Does Android really exist on other platforms than ARM? - android

I want to port an aplication written in C++ to android. Converting the application from C++ to Java will take a lot of work that I would prefer to use on making the application better for that platform instead of fixing convertion bugs and solving refactoring problems.
The NDK seems a good route to take but actually I don't want to miss a platform(if it is a considerable % of the market) just because the NDK doesn't or won't support it.
Android claims to support MIPS, ARM, X86 and others ... but actually all the implementations I have seen are only on ARM (or arm compatible).
I checked that on this site:
http://www.pdadb.net/
Would it be a bad desision to use the NDK?
Are there any non ARM devices that run or will run Android?
Where can I find more information about this?
Thanks in advance!

At this point the problem is not that you would not lose market share due to CPU architecture, as there are very few non-ARM Android devices at the moment, the problem is that you may lose market share due to requiring users to run Android 2.3 or later, which you would have to use in order to create a fully native application with access to the window, sensor, and input subsystems.
Avoiding rewriting code is a good goal but you would likely have to rewrite portions of the code anyway due to Android's dissimilar Window and life-cycle APIs. Now you would have to rewrite some important parts of the code in C++ rather than in Java.
You could try a hybrid approach where you write most of the UI in Java, then make calls to your existing C++ code.
Are you making a game? Then you'll probably want to deal with these issues and press on with the NDK. If not, try implementing as much of the program as possible in Java and use the NDK for the complex, tested parts of your code that need to be fast.

The documentation gives the following:
The latest release of the NDK supports these ARM instruction sets:
ARMv5TE (including Thumb-1 instructions)
ARMv7-A (including Thumb-2 and VFPv3-D16 instructions, with optional support for NEON/VFPv3-D32 instructions)
Future releases of the NDK will also support:
x86 instructions (see CPU-ARCH-ABIS.HTML for more information)

Would it be a bad desision to use the NDK?
For algorithms, the NDK is fine. For games, the NDK is fine. For implementing an ordinary app, the NDK will not be terribly helpful.
Are there any non ARM devices that run or will run Android?
Google TV runs on x86 (Atom).

Use this improved NDK: http://developer.mips.com/android/download-android-ndk/

Related

C++ Qt application on Android and iOS

As an experiment, I have a pure Qt C++ application (without QML) compiling (with cmake & ninja) and running on:
Windows
macOS
Linux (ubuntu and centos/redhat)
FreeBSD
It uses basically QMainWindow, QGraphicsItem and QDialog, iostream and a few C++ containers and iterators.
I am wondering if the port to Android is:
possible
easy or complex (if possible)
and if there are examples online
The same with iOS.
Yes, it is possible. I have worked in many Qt apps developed for iOS and Android. However, never used cmake, but qmake. it is good that you started experimenting using cmake which is the future as qmake is going to be deprecated sometime in the future. Qt's official documentation started adding cmake getting started tutorial.
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/cmake-manual.html
I would like to suggest to use Qt Quick for GUI on mobile devices.
Technically, it's possible:
It's easy to compile C++-Qt applications for both Android and iOS.
For iOS, you'll still need a Mac with Xcode.
Deploying, debugging, and running the app is quite simple and seamless, too.
Practically, it's a horrible idea to try to port the GUI of a non-trivial desktop-application to mobile.
Graphical user interfaces designed to be used with a large screen, mouse and keyboard just don't work well on small touch screens.
Since you've mentioned QDialog: Some concepts work very differently on mobile compared to desktop.
E.g., Dialog is replaced by Activity and users usually don't deal with files.
You can (I've done it), however, design a Qt GUI-application without any QML, that works well on small touch screens and is at least usable on desktop.
It requires a lot of manual tweaking and hacking, but It's possible.
Notes:
qmake is easier than cmake for mobile apps (that should change in future)
although Qt has some abstractions, you'll probably need some platform-specific code (i.e., JNI, snippets of Java and Objective-C and many #ifdefs)

