Category Archive: Android

Dec
14

Social Apps on Android

At this year’s Devoxx, Google’s Tim Bray gave a thought-provoking keynote which covered several areas but what stood out for me were his comments around writing applications for Android. In summary his message was “give software away and sell a service” and “make it social”. Giving software away and selling a service is a whole …

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Sep
22

Android, Grails and Heroku

Having published a first Android application Audio Clock in the Android Market my attention has turned to developing something new. Audio Clock was simple but this new application is on a whole other scale.

Jun
19

Galaxy Tab 10.1 USB File Transfer Issues Explained

Having struggled, cursed, been derided by iPad owners and got really irked over the synchronisation issues with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 I have spent some more time in the last few days looking into the problem in more detail. I was prompted to do this by the arrival, over the air, of Android 3.1 – …

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May
16

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Google I/O Edition) – First Impressions

At Google I/O this year I was lucky enough to receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, one of the latest Android tablets to ship with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). However, being a Samsung item it does have its downsides. Samsung for some reason known only to themselves have endowed it with Samsung Kies, a synchronisation utility …

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May
05

Using Maven for Android Development

As a habitual Maven user I’ve got used to the ease with which I can run through a build and test process and get a deployable artefact out at the end of it. I’ve been playing with Android for some time, and now I’m ready to do some serious development it is only natural that …

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Nov
12

Android 2.2.1 – No Release Notes, No Install

When Android 2.2.1 was pushed to my Nexus One I was reluctant to install it immediately. So I googled for release notes and found none. This did nothing to soothe my (perhaps irrational) concern that I was upgrading to an unknown quantity. Eventually I upgraded and of course there were no dramas. My curiosity however …

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Nov
12

Writing a simple Android widget

A widget in Android is something that sits on the home screen and does something more than just allow you to start an application. Android ships with some built-in widgets and many applications provide widgets of their own. In this post, and its associated download, I aim to demonstrate that widgets can actually achieve a …

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Sep
18

Get Your Act Together, Google

Having purchased and immediately returned one Android tablet because it lacked the Android Marketplace I’ve been doing some research into exactly what is available, or will shortly be available, in tablet form. There are a few promising things on the horizon or already here from some relatively big names – Samsung with the Galaxy Tab, …

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Sep
15

My Favourite Android Applications

As an Android user since early 2010 I have a plethora of applications installed, and each month a few more of my friends acquire an Android phone of their own. So of course we get chatting about the various applications I am using and I end up sending them a list. From now on however …

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Sep
11

Beware the early Android tablets

Having jumped into Android development and nearing the point where I can start distributing something to friends to test in the wild, I decided to invest in a couple of extra devices for test bench purposes to sit alongside the Nexus One I already have. The first was an HTC Magic, second hand from eBay. …

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