Issue Tracker for Android SDK

The Android Developers blog has announced the launch of an Issue Tracker for the Android SDK. Here's the link:

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/list

As reported previously on this blog, an Issue Tracker had been one of the top items on Android developers' wishlists.


[via Android Developers blog]

Magellan’s Maestro Elite 5340 - first GPS unit with Google Search

Thanks to lousy wireless data channels, GPS units have traditionally tried to cram local information into their own memory, instead of relying on expert data indexers like Google to serve the latest information. It has taken so long for someone to put Google search into a GPS unit. Well, better late than never. Magellan’s Maestro Elite 5340+GPRS becomes the first GPS unit to feature Google Local Search. Scheduled to ship in Spring of this year, this GPRS-only-no-Wi-Fi unit costs a whopping $1,299 plus a monthly fee for the GPRS connection! Compare that to the Dash Express, which costs $599 plus $10-$13 monthly, and has both GPRS and Wi-Fi connectivity. But then, the Dash features Yahoo! Local, which is not as good as Google Local.

GE Phones - first with Google button!

GE cordless phones (non-cellular) become the first phones to come with a dedicated Google button. The button is for Google's excellent free 411 service (1-800-GOOG-411). The phones will be available in April 2008.

This is no different from Google's earlier move to put short-cuts to its web-based mobile apps on the BlackBerry home screen. If an easy short-cut to a great service is available right in front of them, people will use it. This is a great move by Google to boost usage of its 411 service and to get more users to train its voice recognition algorithms.


[via Engadget.com]

gPhone Race Kicks Off - Wistron Starts Claims

Looks like the race to see who will bring the first godPhone to the market has kicked off... albeit without anyone demo'ing a handset actually running Android. It's all just a race of words right now.

PC Magazine reports on the Wistron GW4 handset unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today. Right now, the handset is running a version of MontaVista Linux 2.6. But Wistron claims that the "GW4 will be running Android by March, when Wistron will start selling it to more prominent firms for branding." However, I wouldn't hold my breath in March. It does not look like Wistron will actually sell a gPhone in March or April. The PC Magazine article concludes with the line:

The GW4 will come out during the second quarter of this year, Wistron execs said.

So, to summarize, the GW4 in its current version with MontaVista Linux, will only be available in the second quarter of this year, despite a working prototype being shown at CES 2008 right now. So, it is safe to assume a g(od)Phone avatar of the GW4 will be available even later. Never mind what enthusiastic PR people say about the GW4 running Android by March. They were probably only thinking of that happening in their labs.

[via PC Magazine]

Challenges of Android Development

It is always nicer to read the opinions and experiences of developers actually working on Android, compared to the commentary of bloggers / reporters who get their development-related information second hand.

Nazmul Idris of the Developerlife blog seems to have waited over a month after initial release to check out the Android SDK and he's been at it for only a couple of days now. Nevertheless, his Google Android Musings about the challenges of developing for a mobile platform in general, and for the Android platform in particular makes some worthwhile reading:

In Android, there is no Swing or AWT, so you have to familiarize yourself with the new GUI APIs (hierarchically nested Views) that are part of Android. That’s not so bad… since they have lots of pre-built widgets, and they provide lots of data binding support for diverse data models. Having said that, the biggest difference in building an Android app, from one that runs on a desktop/server/laptop Java VM is that the Android app runs in a managed container. The SystemManager is responsible for taking the app through various discretely defined lifecycle states, which allows for apps to be interrupted by network coverage issues, or incoming phone calls, or just being turned off, as examples. An Android app that has a UI is called an Activity. Activities run in their own Linux process, and they have one default thread (Swing-like-EDT), that can not be hogged for more than 5 seconds, otherwise, the SystemManager will shut the app down. This requires users to know how to create background tasks, which is not easy. Also, the UI metaphor in Android is one of building “screens”, rather than building apps which have nested panels and complex layouts and centralized state management. This is a very common approach to taken when building UIs/apps for mobile devices. The idea is to split up an application into many discrete loosely coupled pieces… some that are bound to the screen (Activity), and others that are “headless” (Services). Additionally, there are lots of container managed persistence and data exchange mechanisms that are available. However, given that these pieces can be swapped out with different pieces, and that any screen can be paused or activated at any time makes life more tricky for the app developer. All of this raises the barrier to entry so to speak. And I’m not even going into the optimization techniques that you have to adopt to write code that runs fast.

The above quote is just a small part of the article. Visit the blog to read some more on the topic.

[via Developerlife.com]

YouTube App for Helio Ocean

The Google Mobile blog talks about the custom-built YouTube app from Helio which lets you watch, record, upload, and share YouTube videos on your Helio Ocean phone:

You can even let everyone know where you shot a video by attaching a "geo-tag," which includes the GPS coordinates for the location where you shot the video.

You can also personalize your YouTube experience on the Helio Ocean by customizing your video feeds like My Subscriptions, My Favorites, My Playlists, My Videos and Received Videos. Of course, you can always view traditional YouTube categories like Most Viewed, Most Recent, Top Rated and Recently Featured.

Note that this YouTube app is from Helio and not from Google. It would be nice if Google released a similar app for mobile phones. Right now, YouTube has a mobile version of its website.

Links: GTalk translator bots, CallFreq Android app, Google's speech recognition training, UK spectrum auction, Google Mobile in Africa & India

• Translation bots available for Google Talk - Just add a bot as a GTalk contact, send a message to it in one language and it will echo the message back in another language. For example, if you add en2es@bot.talk.google.com as a GTalk contact and send it a message in English, it will echo the same message back to you in Spanish. Check the link for a list of other language-pair bots available from Google right now.
  Tip: If you have an IM app on your mobile phone which can communicate with your GTalk contacts, this could be used as a handy pocket translator. Be warned though, translations by these bots are not very accurate.


• New Android App: CallFreq - Described as a "new generation of a phone dialer", which "intelligently analyzes the calling patterns of an Android communicator user and provide you only with the contacts that you currently need most". The current release sorts your contacts into those you call most frequently.


• Google's speech recognition software is being trained by GOOG-411 phone service users. We can expect this training to be put to good use in future targetted mobile advertising algorithms as well.


• Might Google be interested in bidding for the broadcast spectrum in UK? For those of you who might not know, UK is also planning on auctioning off the spectrum that is/was by analog TV service there. A spokesman for Google UK said that FCC restrictions meant that the company was not allowed to comment on its plans in this area anywhere in the world.


• Google partners with Safaricom in South Africa to offer Google services on mobile phones there. Interestingly, it sounds like these services are being offered through the Google Apps route. Safaricom customers will have email addresses which are their mobile numbers followed by @safaricom.com and those who cannot access Google services such as Gmail through their mobile phones can access it via Safaricom's website. Sure sounds like Google Apps to me. Good move there by Google - offering Apps to Safaricom and in turn extending its reach to their customers' cell phones.


• Search Engine wars on mobile phones are sure heating up in India. There are seven times more mobile phone users in India than PC-owners. So, it is natural for Google, MSN and Yahoo! to fight it out for mobile users in India.