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Most of the hard work of promoting the Android platform to developers has already been done by Apple. Originally, I wanted to spend my tax return on a Mac so I

Most of the hard work of promoting the Android platform to developers has already been done by Apple. Originally, I wanted to spend my tax return on a Mac so I could partake in iPhone development. Given Apple's recent actions, I'm just going to get an Android phone, and use my current laptop loaded with Ubuntu to develop for it.

vito 17y ago
I could not agree more. Sent from my Nexus One that literally just arrived. My semi-new iPhone is on Craigslist, and I'm already working on an Android app. That's quite some free advertising.
- icey 17y ago
  I just wish there was a "main" android phone, or one that was a clear leader. So far, it's felt like "the" android phone to have is whatever is next in the pipeline. I understand that the Nexus One is probably the nicest piece of hardware out there right now; but it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner. I guess my complaint is that I feel like the Android ecosystem is still too volatile to want to spend money on a phone.
  - jarek 17y ago
    Buy one that has the features you want today. This is technology; there is always something better just around the corner. (Personally I rather like the fact Android affords some choice in prices, features, and form factors, rather than locking you into /the/ one.)
    - cdr 17y ago
      Part of what icey may be talking about is development; the wide variety of Android hardware does make for a major pain point that doesn't exist in the Apple ecosystem (though with the iPad and the new resolution on the next iPhone, it might be getting there).
      - icey 17y ago
        Yeah, this is mostly the case. If you look at what's out there right now you have some phones that run Android 2, some that are still on Android 1.6 out of the box, some that run the HTC modifications to Android, some that are on the standard Android interface. After that, you have to consider the processors and memory available in every device - will most phones have enough power to run application X? Will this look like crap in these various phones because the hardware sucks? It just feels like a very fractured ecosystem. I hate developing for a platform that makes it feel like there are a lot of unknowns - how many test phones should I need to keep around if developing on Android? I know that it should be only 1, but is that really the case? How long will that remain the case for? Maybe wishing for "the" canonical Android phone is the wrong approach; but it would be nice if Google came out with some hardware guidelines that said "You can at least expect to have these things be true on every Android device."
        jarek 17y ago
        That's a valid sentiment. The problem is that freedom from such issues is very rare in general-purpose computing. Certainly on x86 it's always an issue (EDIT: except on very specialized OSes, I suppose), as it is on J2ME (and I'd guess Symbian). Dedicated game consoles are pretty much the only place I can think of where your application will always run on absolutely known hardware. I agree, both as a user and as a programmer, that the mess with Android 1.6 sticking around for essentially political reasons needs to improve fast. Minimal specs are nice, although they will necessarily change as the time progresses, and you will have to make a cut-off yourself. Support only Android phones released in the past two years (as an example, obviously not a useful guideline right now) and you will know what your lowest common denominator is. On the other hand, even Apple's halcyon days of single-device uniformity are coming to an end. You now have two resolutions in iPhone OS to deal with, and if rumours are true, you'll have a third one in June (though that one's less of an issue since doubling should work acceptably). OSes 3.2 and 4.0 force you to consider both hardware and software keyboards. The iPhone 3G has less RAM available to an app than the 3GS and the iPad. CPU speeds are different on every release and I believe graphics performance differs too. New hardware features have been introduced that you have to check for. Between June and November-ish, you'll have to support 3.2 for iPad and 4.0 for iPhone (and 3.0 for older iPhones, if you even want to).
  - krschultz 17y ago
    The Motorala Droid is pretty much the one as far as I can tell.
    - dagw 17y ago
      Not in Europe (or at least Scandinavia). Every Android phone I've seen in the wild is either an HTC (roughly 70-80%) or a Samsung (20-30%). I don't think I've ever seen anyone using a Motorola Android phone.
  - al3x 17y ago
    I was frustrated by the same aspect of the Android ecosystem, until I had this minor revelation: it's not really about "the" phone, it's about the phone that works best for you. The nice thing about Android is that you can pick the carrier, form factor, and price point that work for you. Want a keyboard and like Verizon? Get a Droid. Like Verizon but don't need a keyboard? Get an HTC Incredible later this month. Like the Nexus One but want the freedom of a SIM card? Use it on T-Mobile or AT&T. Want a cheaper phone with a keyboard? Get one of the new Motorola models that are coming out for just about every carrier. You can think of it as confusing, or you can think of it as having options. Both are probably true :)
    - billybob 17y ago
      Right. Hardly anybody asks themselves "which is the Official Best Windows Computer?" Android is not a single, tightly-controlled product line. It's an OS. Buy whatever hardware you think you'd like to run it on. It's just a different approach than Apple's, and one that has worked well in PCs.
