Browser support for HTML5 Canvas is constantly improving. More features are being supported and performance is improving. Click here or on the image below to see how your browser performs. The app rotates a ten layer gradient and displays the Frame Rate.
HTML5 Canvas is a highly anticipated feature that allows web developers to create sophisticated graphics on their website pages. Most desktop and laptop browsers now support the Canvas feature. Mobile browsers are catching up. To see if your browser supports Canvas, you can access www.html5test.com for an analysis and rating of your browser. Also, give this Canvas app a try:
According to a new study by IDC, smartphone installations will soon outnumber those of PCs. Not surprising, really, but we've lived in a PC dominant world for long enough that the shift seems monumental.
Google has quite a task ... to manage an installed base of over a thousand different types of Android devices. Multiple sizes, shapes, features, etc. The positive way to describe this is variety. On the other hand, it has also been refered to as fragmentation.
So how do they do it? In short, leverage. A good metaphor is a mechanical shovel. Relatively compact machines can move and lift very heavy objects using a system of joints and lever articulation. Android does something similar.
The code in Android applications doesn't manipulate devices directly. There are intermediate joints and levers that make the task manageable. Application code is programmed using component names to refer to layout elements. Layouts are adjusted to device characteristics automatically by the Android operating system. This lets an individual line of code manipulate many different types of devices.
This is a simplified view of how it all happens. There are a number of Android features that make it work: Themes, Styles, Action Bars, Fragments, Resources and much more. When implemented properly, an Android application can move a thousand different types of devices.
A recent article in the Communications of the ACM focuses on how to improve the understandability of code. "Coding Guidelines: Finding the Art in the Science" by Robert Green and Henry Ledgard addresses a number of often overlooked aspects of code design, including:
Many developers feel that work done to improve the appearance and understandabililty of code is wasted effort. They will often work to make code as compact and sometimes as obscure as possible.
This might work well for them while the function of the code is recently developed in their own head. But someone, even themselves, trying to maintain or improve the code sometime in the future would likely find it very difficult to understand.
Using principles such as those above can, over the long run, decrease development costs and improve code performance.
So called Android fragmentation is caused by the large number of Android device types and operating system versions deployed in the market. It's the flip side to the benefit of having a wide variety Android devices and capabilities.
There are currently over a thousand different types of Android devices on the market. It's simply not possible to support all of these without accomodating variations in device design.
Google provides a number of tools for addressing the compatibility necessary to serve this diverse universe of devices. These include:
Unified Support for Tablets and Handsets
Android 4.0 combines the support of tablets and handsets into a single release.
In Android 4.0 Google has made the inclusion of the unmodified Holo theme family a compatibility requirement for devices running Android 4.0 and forward. This will provide a level of uniformity across device implementations.
Provides mechanisms for supporting multiple screen sizes and densities.
Action Bar Backward Compatibility
Google has recently developed a set of classes to give the Action Bar backward compatibility for pre Android 3.0 devices. These classes invoke the action bar design pattern on pre-API 11 devices and the built-in Action Bar on devices supporting API 11 or greater.
This library is available through the SDK Updater. It gives backward compatibility for the new Fragments feature.
Google provides guidelines on achieving compatibility across devices.
Elements of the Action Bar graphic include:
Google has recently developed a set of classes to give the Action Bar backward compatibility for pre Android 3.0 devices. These classes invoke the action bar design pattern on pre-API 11 devices and the built-in Action Bar on devices supporting API 11 or greater.
This is part of a larger set of capabilities for supporting application compatibility with multiple device environments including tablets and handsets and various screen sizes.
Google has just released new, and very helpful, Android design guidelines. They're detailed on the Android developer website. The main webpage is shown below.
It's great to have these guidelines grouped in one place for easy access and they appear to be a step forward in developing an improved user experience ... both for the operating system and applications.
We're often asked about the differences between the Java and C++ programming languages and why Android apps are written most often in Java.
The table below highlights some of the differences between the languages. Basically, Java is better suited to the fundamental programming (using the SDK - Software Development Kit) for most app functions. C++ is used (with the NDK - Native Development Kit) in circumstances when high performance or easy re-use of existing C++ code is important.
When it comes to organizing data in an Object Oriented Program, there are lots of choices and decisions to make. It can at times be difficult to think through all the criteria for selecting and implementing the right data structure.
The decision table below can help work through the data design process.
OOP Design Patterns are development templates that give software designers and coders shorthand ways of thinking about and solving programming challenges.
