Debugging into Android Source Code

Posted on April 29th, 2010

Over a year ago I described how to get Android Source on Windows and also later pointed to Brad Chou’s script.

However, what if you want to go one step further and debug into the code from your applications? Attaching Android platform source in Eclipse provides a great tutorial. There are even some pre-created zip files for Cupcake (1.5), Donut (1.6) and Eclair (2.1) containing the Android source code.

Built-in Testing App

Posted on April 27th, 2010

If you are an Android mobile developer you might find the following built-in  test app screens useful. To get to them type *#*#4636#*#* from the phone app. I have just tried this on the G1 and Droid and it works on both.
testingphoneinfobatteryinfo1battery-historyusagestats

GeeksPhone One

Posted on April 26th, 2010

geeksphoneI came a cross a new phone today called the GeeksPhone One. Their USP seems to be that that phone is rooted out of the box, encouraging enhancement and experimentation.

It’s interesting to see a small company getting into the Android device market. It shows that a small company can compete with the big handset OEMs. If GeekPhone can do this, there’s no reason why such companies can’t exist that provide very different handsets for vertical markets. For example, rugged handsets (this is already happening), handsets for elderly/disabled, handsets that run just one main application (e.g. for ticketing) or any other market that needs a cheap device targeted at a special group of users.

Open Source NFC on Android

Posted on April 23rd, 2010

opennfcIf you are waiting for an NFC implementation for Android you might like to take a look at Open NFC. It’s an open source edition licensed under the Apache License that will allow NFC to be integrated into Android phones. The source code will be available from May 15 2010. Open NFC includes…

  • Low-level RF control
  • NFC Forum-specified tag handling
  • Peer-to-peer communications
  • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi pairing
  • Interactions with single-wire protocol SIMs and other secure elements
  • Compatibility with smart cards and RFID tags based on Felica, Mifare, and ISO 14443 standards

At one time people thought NFC was the future of payments but increasingly, due to non-adoption by phone OEMs, there hasn’t been much uptake. Phone OEMs have been waiting for network operators to order the phones. Network operators won’t order because they have been waiting for a non-fragmented ecosystem to evolve.

Today, NFC is more viable for security, stock control and ticketing applications.

Power Save Guidelines

Posted on April 22nd, 2010

sedevworldSony Ericsson developer World has a useful pdf download on power save guidelines for Android. It includes information on the affect of using wakelocks and hardware resources, how your app can affect the standby time and how to correctly use the Android activity lifecycle.
wakelockduringsleep
I think this explains some of the times I have talked to people and they have said that they have been disappointed with Android battery life. I, personally, haven’t had battery life problems and, as I suspected, the difference is due to the different apps we are running.

On my mobilephonedevelopment blog I have previously written about the need for phones to police themselves. I think Android could do more to proactively alert the user to apps that are consuming unreasonable resources.