Android Development Tutorial

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Android Development Tutorial V3

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The Android Developer Challenge

Android Developer Challenge (ADC) is an exciting competition for professional developers to compete with one another and showcase their creativity on the Android platform. ADC is launched annually and developers are welcomed to participate in the competition.The winning participants are awarded with handsome cash.

Awards are graded as 1st, 2nd and 3rd for various cash prizes respectively.

Apps are developed for various categories like:

• Education/Reference
• Games: Casual/Puzzle
• Games: Arcade/Action
• Social Networking
• Lifestyle
• Productivity/Tools
• Media
• Entertainment
• Travel
• Misc

 

Winners of ADC 2 have been announced yesterday. Here are their award winning apps:

Overall Winners

	SweetDreams SweetDreams is a revolutionary tool that will finally allow you to go to sleep without worrying about changing your phone settings in order to avoid unwelcome late night calls. You can even use those inactivity periods to save battery power as well, and of course forget about enabling WiFi, Bluetooth or ringtones volume ...
	What the Doodle!? 'WTD!?' is a real-time online multiplayer game where one player tries to draw out a given phrase and others try to guess it. Features FFA and Team games, Global Highscores, Personal Face Doodles, integrated Voice Recognition and more! Real-time drawing!? Built for performance, you'll really see the magic at first doodle!
	WaveSecure WaveSecure is a complete mobile security solution that protects your device, data and privacy. 1. Track your phone's location and who is using it 2. Lock down your phone remotely, making it worthless to the thief 3. Backup all your data 4. Wipe out your data remotely 5. Restore your data May the phone be with you!

Education/Reference Winners

	Plink Art Plink Art is an app for identifying, discovering and sharing art. Take a photo of a painting, and the Plink Art servers will try to identify it. You can also browse our database of artwork by keyword or timeline and share your discoveries with friends.
	Word Puzzle The Word Puzzle is designed to provide a fun way to learn basic English words for preschool children. Kids can study spelling and pronunciation with flash card and check achievement with word puzzle. Interesting visual and sound interaction with awarding system helps kids to keep learning. Let kids play with your Android.
	Celeste An educational augmented reality app that displays the Sun, Moon, planets and their paths through the sky onto your camera view. You can navigate through the sky selecting celestial bodies to display interesting information about our solar system. See the exact spot on your horizon where the sun will rise and set.

Games: Arcade/Action Winners

	Speed Forge 3D Speed Forge: Heavy duty hover vehicles, normally used for mining are now seen in illegal races organized in abondoned factories and dark Marsian alleys. The rock crushing explosives once used in these machines now serve a different purpose...
	Graviturn Tilt your phone to move the red circles out of the screen while keeping the green circles. Infinite levels from very easy to nearly impossible. Compare your performance with other players after each level (online highscore and statistics).
	Moto X Mayhem Jump, lean, and race through seven levels of amazing motorbike action in the best side scrolling bike game! Lean forward and back on your motorbike as you climb hills and fly through the air using accelerometer technology. Witness realistic physics as your shocks recoil when you land jumps! Or just flick your rider around!!

Games: Casual/Puzzle Winners

	What the Doodle!? 'WTD!?' is a real-time online multiplayer game where one player tries to draw out a given phrase and others try to guess it. Features FFA and Team games, Global Highscores, Personal Face Doodles, integrated Voice Recognition and more! Real-time drawing!? Built for performance, you'll really see the magic at first doodle!
	Totemo Unloose the spirit. Break the spell. Uncover the mystery hidden between the realms in a unique puzzle game. Storm your brain and relax your mind solving over 60 mind-soothing logic tasks. Play the survival mode for extra challenge and write your name into the on-line leaderboards. http://hexage.net
	Mazeness The goal of the game is rather simple - you need to bring all the balls ( up to 4 per level!) to their goals at the same time, with help of barriers, teleports and holders. It seems simple at first, but it's not that easy. The difficulty is growing steadily from level to level.