      - jsnell 17y ago
        Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple. Nor is the average PC user likely to be too happy with their computer. Meanwhile in the Apple ecosystem both the normal user and the supplier seem to be rather happy. There is something to be said for tight integration of hardware and software in providing a good user experience. (That said, personally I hate my MacBook Pro from work with the fire of a thousand suns, and have only used an iPhone for playing music on long plane trips since getting a Nexus 1.)
        hockeybias 17y ago
        I know many happy PC users and (call me crazy) I tend to think that due to Jobs' cultish following that a lot of Apple shortcomings go unreported.
        Nwallins 17y ago
        > Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple. Assuming we are segmenting the Mac market from the PC market, it is much better to be in the PC market whether you are consumer or a producer. For manufacturers, it sucks to be in Apple's market if you are not Apple (PsyStar?). For consumers, they get a wider selection of products at lower price points, though they do not get the design cachet. To make a belabored car analogy, would you rather be in the market for Italian supercars or that of the rest of the world? Both producers and consumers tend to choose the latter.
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    I wonder if there's a business opportunity here? What would it cost to tool up an Android app testing shop? A bunch of phones wouldn't be that expensive.
    - eli 17y ago
      Like DeviceAnywhere? Or do you mean a service that actually tests and reviews your app's functionality on different devices for you?
  - orangecat 17y ago
    Get a Nexus One unless you have a compelling reason not to (such as having to be on Verizon or needing a physical keyboard). None of the upcoming phones are significantly better, and being from Google the N1 is virtually guaranteed to get updates in a timely manner. Also since it's unlocked out of the box, it should retain decent resale value if you want to upgrade in the future.
  - barake 17y ago
    Motorola Droid probably is the clear leader when you consider it's sales. The Nexus One is basically the current generation Android reference platform, just like Dream (G1) and Ion (MyTouch). Note that the Incredible and Desire are basically variants of the N1 and aren't really anything that different. Basically your choice comes down to a hardware keyboard (Motorola Droid) or better specs (Nexus + variants).
  - thwarted 17y ago
    it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner. Welcome to the computer industry. That there's something better just around the corner hasn't stopped people who have wanted Apple products for the past 20 years from buying them, to the point where Apple even ends up giving late adopters refunds if they buy something that Apple drops the price on within some limited amount of time after they purchase it.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  I also literally just got a Nexus One. Though I'm typing this on my new MacBook. I'm just so confused! (Or not. Best tool for the job. I'd rather not rely on just one ecosystem all the time.)
- mcantelon 17y ago
  I've got one on the way in the mail as well. I didn't plan to learn Java, but will do so to develop for Android and I feel it's the most interesting platform and has the most long-term viability.
  - technomancy 17y ago
    Check out some of the alternate languages available for Android development: http://technomancy.us/134 http://technomancy.us/134 If you're going to be moving away from Apple's monolingual nightmare you might as well take advantage of it. =)
    - WildUtah 17y ago
      Apple supports three languages for development; they're just all equivalent and none of them is any better than Java. (C, C++, Objective-C)
      - donaq 17y ago
        Those are more like dialects than languages, IMO.
    - SingAlong 17y ago
      Hey! thanks for the tip. I didn't know about Duby. Any link to get started running Duby on Android? Would be helpful to many hungry wannabe-android guys. I thought I'll take a light year to learn Android dev. But Duby seems to bring some hope.
      - SingAlong 17y ago
        Ah! I figured out something from the technomacy blog post. The last part says: Adapting the build process to Duby was surprisingly easy. You redeclare the compile task to call the Duby compiler instead of javac, tell it to output its bytecode in the right directory, and the rest of it just falls into place. link: http://github.com/technomancy/Garrett/blob/master/build.xml#L67 http://github.com/technomancy/Garrett/blob/master/build.xml#...
barnaby 17y ago
In a similar story, I have been ignoring the entire mobile phone app craze until now. Something about Google's message really resonates with me and I'm thinking of writing my first phone app for Android. Gonna go buy one soon and make apps! You can probably just apt-get everything you need to get started with android dev, no?
- acj 17y ago
  You can grab the general-purpose development tools (jdk, Eclipse, etc.) with apt-get. After that, you'll need to download the Android SDK and follow the installation steps. Eclipse will pull the remaining libraries for you. (If you encounter any strange errors while installing the SDK through Eclipse, try downloading the full Eclipse from eclipse.org and using that instead.) It's very easy to set up a virtual phone in the emulator and test your apps on various versions of Android. Overall, my experience with the Android toolchain on Ubuntu (as well as OS X) has been a positive one.