A full explanation of OOP Design Patterns can (and does) fill entire textbooks. Understanding and remembering every aspect of every pattern can be a daunting task. Hopefully the brief descriptions below will help in remembering the function of some common Design Patterns.
Often programmers need to discuss pattern usage with software designers, managers and other programmers. Getting too lost in the details can distract from communicating the essence of a software solution. Design Patterns can help with these challenges.
Some commonly used Design Patterns are listed below. Click on the Design Pattern name for a full pattern description.
I had a great time delivering a presentation on Android Market Search at the San Francisco Android User Group on December 12th. Thanks very much to the organizers and participants!
The purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google is progressing. It has been approved by the Motorola Mobility shareholders and awaits approval by the U.S. government.
There has been speculation that one of the major motivations for Google is the patents held by Motorola Mobility. Owning these would help Google fend off patent lawsuits by other companies.
Aside from the legal aspects, the merger will likely have a number of benefits for Google. These could include:
Google's new Android version 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, is now available. However, for the moment, you'll only see it on new devices. Many of us with older model phones would like to have it retrofitted. Service providers will certainly get around to doing this with some of the more recent models, but older models may never get the dairy confection.
For those of us adventurous enough, "rooting" our phones and loading an Ice Cream Sandwich ourselves is an option. Please see our Blog entry on Rooting for more information before you give it a try.
HTML5 is the first major update to the HTML standard since HTML4 was standardized in 1994. Full approval by standards bodies and complete implementation may take another decade, but parts of HTML5 are already being implemented.
Each browser supports HTML5 to a different degree. The www.html5test.com website can be used to test the extent to which a browser currently supports HTML5.
The screens to the right were taken from a test of a Droid X running Android version 2.3.3. It scored 177 points out of a total of 450. As is evident from this test, smartphone browsers are not very far along in implementing HTML5 features. The lower screen to the right shows the status of some desktop browsers.
Possibly the most well known of the HTML5 features is the new tag that will avoid the need for Flash in playing videos. This is especially important now that Adobe has announced it will stop development of Flash for mobile devices.
HTML5 contains many new features. A number of these are focused on eliminating the need for proprietary plugins and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs.) This advances the idea of being able to develop applications that will run on any device that supports HTML5, including multiple smartphone, tablet and desktop brands.
In brief, rooting your phone refers to making changes to the phone operating system so that you can load a different version of the system than the one that's pre-loaded into your phone.
Reasons users root their phones include: enhancing performance, to get a different look and feel, to have more flexibility in what software can be used, getting the latest Android releases and to have some technical fun.
The term rooting refers to getting privileged root control access within the Android Linux core system. Rooting is necessary to install custom versions of the Android system. One of the more popular of these is CyanogenMod. It offers such features as improved sound processing, additional display themes and improved processing speed.
There has been quite a bit of controversy over rooting. Some vendors and carriers discourage it and some support it.
Potential risks include: voiding your warranty, loosing data and "bricking" your phone thus rendering it inoperable. Those that choose to root are comfortable with these risks and see them as being outweighed by the benefits. They're also willing to invest the time needed to make sure that rooting is done correctly and can be undone if something goes wrong.
The exact process of rooting can vary by type of device. It's necessary to find instructions specific to your Android phone. There are websites dedicated to rooting where you can find this information along with help for dealing with problems caused by rooting.
Essentially, rooting involves "flashing" (changing) a phone's ROM, or Read Only Memory. There are ROM Manager apps available on the Android Market that can be used to backup, change and restore ROM contents.
So, if you have the time and sense of adventure, rooting might be just the right thing for you.
If not, you can wait for new phone releases to bring you many of the benefits of rooting without the risk and hassle.
Google's latest Android release is now available. You can find a good summary on the Android website.
There are significant improvements/additions to:
Look for phone manufacturers and service providers to start releasing phones running Ice Cream Sandwich.
According to a new study by IDC, mobile internet access via smartphones and tablets will soon outpace wireline access via PCs and other fixed position devices. Mobile device use is growing rapidly and wireline use is expected to level off and then decline.
This is expected to alter the very nature of how the internet is used. Consider some characteristics of mobile devices that will contribute to this change:
It looks like the shift from fixed to mobile devices may be every bit as significant as the historic shift from mainframes to PCs.
According to a new report from ABI Research, 97 percent of all smartphones will feature touch-screens by 2016. In 2006, only 7 percent of smartphones were touch-screen equiped.
Although it seems likely that special purpose smartphones for gaming, etc. will continue to use physical keypads, the flexibility of touch-screens is hard to beat.
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