Eyes On Android

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced the general availability of its Bluetooth Developer Studio. This a free development environment for developers get to grips with Bluetooth technology, aiming to cut developer learning time for Bluetooth technology and speed product development. It makes building for the IoT simple for developers, from the novice to the experienced, boasts the SIG, ...

The Android Support Libraries can be a life saver for app developers, providing support for newer functionality and UI elements across older versions of Android, and there is a new one: Android Support Library 23.1. Ian Lake, a Developer Advocate at Google, outlines the detailed additions in an Android Developers Blog post: With the latest release of the Android Support ...

Time for another post in our Build your own Android app series. Specifically, about the handling of the “About” page, and its use of HTML and file handling. I’m not saying this is best practice, by any means, but just sharing how I tackled a mini-problem about presenting varied content in one particular Activity, or screen of content. Basically, I ...

Just to document the latest Android platform stats, for October 2015, have been published by Google. As always, they are based on active devices interacting with Google Play over the period of a week. As before, it is version 5.1 (API 22) – the update to the original Lollipop release – that is driving things forward for Google. A more than 50% ...

Google has officially unveiled the next generation of Android, version 6.0, codenamed “Marshmallow”. At a launch event in San Francisco, also beamed around the world, CEO Sundar Pichai ran through an overview of the latest platform. Pixel, Nexus, Chromecasts In what was a plethora of announcements, there was also a release of a Google designed Android tablet-laptop, the Pixel C, ...

The rollout of Google Play services 8.1 has apparently completed, but what’s in the latest release of Google’s special glue for Android services? The answer includes permission models, App Invites, Google Nearby, and Ambient Mode in Android Wear…. A new permissions model Android ” Marshmallow” 6.0 sees a new permissions model that let’s users control app permissions at runtime. This will ...

Check out SmartScope from LabNation, a USB scope that works with Android, as well as Apple, Windows and Linux products. Originating from a 2014 Kickstarter campaign, the relevant app is available from Google Play and functions include: oscilloscope, logic analyser and waveform generator in a 110 x 64 x 24mm aluminium case. It weighs 158g. There are two analogue channels with -3dB bandwidth of 30MHz, ±35V range ...

The latest Android platform stats, for June 2015, have been published by Google. As always, they are based on active devices interacting with Google Play over the period of a week. As before, it is version 5.1 (API 22) – the update to the original Lollipop release – that is driving things forward for Google. A doubling of adoption of 5.1 (from ...

Time for a final look at the detailed content of the Device Description app, which relays back to the user the information that is available about a device via Android API calls. This time, having looked at Sensors previously, we’ll look at Telephony data. Specifically, the Telephony Manager. The TelephonyManager class gives a range of details about the phone element ...

An interesting one to record – Google has released Android Auto Desktop Head Unit (DHU), a way to test Android auto apps. The idea is that the DHU software enables your desktop or workstation act as an Android Auto head unit, emulating the in-car experience for testing purposes. You will need an Android phone running Lollipop or later, with the ...