Lifestyle Winners

	SweetDreams SweetDreams is a revolutionary tool that will finally allow you to go to sleep without worrying about changing your phone settings in order to avoid unwelcome late night calls. You can even use those inactivity periods to save battery power as well, and of course forget about enabling WiFi, Bluetooth or ringtones volume ...
	SpecTrek Improve your fitness with this revolutionary augmented reality ghost hunting game. Walk or run around using GPS and your phone's camera to find and catch virtual ghosts. You will experience a new adventure each SpecTrekking session. The game offers statistics, awards, titles, records, and most of all a whole lot of fun!
	FoxyRing FoxyRing makes your phone smarter by analyzing the ambient noise and adjust the ringer volume. Also: - Sleeping hours to silent your phone during the night. - Geolocated ringer profiles, change ringtone or make your phone vibrate only at work! - Widget to silent your phone for a timed period. - Great interface

Media Winners

	Buzz Deck BuzzDeck is the quick and easy way to get all the web content you care about most. Flick through your daily hit of favourite news topics. And get Twitter & Facebook updates alongside. BuzzDeck learns what you like and recommends cool new stuff. Simple, elegant & fast. NB: No landscape mode yet. http://mippin.com/buzzdeck
	SPB TV SPB TV is a highly usable IP-TV solution, optimized to run on mobile devices. SPB TV provides users with lots of channels in multiple languages with easy-to-use features and settings. No subscription fee! Requires a reliable 3G or WiFi network connection for proper streaming. Full-featured 60-days trial.
	FxCamera FxCamera enables you to take a picture with various effects. - ToyCam (Toy Camera Emulator) - Polandroid - Fisheye - Warhol (Andy Warhol-izer) - Normal *this app requires SD card*

Productivity/Tools Winners

	WaveSecure WaveSecure is a complete mobile security solution that protects your device, data and privacy. 1. Track your phone’s location and who is using it 2. Lock down your phone remotely, making it worthless to the thief 3. Backup all your data 4. Wipe out your data remotely 5. Restore your data May the phone be with you!
	Hoccer Hoccer is your application for ad-hoc data exchange. Use gestures to "throw" your data through the air and let the recipients "catch" it. There is no need for prior exchange of contact details.
	Tasker Tasker let's you link any Task (action set) to the Contexts (application, time, day, location, event, widget press) where it should run. Send an SMS at 3:15 Monday, make per-app settings or locks, map camera button to a menu, launch music app on headphone insert, timelapse photos, encrypt on-the-fly, the list is endless!

Social Networking Winners

	Ce:real - Everyday trends Ce:real, What's happening in this world? Are you curious about real world? How about North Pole or an edge of Africa? Also, it can be your neighborhood. It is offering to you hot photo stories with Twitter trends keyword which has speed of lights. Enjoy millions of happenings in real world and you participate in it as well.
	SocialMuse Check out what users on the other side of the world are listening to! Find people with similar musical taste, or just explore the world through music. Browse other users' music libraries, listen to previews of their songs, and buy them if you like them. Check out their profiles on MySpace, Facebook and Last.fm.
	SpotMessage SpotMessage is a communication tool using GPS. Send a message designating a spot with Google Maps then the message will be notified when the recipient arrives at the spot. SpotMsg finds various uses; as an alarm reminding you of a task at a certain spot or for sending your friend a surprise message on his or her arrival.

Travel Winners

	Trip Journal Trip Journal is the ultimate trip tracking and sharing solution currently available on Android powered Smartphones. Impress your friends by sending them real time updates from the places you are visiting. GPS route tracking, record waypoints, photos & notes, trip statistics, KMZ & Picasa exports, incorporated Google Maps.
	iNap: Arrival Alert Ever wanted to get some sleep during a train ride, or a quick powernap on the bus to work? You either hoped to wake just in time not to miss your station, or set an alarm to wake you far too early... Using your phone's GPS it will determine where you are, and wake you when you are close to your destination!
	Car Locator Save your location whenever you park, and Car Locator will navigate you back to your car should you ever have trouble finding it. - Points in direction of your car using GPS and compass - Radar view, map view, and split view - Parking timer alarm GPS and compass must be enabled. This free version expires after 25 runs.

Misc Winners

	Rhythm Guitar Plays like a real 6-string, 5-fret guitar. Strum and pick chords, make new chords, string them together to create songs, transpose songs to fit your vocal range. Great for songwriting, chord reference, learning radio hits, or even plugging into speakers and pedals.
	Andrometer Andrometer allows you to measure the approximate distance from you to an object that you can see. Uses GPS, accelerometer and geomagnetic sensor. Tips: - Keep as steady as possible - The further you walk, the more accurate the measurement - Must be outdoors with clear view of sky - Works best under 1 km
	Calton Hill GPSCaddy GPSCaddy allows golfers to quickly and easily map any golf course either out on the course using GPS or in the comfort of home using satellite imagery. Then, when they are playing the course, it uses GPS to tell them exactly how far they are from the significant features of the hole they are playing (green, bunkers, etc).

