xda-developers

Careers in Android: Recruiter Reveals How Resumes are Chosen – XDA Developer TV

Jimmy McGee — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:00:27 +0000

XDA Developer TV Producer Jayce released a video a month ago talking about finding Android development jobs. He spoke to people who said Resumes Don’t Work. However, there are times where you don’t have the luxury of being creative and you must submit a resume to be considered for the job. Today, a recruiter reveals how resumes are chosen.

In today’s episode, Jayce interviews Cecilia Kong, the director of recruiting at a national search firm, about resumes. Cecilia talks about what makes a resume stand out. Suggestions include tailoring your resume to each job and being clear in your chronology. Check out this video.

Check out Jayce’s other videos and his Careers in Android Series.

Be sure to check out other great XDA Developer TV Videos.

Check out Jayce’s HowToBecomeTV YouTube Channel

HttpClient Tutorial to Upload and Download with Your App

Mike Szczys — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:00:06 +0000

Developers wanting to interact with the Internet need to choose a package to do the heavy lifting for them. A very common route is to use the built-in HttpClient. The documentation is fairly complete, but it’s a daunting to get started if you’ve never used the package before.

Take a look at the HttpClient tutorial that JFrankie recently posted. I find his presentation very approachable for the beginner, yet he doesn’t hesitate to move on to the more complex subjects. The guide starts off with a few lines of code used to open a connection, and quickly covers the first gotcha. HttpClient shouldn’t be run in the UI thread, as it presents a blocking function (you don’t know how long it’s going to be before the server answers back). Android will throw an error automatically if you try to do this.

He goes on to wrap the code in an AsyncTask class. This lets it run in a separate thread, launching a method when its work is complete. Most likely you’re looking to download something, a topic which is well covered in the guide. JFrankie wraps up the post by explaining the steps necessary to upload using the HTTP multipart request protocol.

He publicized his article in a Reddit thread, where he also participated in a discussion of the memory leak potential of using AsyncTask. It’s some advice you may want to heed as you build your app around the HttpClient.

Profile Flow: A Tasker Alternative

Samantha — Sat, 18 May 2013 08:00:21 +0000

By now, we’re all quite familiar with Tasker, the personal automation app that seems to be able to do anything that you’d ever want your smartphone or tablet to ever do. XDA-Developer TV even has a thorough video series of this monumental app. Then not long after, XDA-Developer TV took a look at Llama, a free alternative to Tasker, with a pretty much similar variety of functions as Tasker. Well today, we’ll have a look at Profile Flow by XDA Forum Member amithgc.

As a free alternative to Tasker, Profile Flow enables you to control almost all aspects of your Android device based on either a set date, time period, or day. Presented with a clinical Holo user interface, the app is easy to navigate with its simplicity and sliding tabs that display a quick overview of possible tasks, current profiles, statistics, and a history of profile changes. As a free version, possible tasks are surprisingly quite non-restrictive allowing for the major aspects of your device such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Autosync, and Ringtone among many others, to be automated with the app. Profiles can be arranged according to priority, and can also be duplicated and edited once created. Amithgc has also implemented a ‘Lite profile’ feature, which execute set tasks without switching and disturbing the currently active profile. New users would also appreciate a handy little guide that describes the app and provides an overview of its functions.

Amithgc developed a well polished app that may prove to be quite a good and free alternative for Tasker. It presents itself in a non-complicated way that many users of Tasker or Llama may appreciate, especially with their daunting user interfaces for new users. Profile Flow is compatible with Android versions 2.2 and newer, and is free from the Play store. So if this has gotten you interested, make sure to check out the application thread for more information.

More Tips to Help Promote Your Android App

Will Verduzco — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:00:28 +0000

With over 700,000 apps in the Google Play store and more than 48 billion app installs, it’s quite the challenge to get your Android app noticed. This is exactly what XDA Forum Member the_main_app set out to do when he asked how to go about getting his app noticed.

We recently covered an excellent guide by XDA Forum Member DoubleP90 that helps with the task, so make sure that you’ve already had a look over there. But for those who want a few more tips by various forum members, the_main_app’s question thread may also be of use.

Thanks to the helpful nature of the XDA community, there are now quite a few useful tips in the thread—everything from making sure your app actually does what it says on the tin to making sure the UI is pretty enough to keep users enticed. Regarding the latter, there’s an XDA thread for that.™

One standout highlight from the thread is a response by Forum Member anton1981:

Empirically, I determined that a new application has to be seen through search Google play. Search is all that we have without money for a marketing campaign.
Therefore,application should be optimized in the following order:

Application name in google play. This name may be different from the name displayed on the desktop device. The application name contains 30 characters, they should contain the main application keywords.

Description of the application must be clear and also contain keywords.

Attractive icons are very important.

The application must be beautiful and functional. No need to buy a device for $ 300-500 and install an ugly app. People want a beautiful application.

Publication of forums mentioned above.

