I want to start develop android appliacation, and I want to know wich phone is the most recomended.
Need to support in android version 2.3.
The Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini can be updated to 2.3?
Thanks
Many thanks,
The X8 can be updated to 2.3 android?
I Read that the X8 and the X10 can be updated.
Where can I find guide for update my X8\X10?
I tried to work with the emulator but My application it's low level application.
Because of that I need smartphone to work with the kernel.
In the end you don't even need a Androidphone to develop. I used the emulator for the first application I wrote in Android and I still do to doublecheck on different Android versions.
Having a phone yourself is much more comfortable, because it's faster and you have the direct feedback, but you would need a phone of every screen-size, screen-density and Android version to achieve the diversity of the emulator.
I wouldn't recommend to buy an Androidphone just for devolping. And getting an Androidphone for private use is something completly else.
First of all: No, the X10 Mini can not be updated to Android 2.3. At least not officially.
You don't need an Android phone, if you want to develop applications and games for Android, but I'd personally recommend it anyway. The emulators are often considerably slower than the real deal.
It's also considerably easier to develop on a real phone rather than the emulator, again mainly because it's slow. If your application is working with files and you often need to swap test files, it can also be quite annoying with the emulator, because you need to push one file at a time (someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that one).
Strictly speaking though, it is not a requirement, but I would strongly advise you to do so anyway. The Nexus S would be a good average phone that's easy to develop on, and it's just been updated to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), so you'll be covered in that aspect as well.
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I am about to port my application on android. Since I am new to this system I would like to ask for tips on android phones for testing my app. The number of phones is pretty huge so it is pretty hard to choose the right one. Also I wasn't able to find some kind of official chart of system distribution.
I know that it really depends on hardware and how much my app demands from hardware. It is pretty basic app and I am able to run this app at 30fps on iPhone 4S.
I did some research and people are talking about the latest phones but I think that it is not necessary to buy the newest one. Also, is there option to buy for example tablet and emulate android devices on this tablet?
So my goal is to focus on devices people have the most.
Thank you for any advice.
You can run many of your tests on the Android emulator. Using it together
with the DDMS will allow you to simulate several real life situations
(arriving call, arriving sms, change position...)
You can use BlueStacks which is an emulator put on steroids.
TestFairy and UTest are awsome communities for crowd testing were you can test ~any device you can think of.
Still, it is a good idea, especially if you plan your run at Android to be long,
to maintain a small stash of real devices.
Which devices should you buy? Which OS version should they run?
The Android dashboard is the official source for answering some of these questions. It gives an
up to date statistics of worldwide distribution by OS version, svreen size/density and more:
OS Distribution
Screen type Distribution
So, true to July 2014 you would want devices running Jelly Bean, Gingerbread & ICS and you screens of types normal/hdpi, normal/xxhdpi and normal/xhdpi. This list can grow but even this will provide you with a good sample of the Android device ecosystem.
As for manufacturers, the picture is clear: Samsung is the winner. Exact number &
distributions are harder to find here, but a Google search might help.
If my memory serves me write some 65% of all Android devices are Samsungs made with
Galaxy S3 taking 15% (of ENTIRE Android market) and Galaxy S4 = 10%.
Device screen features:
Galaxy S2 is normal/hdpi
Galaxy S3 is normal/xhdpi
Galaxy S4/S5 is normal/xxhdpi
These will probably be your best bet. You will do smartly to install on them 2-3 different OS versions, at
minimum Jelly Bean and ICS.
The Android Development Tools in Eclipse and Android Studio both have emulators that can be used to emulate different devices, including tablets and phones. You don't need to buy anything to be able to test your app on an emulator. The emulators run on your computer.
For more information
As for what devices most people have, while I don't have official statistics, looking at my own applications' downloads, most people are using either a Nexus 4 or Nexus 5.
My new Nexus One came pre-installed with CyanogenMod. It's great so far, but since I bought it for software development purposes (initially just learning how to program for Android), should I stay with it, or install the official Android OS (2.3)?
My main concern is compatibility issues with documented API, that is wasting time on debugging problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place.
You're just getting started? It probably won't make a difference, so I would stay with Cyanogen mod. It has the froyo api, and there are very few phones running gingerbread. When gingerbread comes out for the nexus one, then you might want to consider switching, but until then, I would stay with it (unless your unhappy with it while using the phone).
Stay with 2.2 until you need to use something in SDK 9 to make the next killer app. I'm running a phone with Gingerbread, having come from a Nexus One with Cyanogen. Yes, it's cool, but I miss all the convenience of Cyanogen.
I would like to start doing some Android development, and would like a cheap device to deploy apps to, just for testing and demo purposes. Is it possible to deploy apps to, for instance, an Archos 28? I don't know much about Android development yet, and haven't found a good answer to this question elsewhere. Thanks.
I can recommend the A28 for development. The user experience is rather crashy, part of the problem lies in the low RAM (128Mb is very little for an Android device). But I developed JGame on an A28 and did not run into firmware bugs. It also runs Flash 10.x in case you want to experiment with that.
I second that you should in particular worried about devices with a larger display. I found that graphical performance can be much worse on those devices. The A28 has a pretty good GPU considering it has several times fewer pixels than the average Android device.
Yes, it is running android 2.2 froyo. That should work fine for development purposes. Just keep in mind that some people will be using your app on cell phones that may be "larger" than the archos' screen size.
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.