I'm an Android newbie just getting past "hello world" in Eclipse. I was at the Verizon store today trying out 4 different Android phones for my next upgrade and I realized how DIFFERENT they all are even though they're all 2.1 or 2.2.
Short of buying an expensive collection of Android phones from different vendors, is there a way to EMULATE some of the major phones like HTC Incredible or Droid X in my Eclipse IDE?
How bad is the Android fragmentation problem I read about on blogs? When I write an app for a PC I don't have to worry about whether it's a Toshiba PC or an Acer or a Dell. How much do I need to worry about Droid 2 -vs- Droid X - vs HTC Incredible?
Thanks in advance!
Here is a link to a similar question with information on how to create emulators in Eclipse.
Essentially you just create an Android Virtual Device with the same screen resolution and OS version as the device you want to target.
Here is great blog post by Adam Powell on the official Android Developer Blog about the completely over-hyped fragmentation "issue", and what you can do to make sure your app runs on almost every Android device.
Related
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.
Do I need to install an emulator of some sort? Are there any online services that offer this? I've found little guidance elsewhere on this matter. I'm on Windows 8, just trying to figure out (locally) why my android users are experiencing issues with an MVC app.
The easiest way would be to download and install the Android SDK and use the emulator to try and reproduce the problem. The SDK has emulator images for all versions of Android, and you can create devices with different screens (resolution/dpi/size), so if your site uses responsive design you can test also how it scales across different devices and whether the problem affects one specific or all Android devices.
However, it is possible that the emulator might not be good enough for reproducing and understanding the problem. The Android SDK images come with the browser that is part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). While this browser is technically based on WebKit, it is based on a rather old version of it. Most OEMs that have built Android devices have signed the Google Mobile Services (GMS) license ship on their devices the Google suite of apps which includes the latest version of Chrome, which is based on the most recent WebKit version. The difference in the behavior between the two browsers is rather big.
So if the problem turns out to be with Chrome instead of the AOSP Browser, you will have to buy a real device and test on it. Depending on the budget you have and whether you want a phone or a tablet, you can go with a Nexus 5 ($350 w/o contract), Nexus 7 ($230 wifi only), or a Moto G ($175 w/o contract). Of course, you could also buy Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One X, or a Moto X, but they all will cost you more.
It might be worth also borrowing from someone a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, or equivalent low end MDPI device.
well, you can install an android emulator and use the browser there (http://developer.android.com/tools/devices/index.html), but it's extremely slow,
so you should, instead, try Genymotion. It's an android virtual machine and it's pretty smooth. (http://www.genymotion.com/)
another option, is the Opera mobile emulator, but that is specifically for the mobile Opera browser. (http://www.opera.com/developer/mobile-emulator)
if you want a chrome specific approach, try this (https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/mobile-emulation)
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html has the emulators.
… but it may be just as cost-effective to just spring the $40 for a cheap Android tablet with WiFi.
Can some one please suggest what kind of a tablet should I get for testing my apps ? I've just started learning Android development and mobile web app development. I was looking at the Ainol Elf 2, Ainol Aurora 2 and Nexus 7 but I'm not sure.
Any tablet is fine. I would get the Nexus 7 though because
It's cheap ($200 compared to some others that are over $500).
It's made by Google (i.e. no UI modifications made by manufacturers like Samsung and HTC).
It's running the latest version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
But honestly, you really can't go wrong with any of those tablets.
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.
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.