For more information about ADC and winning apps visit The Android Developer Challenge 

Android apps by FeelSocial

Recently i have been working on simple but very interesting content-based apps on android. These apps are by Feel Social. I'd like to highlight a couple of them here:

Amusing Facts About Sex 


Sex, the most talked about topic in the world. Impress your friends or your mate with these witty, useful and amusing facts about Sex, Sexuality, Sexual organs, etc.Facts like "Men of which countries seem to be romping most of the time of the year? The Americans and Greeks seem to get the maximum sexercise they do it 124 and 117 times respectively. The Indian lags behind in this Olympics of sorts - they only do it 76 times a year but the Japanese men seem to be the least interested and only do it 36 times." and "Do you know of any other uses of condom?"

They were used by soldiers in World War II to cover the rifle barrels to prevent its damage when they swam to shore. Today they are used to protect Ultrasound probes to image the prostate of men through the rectum" really tickle ones senses and are conversation stimulators.

101 Brain Fitness 


The daily challenges of work can be stressful. The human brain is like other body muscles and it can lose its finesse. With “Brain Fitness 101” you can improve your cognitive skills to think quicker, act faster and perform better. Keep your mind sharp and train your brain by enjoying a fantastic collection of the mental exercises.

The application contains 101 easy ways to do mental exercises that help you avoid long term mental deterioration and stress. Perform these exercises before any complex activities that requires full attention such as an exam, an interview etc.

Start your journey towards cognitive success today!

For more information apps similar to these ones, do visit http://www.feelsocial.com  

The Droid by Motorola

Droid is the phone with the "Hi" IQ...a real smartphone!

Web pages are richer. Photos are more sharper. Droid comes with the most advanced browser and Android 2.0 software with a blazing-fast processor and 3G speed for faster search. It has the world's thinnest QWERTY slider at 13.7mm. It can help you navigate turn-by-turn.

It has a 5MP camera with a flash, plus loads of great camera features and a DVD-quality recorder to capture all the richer, bigger, wider experiences you're going to have.

For more details on Droid's highlighted features visit http://www.motorola.com/droid

The Android 2.0 Release

Salient Features

Contacts and accounts

Multiple accounts can be added to a device for email and contact synchronization, including Exchange accounts. (Handset manufacturers can choose whether to include Exchange support in their devices.)
Developers can create sync adapters that provide synchronization with additional data sources.
Quick Contact for Android provides instant access to a contact's information and communication modes. For example, a user can tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person. Other applications such as Email, Messaging, and Calendar can also reveal the Quick Contact widget when you touch a contact photo or status icon.

Calendar

Agenda view provides infinite scrolling.

Events indicate the attending status for each invitee.

Invite new guests to events.

Email

Exchange support.
Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page.

Messaging

Search functionality for all saved SMS and MMS messages.
Auto delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.

Camera

Built-in flash support
Digital zoom
Scene mode
White balance
Color effect
Macro focus

Android virtual keyboard

An improved keyboard layout to makes it easier to hit the correct characters and improve typing speed.
The framework's multi-touch support ensures that key presses aren't missed while typing rapidly with two fingers.
A smarter dictionary learns from word usage and automatically includes contact names as suggestions.

Browser

Refreshed UI with actionable browser URL bar enables users to directly tap the address bar for instant searches and navigation.
Bookmarks with web page thumbnails.
Support for double-tap zoom.

Support for HTML5:

• Database API support, for client-side databases using SQL.
• Application cache support, for offline applications.
• Geolocation API support, to provide location information about the device.

The New Android Market

Android Market Updates
With the arrival of the Donult build of Android, the official app store market has a face-lift.The new market offers greater opportunity for developers to showcase their apps in a more organized and efficient fashion.

New Android Market's Look & Feel
The overall user experience has been improved with the latest version of Android. Now users can conveniently explore apps and games.

The homescreen is divided into 3 categories:

• Apps
• Games
• Downloads

Once the user enters into a category, titles can be further browsed with respect to Top Paid, Top Free and Just In.
Apart from viewing respective screenshots posted by developers, users can also read reviews by other users.

Google released Android 1.6

After 'Cupcake', Google has released 'Donut' or Android 1.6
last tuesday. Android 1.6 a is a minor update to the
Android platform with new features.These features includes
support for diverse display resolutions, Quick Search facility,
Faster Camera, VPN Support, CDMA Support,Battery Power Monitoring

Diverse Display Resolutions

Now android apps can be deployed to devices with screens
all the way up to 800×480 – in other words, Android apps
will show up better images to higher-end screens.

Quick Search
Donut offers universal search facility,scaning all of the
phone’s data – e-mail, SMS messages, and even
third-party apps that are “searchable.”
The system is able to recognize which results are most
 important to users,so contacts or apps that have been
 previously clicked will move to the top of future searches.