Another useful tidbit comes from Forum Member Yordi Pauptit:

Key is a having a functional app. If users download an app which is half done and has disabled functions because they aren’t done yet, they are going to uninstall it. Second suggestion, a great design is makes a difference for a lot of people whether they’re going to install it or not.

When you have both those things, you can get on with actually promoting the app. I would search for an SEO copywriter to get the description for your app. SEO copywriters are specialized in optimizing texts for Google. And I would look into advertising on Facebook. I think you can actually promote your apps, and advertise only on phones. This way your advertisement will only be showed to people who are using Facebook on their phone. User will probably more tempted to install the app.

In all seriousness, though, those interested should visit the question thread in our new app development forums to get started.

Sony Continues AOSP Initiative on the Tablet Z

jerdog — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:30:33 +0000

Sometimes, you can harp on a subject so much that you end up beating a dead horse. In our eyes, this is not one of those instances. Enough can’t be said for companies that take Open Source seriously, as well as their responsibility to contribute back to the very community that helps to boost adoption rates for their devices.

Sony Mobile is one of those companies that gets it. They have contributed to the open source community with their DASH code, GPLv2 adherence with their kernel source code releases, and various AOSP projects (Xperia S, Xperia Z). Now, they have added the Xperia Tablet Z to their stable of AOSP projects ahead of its worldwide release.

Sony Mobile announced on their Developer World blog today that the AOSP code for the Tablet Z is now available on their GitHub. While you’re at it, check out their video below for a demo of AOSP on the Tablet Z.

Google I/O 2013 Keynote Recap, Cydia Comes to Android, Touchpal XDA Exclusive Beta – XDA Developer TV

Jimmy McGee — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:00:09 +0000

Lets talk about what happened at the keynote at Google I/O 2013. That and more are covered by Jordan, as he reviews all the important stories from this week. Included in this week’s news is the announcement that Cydia Substrate by Saurik has been released for Android and Touchpal Keyboard has an Exclusive Beta on XDA.

Jordan talks about the other videos released this week on XDA Developer TV. XDA Developer TV Producer Kevin gave us a part two of his tutorials on Llama Locations, AdamOutler tore apart and jailbroke his Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and TK released an Android App review of Buzz Launcher. Pull up a chair and check out this video.

Links to stories mentioned:

Check out Jordan’s YouTube Channel and Jordan’s Gaming YouTube Channel

Need Some Help Designing Your App’s UI?

Will Verduzco — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:00:02 +0000

OK. So you’ve just finished much of the code for your first app, but you’ve run into a new problem: Your app is quite frankly an abomination to look at. Never fear, though, as your weakness is another community member’s strength.

It’s always nice to see people help their fellow community members, and this is hardly the first time we’ve seen similar efforts. Not too long ago, we featured community-driven efforts to help developers find language translators and alpha/beta testers. Now thanks to efforts by XDA Forum Member nikwen, it’s now easier than ever to connect with other forum members who want nothing more than to help you design and/or tweak the interface for your app. His motivations for doing so? Simple:

Here on xda there are plenty of good developers out there. However, I have seen many developers who are very good at programming but not at designing and theming. Many great apps work perfectly but do not look very pleasing. In my opinion this is a very sad condition.

On the other hand there are also many great themers and designers here on xda. They create appealing themes for third party apps and share their modified versions with the online community.

Currently at eight volunteers and growing, this may be just what the less artistically inclined developers have been searching for. Are you interested in upping the design level of your application in progress? If so, visit the original thread to get started. And for those who prefer to do it themselves, don’t forget to take a look at the various resources available for design, as well as how to avoid graphics design pitfalls.

Make Your Xperia Z, T, TX, V Status Bar and On-Screen Buttons Transparent

Samantha — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:00:45 +0000

If you’ve only recently made the transition from hardware or capacitive navigational buttons to on-screen buttons like I have, you may have found the virtual buttons to be quite obstructive and intrusive, for a lack of better words. If you own either the Sony Xperia Z, T, TX, or V; there is now a guide that allows you to not only make the on-screen buttons transparent, but also the status bar if you wish.

Written by XDA Forum Member Spaun_Studio, the guide is relatively simple and straightforward, detailing the required process for transparent virtual buttons and status bar with clear and direct steps. Users must decompile the android.policy.jar and SystemUI.apk file with a tool such as APKtool. From there, users edit, remove, and add a couple of lines in various .xml and .smali files, and recompile them once completed. Each step is accompanied visually with examples of code, with a convenient color coding system to aid users with finding the specific codes that require editing.

We always love guides that teach users how to mod their phones themselves—not only because they encourage users to learn, but also because of the unrestricted flexibility they enable. In this case, users can freely change a couple lines of code to have whatever degree of transparency they fancy.

Of course, following the instructions I have only briefly outlined would would most certainly result in an unwelcome outcome (although you’re more than welcome to try), so it’s best for you to visit the guide for a successful modification.