I have sdk. Is ndk neccesarry for eclipse

I have eclipse Kepler and I am having "Android-Sdk-Windows" files. But I cannot able to make an android project in eclipse.. Do i need NDK necessary.
I already have experience with opening project with just "sdk" and eclipse.. But this times How can i enter the "sdk" path instead of "ndk".
Or Teach me what is "sdk" and "ndk"
i tried eclipse->preference->android-> But i can only see NDK location.
Native methods are platform-specific code. They are usually written in languages such as C or C++ and contained in libraries(dll's). It is possible to create a hybrid Java application that benefits from such libraries.
Reasons for Using Native Methods
Gaining access to special capabilities of your device or or Android
OS
Gaining extra speed
Gaining access to a large body of existing legacy code
Typically, good use cases for the NDK are CPU-intensive applications such as game engines, signal processing, and physics simulation
The major disadvantage of native methods is that you won't have cross-platform capability.
What is Android NDK
The Android NDK is a companion tool to the Android SDK that lets
you build performance-critical portions of your apps in native code.
It provides headers and libraries that allow you to build activities,
handle user input, use hardware sensors, access application resources,
and more, when programming in C or C++. If you write native code, your
applications are still packaged into an .apk file and they still run
inside of a virtual machine on the device. The fundamental Android
application model does not change.
Now if you don't know what native code is, then probably you don't need to use native code. Android NDK documentation explains this well:
..., you should understand that the NDK will not benefit most apps. As
a developer, you need to balance its benefits against its drawbacks.
Notably, using native code on Android generally does not result in a
noticable performance improvement, but it always increases your app
complexity. In general, you should only use the NDK if it is essential
to your app—never because you simply prefer to program in C/C++. When
examining whether or not you should develop in native code, think
about your requirements and see if the Android framework APIs provide
the functionality that you need.
Yo do not need the ndk, in order to build an android project. If you are having difficulties with eclipse, I would suggest using Android Studio unless you are dead set on eclipse. I use both, and strongly prefer to use Android Studio whenever I can.
If you decide to stay with eclipse, it is as easy as downloading the ADT plugin by putting the url in the input box under Help->Install New Software, launching and downloading the sdk from the Android sdk manager, restarting eclipse, and then starting a new Android project. Hopefully you do not have to do anything to configure java or anything else.
The ndk is a way of accessing things from a lower level, in order to bypass certain things, or squeeze more performance out of a phone for highly intense operations, or finally to be able to port c/c++ code from different project. i.e. You can write a Opengl ES game in c and reuse most the code for web, ios, and android this way. But that goes beyond the scope of the question, and this answer.
Firstly you should ensure you have installed ADT plugin .

Android NDK: can we use C++ for all work

I recently know that we can use Android NDK (use C++ language) to program. But, I'm afraid that, can we use Android NDK to do most of work in Android ? (because people just say that NDK just helps increasing performance of an android program)
I see that ADT plugin for eclipse is powerful, but It's for java. So, if I want to develop on Android NDK, does it has a plugin same with that.
thanks :)
Java is well-supported on Android: there are books, tutorials, Google results and a lot of similar documentation and resources. Developing with the NDK has less stuff available.
Although you can in principle write your full application in C++ using the NativeActivity, I believe that you will have less resources at your disposal for that, compared to Java. If you really want to make your Java program faster, you should profile it, to find which part needs this performance gain and write only that part in C++ using JNI.
you could, but it is not recommend. For one c++ and java performance for multiple aspects are equivalent, then every jni call has its overhead that you have to take in account. Take a look to this link

Programming for Android in a 100% C++ Environment?

