@BryanDenny on that page, under "Setting up your machine" there are no Windows instructions so i'm guessing this can only be built on Unix machines? If so I guess I'll dual boot Ubuntu on my dev machine

@Daniel yep it's linux only (or at least intended to be)

@MatthewRead no its Mac and Linux. I said Unix since Mac is based on Unix and Linux is a clone of Unix

Anyone use mobile tracker type apps? Friend's asking me for a recommendation, but my Galaxy S has it built in so I've never tried any in the market.

@Daniel correct, it has be a *nix machine as far as I know (I believe because of how it builds, the libraries it uses, etc., again, I haven't tried it myself but would like to some day)

@GAThrawn mobile tracker? can you describe more about what s/he is looking for?

@Daniel oh cool, I didn't know it could be built on MacOS too. presumably it could be built in cygwin then too, perhaps with minor tweaks

@GAThrawn You mean like Where's My Droid? That's the one I use

Also, the i9000 has it built in? that's cool. is it in settings?

@MatthewRead Thanks that's exactly the sort of app I was after (a friend left their iphone on a train yesterday, we were talking about how he could find it) and yes the Galaxy S has it built-in but I believe it's disabled in some countries/networks. It's under Settings -> Location and Security and works with the SamsungDive.com website

@BryanDenny perhaps I can tempt you or @MatthewRead into starting a community blog for Android?

@IvoFlipse I could probably be convinced to contribute occasionally, but I don't have time for anything else

preferably we can make sure the moderators of each site help organizing it, so you would just have to write an occasional post and we'd look for several writers to create some steady stream of content

perhaps if some users have made some awesome app, they can review it or better yet, have it reviewed by a fellow user and put that up as well

posts like: how to root your device

or any relevant new tidbits, for which currently we have to abuse Meta to share them :P

@IvoFlipse heh, I love the idea of our devs "completely impartially" reviewing their own apps ;)

hehe @GAThrawn, well the mods or editors would get to decide whether it get's posted

so if your review sucks or your app is dumb, tough luck :P

define powerful @NguyenMinhBinh

@NguyenMinhBinh First, Android 2.2 is the most popular version of Android at the moment. I would think you probably want to target 2.2 at a maximum, then. All versions are backwards-compatible, meaning that an app written for 1.6 should work on 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and 3.0 as well unless it does something very strange. Thus, unless your applications require otherwise, you should target the lowest version of the OS possible.

@NguyenMinhBinh I don't think that focusing on the single most popular device is a good idea, however. Most apps will work regardless of the particular device, unless it's particularly resource-intensive like a game.

@NguyenMinhBinh I can't find any hard data on which phone is the most popular, either. The Galaxy S is a good bet however, as it's become very popular and has several different versions that are 99% the same (meaning what you do on one model should work on all the others).

I think the Galaxy S is a sensible advice, though it runs 2.3. Mainly because it will probably be supported for probably the rest of 2011 and is one of the largest OEMs main models and is pretty much the same everywhere, unlike some HTC models or Motorola for instance

@NguyenMinhBinh As for the most powerful, something like the Motorola Atrix is probably close. There are other similar phones coming out soon, with dual processors and the like. I would think though that you're probably better off targeting Google's "flagship" phone, the Nexus S. That device is intended to be the "model" for 2.3 phones, providing the "Pure Google Experience". It's intended to be very developer-friendly. You could also look at the older Nexus One, and the upcoming Nexus S 4G.

@IvoFlipse Do you mean the Nexus S? I don't believe any Galaxy S models have gotten 2.3 yet

@IvoFlipse funny, I was just solicited via email yesterday to write for some sort of news website

@IvoFlipse it's a good idea, but I doubt that I could commit a lot of time into it as I already lack a lot of free time. Makes me wish I'd blog more on my own blog :D

@IvoFlipse but I see no reason why I cannot chip in a post every now and then

@NguyenMinhBinh from the linked questions on your question earlier, AdMob recently published a chart of the most common Android phones they see metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Android-Hset1.jpg there's a good chart of Android phone specs here andro-phones.com/2010-android-phones.php and the chart here developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/… shows the current split of phones running different Android versions at the moment

@Daniel you can develop and compile Android under VMWare/VirtualBox/etc. If you ask around the forum for kernel developers, they might be distributing virtual machine images preconfigured for kernel development (i.e. with ARM cross-compiler, JDK, adb, all set up). Samdroid distributes a VMWare image ready for Samsung Spica i5700 kernel development: forum.samdroid.net/f9/… which you might be able to repurpose for your device.

Ah yes @MatthewRead I picked the wrong model

@BryanDenny you can crosspost the blog posts to your own blog ;)

and it would probably more of a task to delegate other users to get it going

The SuperUser blog regularly picks a question of the week from the main SuperUser site as their topic to talk about. Doing this occasionally would give a regular supply of topics that users actually are interested in, and would have the added benefit that answerers should already have done much of the research for you

@LieRyan Thanks! I totally forgot about VirtualBox. I might try that first since my dev machine HDD is just one partition with Win7 and I've never had to mess with re-sizing a partition.

Just posted this to the site, but does anyone use Ustream or Qik?

@chrispt I've used Qik. what's your question?

i just wanted to get a general sense of why people chose one over the other.

@chrispt i've never used UStream but Qik's quality is ok, automatic syncing works well, and video calls are clear but the volume is sorta low.

Has anyone had a bad experience with the LG Optimus One P500? Would you recommend something else (in the same price range, without a carrier plan)?

@AviralDasgupta no I haven't, but what carrier are you on and how much does that phone cost?

