Android

I was absolutely delighted to hear that the app I put together for the Vodafone Smart Accessibility Awards has been made a finalist. The app, “Are You OK” falls under the wellbeing category. If you’re not familar with the awards, the idea is to improve the lives of the elderly or disabled through technology. Are You OK is a simple app that was inspired by the panic button pendants many elderly use in their homes. The button communicates with a base-station plugged into the phone which contacts an emergency call center and and a voice can be heard over the speakerphone. The problem is these buttons are often left lying around out of reach, and many hours, or at worst days can go by before they get help after something like a fall. On top of this there’s a monthly fee for the service. ...

The Android Workshop is coming to TechHub in London, tickets are now available for Thursday 24th and Friday 25th of November this year. It’s a full 2 day introduction covering a wide range of topics from layouts and widgets to styling and database access, for more info please head over to the site. Sign up fast to guarantee your Early Bird price, or add yourself to the mailing list for future events. ...

I’ve just finished reading through a copy of Android Wireless Application Development (Addison Wesley Developer’s Library, 2010 by Lauren Darcey & Shane Condor). Having read a few books on Android development over the last couple of years, it’s always interesting to see how a book tackles this big, constantly evolving platform. The book covers Android up to version 2.2 and includes access to the online Safari edition which hopefully means they can add a few post-print updates where necessary. ...

I’ll be running a 2 day introduction to Android development workshop at UpdateConf in Brighton this September. If you’re looking to get into Android development, this will get you up and running lickety-split. Sign up for updates over at the website and follow the Twitter account @androidws. If you have any questions about the content anything else, please drop me a comment or tweet.

Just a quick post to say Zolmo’s latest application is now on the Android Market, and for a limited time at an introductory price. It was a genuine pleasure to work on this, I hope you have a lot of fun cooking great meals with it. Download Jamie Oliver’s 20 Minute Meals from the Android Market.

I just stumbled across this truly excellent collection of Android UX Pattern wireframes and examples. This is certainly essential reading for anyone starting Android development as the official documentation is somewhat lacking here. http://www.androidpatterns.com

ProGuard obfuscates and shrinks .apk files, providing some added protection for your app, but you may encounter some problems using it right now, at least with ADT 9 preview 3. By default ADT creates a proguard.cfg file with every new project, so if you have an existing project just copy it over from a new dummy project. The next step is to enable ProGuard, you do this by adding the following to your default.properties file: ...

Google recently announced the Nexus S phone, created in partnership with Samsung. This is the latest in the developer phone range, aimed at providing a reference device for the next wave of consumer Android devices running Android OS 2.3 (Gingerbread) and higher. One of the features of this phone is an NFC chip, which is capable of transmitting and reading data at a distance of up to 10cm. It is compatible with existing systems such as RFID tags: tiny, incredibly cheap slithers of componentry able to store information and be embedded in anything from food packaging to stickers. ...

I’ll be speaking at this month’s London Flash Platform User Group meeting (27th May) on the subject of native Android application development. The presentation will get you up and running from installing the tools to building and skinning applications. You can sign up to attend and find out more details here. UPDATE: Recording here. (Volume is very low, so without external speakers you may have trouble hearing).

I was lucky enough to receive one of the first waves of Nexus One’s (N1) from Google’s direct online shop. Before I go on, the shopping experience was a little too slick IMHO. I signed in with my Gmail account, clicked buy, clicked confirm and it was shipping, if you’ve used Google Checkout before they will likely have your card details and address. You do have 15 mins to cancel the order though. When you see Google’s ever growing list of properties getting together you can see why they are so immensely disruptive. ...