Building Smart Phone Applications Using Google Android An

Building Smart Phone Applications Using Google Android An Introduction by Peter Messenger Senior Developer – Qmastor http: //www. petermessenger. com

Why Learn Android? • Like to teach myself new technology • Develop applications for my charity website – http: //www. physiotherapyexercises. com • Developed an Iphone version as experiment – Exceeded expectations, 100 downloads a day on average for last year, was in top 50 for medical apps – doubled website hits – Other platforms ASP. NET (web), Xbox/Windows (XNA), Silverlight (desktop), Internet TV (Samsung) – Heard about Android, wanted to see what it could be done

Google Android • Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google and is based on a modified version of the Linux kernal • Code is written in java, controlling device via Google developed java libraries • Unveiled in November 2007 • Free and open source licence

Google Android • Many different phones and devices now use the operating system – HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson • Tablets – Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Archos • Android’s market share in the US greater than IPhone • Still trailing IPhone in rest of world

Google Android • Includes Android Software Development Kit – Debugger – Libraries – Emulator – Sample Code and Tutorials http: //developer. android. com/index. html

Google Android • Officially supported development environment is Eclipse (very similar functionality to Visual Studio) http: //www. eclipse. org/downloads/ • Uses Android Development Tools plugin for Eclipse

Google Android Marketplace • Currently 140, 000 applications available • 1. 7 billion downloads – http: //www. androlib. com/appstats. aspx

Google Android Marketplace • Approximately 65% of marketplace are free • 86% are applications, 14% are games • Developers get 70% of any application sales (similar to IPhone) • Much less restricted model for distribution • Currently cannot sell applications in Australia (free is ok) http: //www. android. com/market http: //www. androidzoom. com/

My thoughts to date • Still very much a novice developer, developing the same application for IPhone and Android – Java is much easier to learn than objective C. – Eclipse is seems much easier to use than Apple development toolkit – Examples, code templates seems much easier to follow and are more complete – Seemed to be able to develop application in less than half the time

Links • Wikipedia http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) • Android Market Statistics http: //www. androlib. com/ • Android Developer Website http: //developer. android. com/index. html • Android Marketplace http: //www. android. com/market

Questions?