I've been working on a game engine runtime environment in C++ for my future games, and have started to consider android as a platform. I noticed that it was tightly bound to Java and uses Java VMs heavily.
But is it possible to sustain a full C++ runtime environment in Android NDK? I have nothing against Java and am prepared to use it if I have to, but performance is one of my prime concerns (I intend for my games to be resource-intensive), especially on phones.
And if a full C++ environment is possible, how exactly would I implement it in Eclipse Indigo CDT? Would I be able to create a compiled game executable for Android ahead of time for maximum performance? And would there be any additional plugins I'd need to install in Eclipse? Could I use MinGW for compiling my games, or would I need to use a different compiler? If I had to use Java in one way or another, would compilation of the C++ code even be required? These are all questions I'd like to answer to get a sturdy development environment going in the Eclipse IDE.
Please know that I'm still fairly new to Android development, and multiplatform programming in general. My goal is to create a game engine that'll take the most advantage of the new hardware out there, especially on phones!
Thanks for any advice you guys can give!
NativeActivity, added in Android 2.3 (API 9) might be what you're looking for in terms of writing Android games using only C++. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeActivity.html
However since you say you're new to this you may want to start with one of the currently available Android game engines instead of writing your own right away. Mobile devices have a very different set of constraints than other platforms. A phone isn't very useful if the battery dies mid-afternoon, so starting a project with the stated goal of being "resource-intensive" is already getting off to a bad start. Few people will want to play your games for 20 minutes here and there if it means they won't be able to make a phone call in the evening.
If what you meant is that you are shooting for high-end graphics, keep in mind that devices have a wide range of capability in this area and targeting only the high end limits your audience. Different GPUs have very different strategies and performance characteristics and all have cases where they shine or lag behind. The most successful mobile games aren't the ones with the highest polycounts or the most complex lighting shaders, they're the games that achieve a consistently smooth framerate and have a distinctive style.
Have a look at some of the existing game engines for Android and try them out. Write a couple small games to take them for a test drive and see where they do and don't mesh with what you're trying to do. If you find yourself feeling limited with what's available, take what you've learned and try to write your own engine that fits with the types of games you want to make.
Here are some links to get you started. These engines power some very popular games on Android Market and many developers have found them useful:
http://www.andengine.org/ andengine is written in Java and is open source.
http://unity3d.com/ Unity is based on C# and Mono.
http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/ Marmalade, formerly Airplay SDK is based on C++.
The answer you want to pay close attention to is #adamp's. Ignore his answer at your own peril.
To address a couple of other points in your question, though:
Would I be able to create a compiled game executable for Android ahead of time for maximum performance?
No, insofar as Android does not use "compiled game executables". Your C/C++ code will be compiled into a Linux shared object (.so) file and packaged with other stuff (like your manifest) in an APK file. Compiling the .so will be ahead of time, though.
Could I use MinGW for compiling my games would I need to use a different compiler?
I get the distinct impression that you will claw your eyes out trying to do NDK development in Cygwin on Windows. I heartily encourage you to do your NDK development on OS X or Linux. At least set up a VirtualBox with Ubuntu or something in it to do your NDK compiles.
Regardless, the NDK comes with its own GCC compiler. AFAIK, MinGW is not a cross-compiler, and most Android devices are not running on x86 CPUs.
If I had to use Java in one way or another, would compilation of the C++ code even be required?
Yes. Now, for Honeycomb, you have the option of using Renderscript for OpenGL work -- that amounts to a C99 environment whose code you will not need to compile with the NDK.
I've tried a bunch of them, and one of the best I found that cross compiles instantly to a bunch of other devices and let's you program your goodies in HTML5/C++ combo (sweeeeet) is MoSync (http://www.mosync.com/) and another little known one that is a little more setup friendly is MotoDev by Motorola (http://developer.motorola.com/tools/motodevstudio/?utm_campaign=mhp01092012&utm_source=mhp&utm_medium=mws)
I've noticed there is some virtual machine images and tutorials you can use to prevent the setting up hassle.