Android App Review: To Infinity and Beyond with Buzz Launcher – XDA Developer TV

Jimmy McGee — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:30:50 +0000

Part of what makes Android awesome is that you can customize your home screens to be more than a grid of icons. There are many different launchers in the Android ecosystems. There are many different themes for those launchers too.

XDA Forum Member buzzplan has an application to help you apply others’ Homescreens to your own smartphone. In this video, XDA Developer TV Producer TK reviews Buzz Launcher. TK shows off the application and gives his thoughts, so check out this app review.

Be sure to check out other great XDA Developer TV Videos

Google I/O 2013 Keynote Notes

jerdog — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:40 +0000

In a crowded, standing-room Google I/O 2013 kicked off with the Keynote. Google’s SVP Vic Gundotra welcomed the 6,000 in attendance as well as the 40,000+ in attendance worldwide at the viewing parties, and the 1,000,000 watching on YouTube. He then turned it over to Google’s new SVP in charge of Android, Chrome & Apps, Sundar Pichai. Sundar talked about us being at one of the most innovative phases of computing, with us seeing people around the world increasingly using different computing devices, as well as two large fast growing, scalable platforms in Android and Chrome.

He touched base on Android’s current activations, reaching the 100 million in 2011, 400 million in 2012 and now 900 million in 2013. He also spoke regarding the journey Google is undertaking to bring the remaining 4.5 billion users in the world online and how that can make a difference in their lives. After that, he turned it over to Hugo Barra, VP of Product Management for Android.

Hugo spoke to the 48 billion app installs on Google Play, with 2.5 billion in the last month alone. He gave us a teaser about adding new dev services and tools associated with Google Play with the availability of the Google Play Services API, which provides the latest APIs to all devices consistently. He gave some notes about new location APIs being added to the Google Maps API:

Fused Location Provider provides a redesigned location system for the device, and uses less than 1% battery per hour.
Geofencing lets you define “geo fences” that activate when a user enters a specific area while using an app, with up to 100 fences available per app
Activity Recognition allows your application to auto sense if the user is walking, driving or biking

The next feature mentioned the Google+ Sign-In, which allows developers to utilize cross-platform single sign-on between devices, and lets a web application auto-install the app on a tablet or phone.

After Google+ Sign-In, Google Cloud Messaging was the focus. 60% of the top apps in the Play Store use GCM, with 200K messages/sec and 17 billion/day being served. GCM is also now part of Google Play services, and brings 3 new features for developers:

Persistent Connections
Upstream Messaging
New api syncs notifications across all devices (acknowledge a notification on one device and it goes away across devices)

The next thing talked about was Google Play Game Services, which includes the following for game developers:

Cloud Save, allowing for player progression and game state to be saved across all devices
Achievements, giving developers the ability to keep track of new areas of games the player achieves
Leaderboards, let players keep track of how they are doing on a game in comparison to their friends or the world
Multiplayer Game Services, a feature that (even though the demo didn’t work due to network congestion) allows you to invite people from your Google+ circles to play a game together

The Google Play Services update has already begun rolling out today for all devices, and developers will be able to start taking advantage of these new features immediately.

Eclipse has always been the defacto standard tool for creating Android applications – especially if you don’t want to use a text editor and ANT. Even though it is the standard doesn’t mean that people like it. It’s kinda like that annoying wart you have on your hand that you can’t get rid of and you finally just accept. But Google has come up with the “wart killer” in Android Studio. They partnered with Jetbrains to create a new tool based on IntelliJ which has been released into the open source world. A few of the killer features built into the tool are:

Live rendering of your code (layouts, icons, etc.), allowing you to see exactly what your code is looking like while you build as well as how it will look across any device
Easily add any Android API immediately into your code

One of the other big things spoken about was Google’s take on Android 4.2.2 on a device that isn’t, and will not be classified as, a Nexus device. The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the hottest selling device available today, but runs TouchWiz Nature UX 2.0. Many people feel this version of TouchWiz is a massive regression to pre-Gingerbread TouchWiz, and removes any advances that TouchWiz had made with the original TouchWiz Nature found on the Galaxy S III, Note and Note II.

Google announced that the Samsung S 4 Google Edition will be available June 26, and will be unlike any other Galaxy S device from Samsung. It will ship without Samsung software. That alone, for many people, makes this about the most compelling piece of news coming out of the Keynote. The Google Edition will come with stock Android 4.2 (no word on a new version yet), dual-carrier support (ATT and T-Mobile), LTE support, 16 GB storage, prompt system updates from Google, and will ship with the bootloader unlocked. While the price tag of $649 could be a deterrent for some, it is in line with the Samsung version while note packing the same “software” features.

That ends our overview coverage of the Keynote. While there were other things announced, they don’t directly impact XDA as much as they reside in the peripheral. Feel free to go watch the rebroadcast of the Keynote below or at Google Developers YouTube page.