Faster Camera
For photography lovers, the new version offers
greater speed.The Android Camera, Camcorder, and
Gallery apps have been updated with an interface that
makes it easier to navigate between each. Switching from
camera to camcorder is easier, and the camera moves
39% faster than previous versions.
There is also a 28% improvement in speed when
taking one photo and moving along to next.


VPN Support
The new VPN control panel allows developers
 to configure and connect to the following types:

• L2TP/IPSEC pre-shared key based VPN
• L2TP/IPsec certificate based VPN
• L2TP only VPN
• PPTP only VPN

Power In Your Control
With the advent of Android 1.6, the battery power
lies in the hand of the user. One is able to determine
 what applications or services are using excessive
battery power. By means of this feature the user is
able to adjust settings to either shut down or
uninstall the application.


Support for CDMA
Android 1.6 includes support for CDMA in the
telephony stack. In other words, android apps
can run on more devices and networks. This opens
the doors to android handsets on the likes of Verizon,
Sprint, and Virgin Mobile. Do stay in touch as Sprint
is going to release its new devices for android
next month.

Text to Speech API
Now we are able to enjoy android apps that
cannot just write but speak as well. Android 1.6
features a multi-lingual speech synthesis engine
called "Pico".
Pico allows any Android application to "speak"
a string of text with an accent that matches the
language. The engine supports the following
languages: English (American and British accents),
French, Italian, German and Spanish.

NOTE: For T-Mobile G1 or Dream users,
download the SpeechSynthesis Data Installer
from Android Market, which includes the "voices"
needed by the text-to-speech engine.

Motorola has fallen for Android

The marriage of Motorola and Google is surely a lasting one as Google's Android is far more luring than ever before for the mobile phone giant. A year ago Motorola planned to invest in making smartphones for Android and began to build its team.

Here is what Scott Webster of Android Guys.com speculated almost a year back:



And here is what Dino Brusco, the Senior Director,Platforms & Services at Motorola said about Android apps on Motorola:




Motorola's CLIQ

Motorola has announced its first Android handset this week, the CLIQ. As expected it runs the new MOTOBLUR Android skin, and Moto's calling it "the first phone with social skills" to highlight the social networking integration. Now everything is where you want it – in one place, on tap. Your friends, pics, emails, messages, and Facebook™, MySpace and Twitter happenings. Motorola CLIQ is the first phone to come with MOTOBLUR, the only service that can sync them all, with continuous updates and back ups. There are no logins or apps to open, and your data's always safe. Talk about socialized.

Heare are the key features:


Talk and Standby Time for GSM4
360 minutes/6 hours of continuous talk time, and standby of 325 hours/13.5 days


Form Factor
QWERTY side Slider, Full Touch


Band/Modes
WCDMA 900/1700/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps (Category 7/8), EDGE Class 12, GPRS Class 12, GPS


Operating System
Android 1.5


Weight
163.00 g; 5.7 oz


Dimensions
58 x 114 x 15.6 mm; 2.28 x 4.49 x 0.61 in


Browser
Android HTML Webkit


Email Types
POP3/IMAP embedded (including Macmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL1), Push Email


Battery
1420 mAh


Connectivity
Bluetooth3 1.5, 3.5mm, USB 2.0 HS, Over the Air Sync (OTA); Wi Fi


Display
320 x 480 pixels (w x h), 187 DPI


Messaging
MMS, SMS, Email (POP3/IMAP embedded, Push Email) IM (Embedded) Open Source


Audio
AAC, AAC+, AAC+ Enhanced, AMR NB, MIDI, MP3, WAV


Video
Playback - H.264, H.263, MPEG at 24fps at HVGA resolution; Capture - H.263, MPEG at 24fps at HVGA resolution


Camera
5 megapixel, auto-focus


Memory
Removable 2GB MicroSD card (included); Supports 32GB MicroSD (optional)


Location Services
Integrated 5-way navigation, GPS, Turn by Turn directions, Google Maps with Street View , E-Compass


Size
103.15 cc; 6.32 inches


Antenna
Internal / Antenna diversity (2 antennas to enhance reception)


WLAN
802.11b, 802.11g


Address Book/Calendar
MOTOBLUR aggregates Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Gmail, and syncs your work contacts, email and calendar

It'll come in two colors, Winter White and Titanium, and have a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 screen, 3G, WiFi, and a five megapixel camera that'll also shoots 24fps video. Internationally, the CLIQ will be known as the DEXT, and it'll be on Orange, Telefonica, and America Movil.