and see!
As for which phone to buy (assuming you're going to get one) I think ablerman is right. I'd wait until January to see if there is going to be some new hardware available.
With regards to the more general question of should you buy one, I think it depends on what you're doing. For the most part, the emulators are fine. They can emulate GPS (you can even load KML to simulate a path), SMS, phone calls, etc. They cannot however emulate acclerometer/compass/orientation sensor data and actually will crash (actually I believe it hangs...) if you try to run code that relies on it. Also, it's difficult to actually debug phone-call related functionality without the dev phone.
They're good phones, I've used the Dev phone 1 (the G1/Dream) and it's nice. It also is a bit faster than the emulators and if you're writing something like a game, it would be really good to test it on the actual hardware.
All in all, it just depends on what you're writing. They're definitely fun to play with regardless as you can do pretty much ANYTHING you want on them.
Good luck with the decision!
I've been developing with the emulator since June. I've found it to be a very near substitute for the real deal, and it's easier to switch between handset configurations/versions. However, not knowing how quickly my apps will run is a concern for me.
The reason I've personally held off buying a handset is that 2009 was the wrong year to buy one. I have a feeling 2010 will very much be the long-awaited "Year of the Android".
+1 to Christopher and I will add - the emulators are great but having a physical phone will give you instant access to the Android Market to verify publishing, statistics and user comments. I also believe using your own app on a physical phone will help you to develop a better app. You do not need a development phone - but at least one physical phone - absolutly.
FYI. Belgium is one of the few countries where it is possible to buy any mobile unlocked. Indeed, the Belgian regulators forbid the forced bundling.
One more Pros for buying a real developer phone :
HierarchyViewer does not work on user builds (i.e. with devices
available in stores.) This is for security reasons.
See the original thread
Hierarchy viewer can be very useful if you have problems with layout being slow, although I don't think it would worth buying a real Developer phone only for this.
As some people made workaround for that problem : https://stackoverflow.com/a/7801475/62921.