Watch out for XmlPullParser.nextText()

[This post is by Jesse Wilson from the Dalvik team. —Tim Bray]Using XmlPullParser is an efficient and maintainable way to parse XML on Android. Historically Android has had two implementations of this interface:KXmlParser, via XmlPullParserFactory.newPullParser().ExpatPullParser, via Xml.newPullParser().The implementation...

Read More

Android 4.0.3 Platform and Updated SDK tools

Today we are announcing Android 4.0.3, an incremental release of the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) platform. The new release includes a variety of optimizations and bug fixes for phones and tablets, as well as a small number of new APIs for developers. The new API level is 15.Some of the new APIs in Android 4.0.3 include:Social stream API in Contacts provider: Applications that use social stream...

Read More

Introducing Android Training

[This post is by Reto Meier, Android Developer Relations Tech Lead. — Tim Bray]Today I’m thrilled to announce the beta launch of Android Training — a collection of classes that we hope will help you to build better Android apps. From designing effective navigation, to managing audio playback,...

Read More

More Android Games that Play Nice

[This post is by Dan Galpin, who lives the Android Games lifestyle every day. — Tim Bray]Making a game on Android is easy. Making a great game for a mobile, multitasking, often multi-core, multi-purpose system like Android is trickier. Even the best developers frequently make mistakes in the way...

Read More

Add Voice Typing To Your IME

[This post is by Luca Zanolin, an Android engineer who works on voice typing. — Tim Bray]A new feature available in Android 4.0 is voice typing: the difference for users is that the recognition results appear in the text box while they are still speaking. If you are an IME developer, you can easily...

Read More

A Closer Look at 10 Billion Downloads

[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. —Dirk Dougherty]On Tuesday, we announced that Android Market passed 10 Billion app downloads. We wanted to look a little deeper at that huge number. First question: which app was lucky number 10 billion? Photobucket Mobile. They’ll be getting a great...

Read More

10 Billion Android Market Downloads and Counting

[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. —Dirk Dougherty]One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing the speed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing. This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion...

Read More

Games Coming to Android Market in Korea

[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. —Dirk Dougherty]In the 24 months since the first Android device became available locally, Korea has quickly become one of the top countries in Android device activations. In parallel, we’ve also seen tremendous growth in app downloads from Android Market. Korea is now the second-largest consumer of apps worldwide. Today we are adding to this...

Read More

Making Android Games that Play Nice

[This post is by Ian Ni-Lewis, a Developer Advocate who devotes most of his time to making Android games more awesome. — Tim Bray]Making a game on Android is easy. Making a great game for a mobile, multitasking, often multi-core, multi-purpose system like Android is trickier. Even the best developers...

Read More

Updated NDK for Android 4.0

Today we are releasing an updated version of the Android NDK, now in revision 7. The updated NDK lets developers who are using native code get started with the new native APIs available in Android 4.0.Android NDK r7 includes a number of build system improvements and bug fixes, but most importantly it gives you access to two new sets of APIs:Low-level streaming multimedia: A new API based on Khronos...

Read More

New Layout Widgets: Space and GridLayout

[This post is by Philip Milne, who is part of the Android framework team. — Tim Bray]Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) sports two new widgets that have been designed to support the richer user interfaces made possible by larger displays: Space and GridLayout.The most commonly used class for layout in Android...

Read More

More Android Developer Labs in Asia

A couple of months ago, we kicked off a series of Android Developer Labs in Asia, North America and Europe. To wrap up the 2011 series, we now have opened registration for 2 more locations in Asia.Taipei — December 2, 2011Hong Kong — December 6, 2011Remember, this ADL series isn’t another set of introduction-to-Android sessions, nor any other kind of general overview. It's specifically aimed at optimizing...

Read More

JNI Local Reference Changes in ICS

[This post is by Elliott Hughes, a Software Engineer on the Dalvik team. — Tim Bray]If you don’t write native code that uses JNI, you can stop reading now. If you do write native code that uses JNI, you really need to read this.What’s changing, and why?Every developer wants a good garbage collector. The best garbage collectors move objects around. This lets them offer very cheap allocation...

Read More

Android 4.0 Graphics and Animations

[This post is by Romain Guy and Chet Haase, Android engineers who have been known to collaborate on the subject of graphics, UIs, and animation. You can read more from them on their blogs at curious-creature.org and graphics-geek.blogspot.com. — Tim Bray]Earlier this year, Android 3.0 launched with a new 2D rendering pipeline designed to support hardware acceleration on tablets. With...

Read More

Introducing Android WebDriver

[This post is by Dounia Berrada, an engineer on the EngTools team. — Tim Bray]Selenium WebDriver is a browser automation tool which provides a lightweight and elegant way for testing web apps. Selenium WebDriver is now available as an SDK extra in the Android SDK, and supports 2.3 (Gingerbread)...

Read More

Changes to Library Projects in Android SDK Tools, r14

Last week, we released the SDK for Android 4.0 and a new set of developer tools, now in revision 14. The updated tools include a lot of build changes, many that improve build performance. Also included is an under-the-hood change in how libraries are used by main projects — a first step in improving library support...

Read More

New Public APIs in ICS

Since Android is open-source, anyone can look at the code and see how it works inside. If you do this, you’ll notice that most but not all of the APIs are publicly documented.If they’re publicly documented, they’re part of what we consider the Android Application Framework. This means their tests appear in the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) so that our hardware partners have to prove that the APIs...

Read More

Android 4.0 Platform and Updated SDK Tools

Today we are announcing Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich — a new version of the platform that brings a refined, unified user experience for phones, tablets, and more.Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — efficient multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable...

Read More