9 ms·
Develop Android apps on the device
- zrgiu_ 14y agoprevious discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3685424 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3685424
- KirinDave 14y agoIt is rapidly becoming obvious to me that Android is the "reasonable and right" way forward for desktop and laptop Linux as a UI layer. The only UI environment with more options and available applications on Linux is the web.
- learc83 14y agoI have my doubts that Google will ever support anything flexible enough to work as a general purpose OS. Android could work, but I think it will require a major community driven fork. Just one example: I was trying to develop a tablet kiosk, I considered Android, until I learned that with every release it gets harder and harder to remove the on-screen navigation. Google has a very specific user experience in mind, and they make it increasingly hard to deviate from.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- KirinDave 14y agoWhy wouldn't they embrace it? They already have a system flexible enough to make a product like the Transformer Prime feasible. All that's missing, really, is some compatibility work with the new wake lock support in the Linux kernel and a tileing window manager.
- KirinDave 14y agoI also might note it's trivial to hide the soft buttons bar at any time as of Ice Cream Sandwich. I'm not sure where you heard it's "getting harder" when there is an explicit API that everyone uses. An explanation at Stack Overflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8469112/hide-ics-back-home-task-switcher-buttons http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8469112/hide-ics-back-hom... A reference: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.htm...
- learc83 14y agoThat method doesn't work for kiosks, because they reappear whenever the user touches the screen. I think there is a way around this (keep them hidden even on user interaction) in ICS, but they have removed it in Jelly Bean, i,e, apps that hide the on screen nav permanently in ICS no longer work in Jelly Bean. Google has a specific use case for android (single mobile user) and deviating from that is like swimming upstream.
- KirinDave 14y agoOkay, point taken. But kiosks are more than a little outside the scope of the discussion here. The people who want a great, open Linux laptop, tablet and desktop far outweigh the folks making kiosk software.
- learc83 14y agoThat's just the first thing that comes to mind that I wasn't able to do. The only purpose was to illustrate it's inflexibility. I love the concept of Android, but a general purpose OS needs to be flexible--at least under the hood. As of right not Android is not a general purpose OS. I'm not saying it couldn't become one, just that it would take some pretty major changes. The UI will have to change pretty significantly as well.
- KirinDave 14y ago> The only purpose was to illustrate it's inflexibility... I'm not saying it couldn't become one, just that it would take some pretty major changes. I think the changes are moderate and of an additive nature. But to bring out that hammer of frankness again, what the hell else do we have for desktop and laptop linux that is anywhere near close enough. Hint: nothing.
- rdtsc 14y agoSo what did you end up picking?
- learc83 14y agoA small embedded Linux distro and embedded Qt.
- rdtsc 14y agoMakes sense. I am trying to pick something for a similar use case and android+tablet hardware at first seem perfect and I thought, "oh, I'll just disable the home button" but unfortunately that is not possible. That would completely mess up the basic use case of Android -- to run mostly isolated apps on a consumer smart phones, allowing any app to lock the screen would kind of break that. (NOTE: one way to hack it maybe is to encase the tablet in another box and cover the bottom bar, haven't tried that).
- learc83 14y ago>(NOTE: one way to hack it maybe is to encase the tablet in another box and cover the bottom bar, haven't tried that). That works--it was the first thing I tried as quick fix, but I thought it was a bit ridiculous to have to do that, so I decided against it.
- benatkin 14y agoIt doesn't seem relevant to me that it has a Linux kernel. It's a very different platform from a traditional Linux distribution. For those who want "Linux", Android isn't a suitable alternative. It is a great platform in its own right, though.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoAs someone put it, Android isn't Linux, it's a Java stack. It could run on Windows CE if Google had made it so.
- objclxt 14y ago...and it already (sort of, through RIM's Dalvik VM) runs on QNX.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoAh, is that how RIM's "give us your Android app and it will automagically work on the PlayBook" works?
- jbuzbee 14y agoYou have a point, (except there is no Java on Android, only Dalvik bytecode ), but that's not the whole story. The experience that people have with their Android devices is very much due to the underlying Linux kernel and utilities: Device drivers, interrupt handling, multi-tasking, memory management, power-management, file systems, privileges, etc. And you can bypass the Dalvik VM with your apps if you wish.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoThat's true to an extent, but I seriously doubt Android's Java stack (and it is a Java stack, although it runs on Google's Dalvik) couldn't work fine on another underlying OS.
- 14y ago
- zmmmmm 14y agoI'm a big Android fan but I can't agree with that until / unless Android develops some kind of windowing system that allows multiple apps on the same screen. On a phone, full screen apps are fine. On a tablet it starts to get annoying. On a desktop it would be a disaster. Windows 8 is pointing the way, I hope Google has something thoughtful and well designed to eventually allow apps to share a screen (officially and without hacks).
- KirinDave 14y agoThere is essentially nothing that stands in the way of this except the will to do it and a device to motivate it, as evidenced by Samsung's recent offerings (which, presumably for expediency, is limited to their specially instrumented apps). The fundamental models of Android does not preclude running multiple activities at once, assuming you can "focus" the back button to a specific pane.
- recoiledsnake 14y agoYou can use the full Eclipse or even Visual Studio on the new Windows 8 x86 tablets like the Surface Pro or lots of other upcoming offerings. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/samsung-series-slate-series-ultra-prepped-windows/story?id=17103217#.UEUk-2yF9Yc http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/samsung-series-slate-series... Upside is CPU power and existing toolchain compatibility, downsides are battery life, cost, thickness, size(compared to 7" tablets) and weight compared to Android tablets.
- KirinDave 14y agoRight, but I have very little interest in that ecosystem. It's great for some people, but I think it's importance is overstated in the modern computing world.
- ck2 14y agoWith 2ghz quad-core arm, this is (now) a very good idea.
- Zaheer 14y agoDo people really code on their tablet/phone? I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to code on one. Usually (since I'm still relatively new to the platform) I'll be switching to StackOverflow/Google a fair amount while coding. Also ergonomics and speed of typing on a tablet if you're used to using a keyboard become an issue.
- zyb09 14y agoI think it might be great for kids, from what I've seen most teenager these days don't use computers a whole lot anymore and rely on their phone as primary internet device (for messaging, chatting, email and browsing). So they might stumble upon the possibility to make their own app and play around with it, creating a HelloWorld app and so on. That's how you get them hooked.
- Zaheer 14y agoPossibly, I'm a college student currently and don't really see the use of it so maybe I'm already too old!
- OriginalSyn 14y agoMy phone? Naw, but a tablet like the transformer I would work on code if I was offsite and I needed to do a small fix or something like that.