Running a Haskell program on the Android OS

Forenote: This is an extension of the thread started on /r/haskell
Lets start with the facts:
Android is one awesome Operating System
Haskell is the best programming language on the planet
Therefore, clearly, combining them would make Android development that much better. So essentially I would just like to know how I can write Haskell programs for the Android OS. My question is:
How can I get a Haskell program to execute/run on the Android OS?
How you do it is by first getting a Haskell compiler which can target C with the android NDK which comes with a GCC port for ARM architectures. JHC can trivially do this with a very small inf style file which describes the platform (word size, c-compiler, etc) I've done this with the Wii homebrew dev kit and it was quite easy. However jhc still has some stability issues with complex code such as using a monad transformer stack with IO but jhc has been improving a lot over the last 6 months. There is only one person working on JHC I just wished more people could help him.
The other option is to build an "unregistered" port of GHC targeting the ndk gcc, this is a lot more involved process because GHC is not a true cross-compiler at the moment and you need to understand the build system what parts you need to change. Another option is NHC which can cross-compile to C, like GHC you need to build nhc targeting a C compiler, NHC does not have many Haskell extensions like GHC.
Once you have Haskell compiler targeting NDK GCC, you will need to write bindings to either the android NDK JNI glue code framework (added since android 2.3) or you must write JNI glue code between Java-C-Haskell, the former option is the easier solution and if I remember correctly might actually be backwards compatible with previous versions of Android below 2.3.
Once you have this you must build Haskell code as shared library or static library which gets linked into the NDK java glue code (which itself is a shared library). As far as I'm aware you can not officially run native executables on android. You could probably do it with a rooted phone, thus I assume this means you can not distribute native executables on the app store even when the NDK gcc port can generate native executables just fine. This also probably kills the option for using LLVM unless you can get the NDK JNI working with LLVM.
The biggest hurdle isn't so much of getting a Haskell compiler for android (which is still a big hurdle) the biggest problem is that some one needs to write binding APIs for NDK libraries which is a huge task and the situation is worse if you need to write android UI code because there are no NDK APIs for this part of the android SDK. If you want to do android UI code in Haskell somebody will have to write Haskell bindings to Java through JNI/C. Unless there is a more automated process to writing binding libraries (I know there are some, they are just not automated enough for me) then chances of some one doing it are quite low.
L01man: Is there a tutorial about how to do this? For the
first part, I understand I have to download JHC. What do I have to
write in the inf file and how to use it?
Please note before I answer this question I haven't used jhc for quite sometime since I originally wrote this and newer versions have been released since so I do not know how stable jhc currently is when it comes to code generation of more complex Haskell programs. This is a warning to anyone before you consider making a large Haskell program with JHC, you should do some small tests before you go full on.
jhc does have a manual http://repetae.net/computer/jhc/manual.html and a section on setting-up cross-compilation and .ini file with options: http://repetae.net/computer/jhc/manual.html#crosscompilation.
L01man: The second part is an alternative to the first. I don't know how to do what you said in the
third.
Before you begin you should have some knowledge of C and be comfortable with using the Haskell foreign function interface (FFI) and tools such as hs2c. You should also be familiar with using the Android NDK and building .apk with shared libraries. You will need to know these to interface between C-Haskell, Java/C-Haskell and develop Haskell programs for Android that you can officially distribute/sell on the market store.
L01man: I understand that its goal is to create a binding for the
Android API. But... does the 4th part says we can't make .apk with
Haskell?
.apk is just an app package file format and is built with the tools that come with the Android SDK (not NDK), this has very little to do building the binaries itself. Android packages can contain native shared libraries, this what your Haskell program will be and the native shared/static libraries are generated via the Android NDK.
A language that has recently come to my attention is Eta.
Eta's compiler is a fork of GHC 7.10 which has a JVM backend. It is possible to use the generated JAR files to write Android apps and even use its Foreign Function Interface to call native Android Java libraries.
Brian McKenna has written a blog post about how to configure an Android Studio project to use an Eta library.
There is https://github.com/neurocyte/android-haskell-activity demonstrating Haskell code running.
I once came across the same Reddit thread, but it was old, and comments were closed. I sent a message to the OP, but am not sure whether it reached the recipient. My suggestion here (may work for older Androids where native activities were not possible).
I (developed in Haskell some time ago, but currently switched to Smalltalk) am currently developing a port of Squeak VM to Android. The way I am doing this is similar to what might be dealt with in a haskell-on-android project: a lump of C code which needs to be called from Java part of the application (basically all that can be done in Android is to handle various events; an application cannot poll for events itself and does not have any event loop). In my case the code is generated by the Squeak VM building tools, in the case of haskell on android this will be output from GHC of JHC or whatever front end used. This repo may be worth looking at:
http://gitorious.org/~golubovsky/cogvm/dmg-blessed/trees/master/platforms/android/project
Under "src" there is the Java code which provides for user events interception and sending them to the native code (see the CogView class). The C code of the VM itself is not completely there (see squeakvm.org, the Cog branch for that), but one may get the idea. One also might look under http://gitorious.org/~golubovsky/cogvm/dmg-blessed/trees/master/platforms/android/vm which is the C frontend to the interpreter (including user events handling, some timekeeping, etc.)
Hope this helps.
Dmitry
There is https://github.com/conscell/hugs-android a port of HUGS Haskell interpreter to Android.
I think the general answer should come from source->source transformations, since loading specially compiled shared objects seems to be a bit of a kludge (involving ghc->c and a c->java step in the answers above). This question thus falls under the heading of Haskell on the JVM, which has been tried (with one step as a Java intermediate representation) and discussed at length. You could use frege if the libraries you need compile there. The only remaining steps would be the beginnings of the Android framework API translated into IO() actions and maybe a wrapper for building the manifest xml and apk.

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