vito 17y ago

I could not agree more. Sent from my Nexus One that literally just arrived. My semi-new iPhone is on Craigslist, and I'm already working on an Android app. That's quite some free advertising.

icey 17y ago
I just wish there was a "main" android phone, or one that was a clear leader. So far, it's felt like "the" android phone to have is whatever is next in the pipeline. I understand that the Nexus One is probably the nicest piece of hardware out there right now; but it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner. I guess my complaint is that I feel like the Android ecosystem is still too volatile to want to spend money on a phone.
- jarek 17y ago
  Buy one that has the features you want today. This is technology; there is always something better just around the corner. (Personally I rather like the fact Android affords some choice in prices, features, and form factors, rather than locking you into /the/ one.)
  - cdr 17y ago
    Part of what icey may be talking about is development; the wide variety of Android hardware does make for a major pain point that doesn't exist in the Apple ecosystem (though with the iPad and the new resolution on the next iPhone, it might be getting there).
    - icey 17y ago
      Yeah, this is mostly the case. If you look at what's out there right now you have some phones that run Android 2, some that are still on Android 1.6 out of the box, some that run the HTC modifications to Android, some that are on the standard Android interface. After that, you have to consider the processors and memory available in every device - will most phones have enough power to run application X? Will this look like crap in these various phones because the hardware sucks? It just feels like a very fractured ecosystem. I hate developing for a platform that makes it feel like there are a lot of unknowns - how many test phones should I need to keep around if developing on Android? I know that it should be only 1, but is that really the case? How long will that remain the case for? Maybe wishing for "the" canonical Android phone is the wrong approach; but it would be nice if Google came out with some hardware guidelines that said "You can at least expect to have these things be true on every Android device."
      - jarek 17y ago
        That's a valid sentiment. The problem is that freedom from such issues is very rare in general-purpose computing. Certainly on x86 it's always an issue (EDIT: except on very specialized OSes, I suppose), as it is on J2ME (and I'd guess Symbian). Dedicated game consoles are pretty much the only place I can think of where your application will always run on absolutely known hardware. I agree, both as a user and as a programmer, that the mess with Android 1.6 sticking around for essentially political reasons needs to improve fast. Minimal specs are nice, although they will necessarily change as the time progresses, and you will have to make a cut-off yourself. Support only Android phones released in the past two years (as an example, obviously not a useful guideline right now) and you will know what your lowest common denominator is. On the other hand, even Apple's halcyon days of single-device uniformity are coming to an end. You now have two resolutions in iPhone OS to deal with, and if rumours are true, you'll have a third one in June (though that one's less of an issue since doubling should work acceptably). OSes 3.2 and 4.0 force you to consider both hardware and software keyboards. The iPhone 3G has less RAM available to an app than the 3GS and the iPad. CPU speeds are different on every release and I believe graphics performance differs too. New hardware features have been introduced that you have to check for. Between June and November-ish, you'll have to support 3.2 for iPad and 4.0 for iPhone (and 3.0 for older iPhones, if you even want to).
- krschultz 17y ago
  The Motorala Droid is pretty much the one as far as I can tell.
  - dagw 17y ago
    Not in Europe (or at least Scandinavia). Every Android phone I've seen in the wild is either an HTC (roughly 70-80%) or a Samsung (20-30%). I don't think I've ever seen anyone using a Motorola Android phone.
- al3x 17y ago
  I was frustrated by the same aspect of the Android ecosystem, until I had this minor revelation: it's not really about "the" phone, it's about the phone that works best for you. The nice thing about Android is that you can pick the carrier, form factor, and price point that work for you. Want a keyboard and like Verizon? Get a Droid. Like Verizon but don't need a keyboard? Get an HTC Incredible later this month. Like the Nexus One but want the freedom of a SIM card? Use it on T-Mobile or AT&T. Want a cheaper phone with a keyboard? Get one of the new Motorola models that are coming out for just about every carrier. You can think of it as confusing, or you can think of it as having options. Both are probably true :)
  - billybob 17y ago
    Right. Hardly anybody asks themselves "which is the Official Best Windows Computer?" Android is not a single, tightly-controlled product line. It's an OS. Buy whatever hardware you think you'd like to run it on. It's just a different approach than Apple's, and one that has worked well in PCs.
    - jsnell 17y ago
      Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple. Nor is the average PC user likely to be too happy with their computer. Meanwhile in the Apple ecosystem both the normal user and the supplier seem to be rather happy. There is something to be said for tight integration of hardware and software in providing a good user experience. (That said, personally I hate my MacBook Pro from work with the fire of a thousand suns, and have only used an iPhone for playing music on long plane trips since getting a Nexus 1.)
      - hockeybias 17y ago
        I know many happy PC users and (call me crazy) I tend to think that due to Jobs' cultish following that a lot of Apple shortcomings go unreported.
      - Nwallins 17y ago
        > Has it really worked well in PCs? The average PC manufacturer is hardly rolling in money, unlike Apple. Assuming we are segmenting the Mac market from the PC market, it is much better to be in the PC market whether you are consumer or a producer. For manufacturers, it sucks to be in Apple's market if you are not Apple (PsyStar?). For consumers, they get a wider selection of products at lower price points, though they do not get the design cachet. To make a belabored car analogy, would you rather be in the market for Italian supercars or that of the rest of the world? Both producers and consumers tend to choose the latter.
- stcredzero 17y ago
  I wonder if there's a business opportunity here? What would it cost to tool up an Android app testing shop? A bunch of phones wouldn't be that expensive.
  - eli 17y ago
    Like DeviceAnywhere? Or do you mean a service that actually tests and reviews your app's functionality on different devices for you?
- orangecat 17y ago
  Get a Nexus One unless you have a compelling reason not to (such as having to be on Verizon or needing a physical keyboard). None of the upcoming phones are significantly better, and being from Google the N1 is virtually guaranteed to get updates in a timely manner. Also since it's unlocked out of the box, it should retain decent resale value if you want to upgrade in the future.
- barake 17y ago
  Motorola Droid probably is the clear leader when you consider it's sales. The Nexus One is basically the current generation Android reference platform, just like Dream (G1) and Ion (MyTouch). Note that the Incredible and Desire are basically variants of the N1 and aren't really anything that different. Basically your choice comes down to a hardware keyboard (Motorola Droid) or better specs (Nexus + variants).
- thwarted 17y ago
  it's hard to decide to jump to it when it constantly sounds like there's going to be something even better just around the corner. Welcome to the computer industry. That there's something better just around the corner hasn't stopped people who have wanted Apple products for the past 20 years from buying them, to the point where Apple even ends up giving late adopters refunds if they buy something that Apple drops the price on within some limited amount of time after they purchase it.
steveklabnik 17y ago
I also literally just got a Nexus One. Though I'm typing this on my new MacBook. I'm just so confused! (Or not. Best tool for the job. I'd rather not rely on just one ecosystem all the time.)
mcantelon 17y ago
I've got one on the way in the mail as well. I didn't plan to learn Java, but will do so to develop for Android and I feel it's the most interesting platform and has the most long-term viability.
- technomancy 17y ago
  Check out some of the alternate languages available for Android development: http://technomancy.us/134 http://technomancy.us/134 If you're going to be moving away from Apple's monolingual nightmare you might as well take advantage of it. =)
  - WildUtah 17y ago
    Apple supports three languages for development; they're just all equivalent and none of them is any better than Java. (C, C++, Objective-C)
    - donaq 17y ago
      Those are more like dialects than languages, IMO.
  - SingAlong 17y ago
    Hey! thanks for the tip. I didn't know about Duby. Any link to get started running Duby on Android? Would be helpful to many hungry wannabe-android guys. I thought I'll take a light year to learn Android dev. But Duby seems to bring some hope.
    - SingAlong 17y ago
      Ah! I figured out something from the technomacy blog post. The last part says: Adapting the build process to Duby was surprisingly easy. You redeclare the compile task to call the Duby compiler instead of javac, tell it to output its bytecode in the right directory, and the rest of it just falls into place. link: http://github.com/technomancy/Garrett/blob/master/build.xml#L67 http://github.com/technomancy/Garrett/blob/master/build.xml#...

barnaby 17y ago

In a similar story, I have been ignoring the entire mobile phone app craze until now. Something about Google's message really resonates with me and I'm thinking of writing my first phone app for Android. Gonna go buy one soon and make apps! You can probably just apt-get everything you need to get started with android dev, no?

acj 17y ago
You can grab the general-purpose development tools (jdk, Eclipse, etc.) with apt-get. After that, you'll need to download the Android SDK and follow the installation steps. Eclipse will pull the remaining libraries for you. (If you encounter any strange errors while installing the SDK through Eclipse, try downloading the full Eclipse from eclipse.org and using that instead.) It's very easy to set up a virtual phone in the emulator and test your apps on various versions of Android. Overall, my experience with the Android toolchain on Ubuntu (as well as OS X) has been a positive one.