Can I use any Android Phone for app development? Here in the Philippines, there are many available mobile phones with Android installed. But I want to buy the cheapest phone available (which I think is Samsung i5500 Galaxy 5). Thanks in advance!
You can use any android powered device for development, just make sure it has Development menu option. To check go to Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development. If there is somewhat like USB Debugging option you can use device for the development.
Why not use the actual dev kit? There is a complete setup with virtual phone included that you can run as an eclipse plugin.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
I think any Android platform based phone will be OK.
Yes you can, and I would definitely recommend using a real phone. The emulator is excellent, but somewhat slow for a number of applications that require hardware (OpenGL comes to mind). Even a G1 tends to be faster than the emulator for certain things. If you're creating an app that uses Bluetooth, there's no way to do so on the emulator currently. Konstantin's directions are good for actually setting up the phone.
You need to understand one thing before you buy the phone. What version of Android SDK you will be using for to develop the app. If say, you are developing the app for cupcake and above, you better have a phone with cupcake version. But if you have Froyo phone, you will not be still able to run the app, but some depreciated functions might not be available and your app may crash.
If you want to develop in Windows there is a list of devices available for which the USB drivers work: USB Driver for Windows
If you don't need the GSM part you could also think about using the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, which is a Android powered media player and supports ADB (Android debug bridge) as well
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Is is possible to directly deploy apps on ios or android devices just for testing?
My Background:
I am currently developing iOS and Android apps but using only emulators.
Maybe you can consider me as an intermediate mobile developer but newbie in direct installation of application created.
Also, I'm afraid my iPhone or my android devices get destroyed if I will try some of the blogs tutorials found on the net.
You can try your application on actual mobile devices on both platforms.
With Android is pretty straightforward: just plugin your device to your computer's USB port. If you happen to have proper drivers for it, whenever you run your application from Eclipse IDE, you will be asked if you want to run your application directly on the device. Make sure you enable debugging on your device.
With iOS, it's also fairly easy. Just plug your iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch to your Mac, launch XCode and select device before pressing run. You might need to create a provisioning profile for it (you will need a Apple iOS Developer Account for this).
I don't think you will ruin any device just by following (and installing) tutorials from the net.
For Android: Yes, you can run the apps directly from Eclipse or Netbeans on your device, works exactly as with the emulator. To make real apps you have to test them on real devices!
You wont destroy your device. Read the Android SDK "getting started" stuff.
Can't really say about iOS though.
You can always buy a second hand cheap phone and use it.
I started developing apps in the Android emulator and I was surprised about the big difference between the emulator en a real device, which really made it worth to buy one of these terminals.
So far I haven't been able to find any solution that would allow me to test voice input via microphone on the android emulator.
I have been able to get away during development by limiting my testing to cheap Android phones (sorry, I don't have much money) but now some users complain that my app doesn't work on Android 3 and 4.
So, I am desperately looking for an Android emulator (that can run on Windows 7) to help me test my microphone-based app on various Android versions (did I say fragmentation?)
Is there any android emulator that supports microphone input?
Other suggestions that can utilize the standard Android "emulator"?
As you noted, the live-android (with this HowTo) is outdated, so as far as I can tell, you have only one (free) option that goes up to Android 4: Android x-86 on a USB thumb drive plugged into another netbook or laptop you have.
The only problem I see is that a standard Android USB cable for connecting your debugger will not work because netbooks or laptops don't have a micro USB connector like real Android devices have.
This is an old question so the answers here need updating.
All of the emulators included in the AVD manager (Eclipse/Android Studio) support microphone input now, although the ARM versions don't really have a sample rate that matches reality. The microphone inputs x86 based emulators work really well, but only at 8kHz.
There is a new kid on the block called Buildroid for VirtualBox (formerly VirtualBox-AOSP). This may be what you are looking for.
Thanks to Babu for this solution. Emulator can supports virtual input and record sound same like laptop
Im planning to port my iPhone Game to Android, since the Android Simulator does not support GLES v2, I need to purchase a device to port the game.
What Im looking for is a device that have the following:
Android v2.3.x OS
Graphic Chipset (from Imagination Technologies)
Any suggestions?
Also I would like to know how it work developing for Android, is it similar as for iOS? plug the device through USB then from Eclipse with the Android SDK and NDK then launch and debug? Or is there other step that have to be done to be able to develop and debug directly on the device?
Tks in advance for your inputs!
Also I would like to know how it work developing for Android, is it similar as for iOS? plug the device through USB then from Eclipse with the Android SDK and NDK then launch and debug? Or is there other step that have to be done to be able to develop and debug directly on the device?
You can just press "Run" in Eclipse and your app will be uploaded to your device and start running. You can even debug on the running device itself. Yes you heard right. You can debug off the tablet you just plugged in.
Any suggestions?
I am using a Samsung Galaxy Tab (7 inch Froyo version) and it works great for me. My advice would be to buy the oldest piece of hardware that you plan to support so that you always know that it will work for everything.
P.S. This question may have been better asked here but its on the line. I'm voting to leave it on Stack Overflow by not voting at all.
I bought an Android phone to use Flash. But to my surprise, Flash does not run on Android devices with arm v6. But I do want to make something useful and develop for it. Does it need to be "unlocked" for this purpose?
Not at all, you can develop Android applications on any Android device. Just make sure that if you want to make use of Google APIs that it's a device that supports those APIs. Also, you'll need to enable development under Settings --> Development (I believe, the location actually varies depending on the version).
Nope, just download the SDK and go. All current phones (that I know of) allow you to do debugging on-device.
If you are developing using the Android SDK or NDK, any phone with Android Market is required to be able to be used as a developer device. If you are trying to develop IN Flash, then you will need a phone capable of Flash (Motorola Droid, any Snapdragon or better processor device) but on Android I don't believe there is a way to package a Flash app onto the device, and the Flash app is always run in the browser.
I really want to get into Android programming but I only have access to company resources right now. I have the money right now to purchase a XOOM or a development laptop. Is it possible to compile Android apps using the command line on the Xoom while using other apps to write the program files.
What would seem like a dream environment would be if I purchased a XOOM and a BlueTooth Keyboard. Am I dreaming? Developing using older Android devices was naturally limited by the screen space of the device and the underlying hardware also.
No, as far as I know, you cannot develop Android applications from within Android. You will need a Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop environment to develop Android applications. Visit the Android Developer site for additional info on the SDK.
Go for the development laptop, and test your applications on the emulator. Initially you can get friends to test them out on their android for you, and hopefully by the time you make something important enough you will be able to afford your own android.
Check out AIDE. It can build and deploy apps natively on Android.
Google doesn't have a version of the SDK that runs on an android device, although as devices become more powerful this would be a pretty awesome thing to have.
You'll want the laptop, since it can emulate different android devices.
Buy the laptop and get a cheap phone on craigslists.
Although, the XOOM emulator doesn't work at all, so if you want to develop specifically for that tablet it's a good idea to buy it. It's impossible to emulate android 3.0 on any computer on earth :)