@BryanDenny Well, I'm in India, so you really don't have carrier plans. I'm on Airtel.

@BryanDenny I'm assuming you have one - how much did you get it from, and from where? It appears that in India, the phone's priced at around 12K INR (around 250 USD).

@BryanDenny I'm assuming you have one - how much did you get it from, and from where? It appears that in India, the phone's priced at around 12K INR (around 250 USD).

@AviralDasgupta I don't think he meant to imply he had one (Bryan, correct me if I'm wrong)

@MatthewRead hmm...

@AviralDasgupta whoops I typoed

I meant I don't have one

@AviralDasgupta I think the Optimus One is probably a good choice for that price range. The Samsung Galaxy 551 is similar price but definitely seems to be inferior as far as specs go -- the screen has a lower resolution, less RAM, etc.

Sorry then, I'm more familiar with US carrier/Android devices

Hmm, 250 USD? You might could get a used Nexus One for that price (I'm assuming India uses GSM/SIM cards, right?)

Yeah, Airtel is GSM.

My current provider isn't, but I'm planning to switch.

hmm...

Well, I haven't considered a second-hand phone (yet).

I see Nexus Ones on ebay for $300 up to $400, so that might be a bit much

(but that's also in the US)

The only second hand phone I have is a G1, but I use it for dev testing, not for everyday use

I bought it off ebay for about $100

Well, the 250 USD quote was from India.

Apparently, it's priced at 230 USD (in the US)

ah

(I might end up buying mine there)

so you'd suggest a second hand phone instead?

I don't know what all your options are, but you might be able to get a better phone for cheaper. But if the carrier is going to subsidize the cost with a plan, then it would be better to get a new phone

but you said without a carrier plan, right?

or contract, I guess is what I mean

@BryanDenny Doesn't work that way in India, sadly :(

Yeah

While the Nexus One is far better than the Optimus One

I've seen some videos of the Optimus One on Youtube

If you can find one for cheap (that seems to be in good shape), then I'd go for it

and it looks like it manages most games at full (or close to full speed) (btw. I'm looking to develop games for Android)

Yeah I second that, if you can get one in good shape it would be worth it

hmm

Yeah, if you're wanting to do games, you'll definitely want one of the newer generations of phones, nothing older than a N1

@AviralDasgupta I heard the Optimus One has a dedicated video chip that's pretty good, so that's not a bad choice. The Nexus could presumably beat it, but I haven't looked into that specifically

I can tell how old the G1 is. I proptyped a puzzle game (never published it because I never got around to finishing it), and could tell a noticeable difference in performance Droid 1 vs the G1. And this was just simple 2D graphics

But again, I don't know anything about the Optimus One :)

Did a quick search on eBay - doesn't look like they have any Nexus Ones in that price range

@BryanDenny Not quite sure whether this is OC'd, but youtube.com/watch?v=twuN2iHCAj0

Looks pretty good, I had trouble running that game on my Droid, mainly memory issues (too many background services)

I see an N1 for 15k INR, that's close ... maybe you could find one locally (offline) for ~12k

I'm very anxious about upgrading my phone this summer :)

is there an India equivalent to craigslist?

Also, it appears that the primary source of lag (in the video) is due to an input bug (software), which will be fixed in 2.3 or through a patch

you can find some good deals on phones on that site in the US

@BryanDenny Getting in on the dual-processor goodness?

@MatthewRead yeah I'd like to get the bionic :)

My xoom most cetainly goes xoom xoom

it's unbelievable how quick the thing is

@BryanDenny Hmm, any reason you're looking at that over the Atrix? They seem basically equivalent except the Atrix has double the RAM

@BryanDenny Isn't the Xoom ... "prototypey"?

@MatthewRead because I'm on Verizon and will not switch to at&t

@AviralDasgupta I haven't had many issues with it. I've encountered a couple of bugs, but for the most part I've been quiet satisfied

previously I was using a Nook Color as a tablet which was OK, but honeycomb is nicer

(I still have the Nook Color, just not sure what I'll do with it now other than being another screen resolution to test against :D )

@BryanDenny Ah, durrrr. That makes sense :P

@MatthewRead so I'll either get the bionic or thunderbolt or whatever is good at that point in time

@BryanDenny Oh, great.

:)

it also depends on if bionic has a locked boot loader. I love cyanogenmod too much to give that up :)

my co worker has a thunderbolt and he loves it. Very snappy. He is quite pleased with it (he used to have a Droid)

@BryanDenny Righto. I'd also rank unlocked Bionic > Thunderbolt > locked Bionic

Yep, that's pretty much my thoughts too

@MatthewRead do you know of any video chat apps? google talk on xoom only works if another user has google talk with video (which I think is only xoom atm). Yahoo messenger doesn't show up in the market (does for my co worker who has a thunderbolt).

cross os to iOS would also be nice

@BryanDenny oh wow, i'm going to have to experiment with that version of Talk later :P have you tried Fring? fring.com/blog/?p=2199

Fring insta-FCs

oh, ouch

i haven't tried anything else

apparently something called vtok will let ios users use gtalk video chat

skype doesn't do video yet

going to try and re-install fring

yep fring just FCs

what is WITH samsung and their 800 billion Galaxy S variants androidpolice.com/2011/03/30/…

Okay, I got Tango to work with my coworker motorola xoom <-> HTC thunder bolt, and I was able to get my iOS friends (ipad2 and iphone4) to use vtok to gtalk video chat with me

What I need is a universal solution, but this will do for now

@BryanDenny So Tango-Tango and Tango-vtok?

tango-tango and gtalk-vtok

I expect that gtalk on android will eventually support video for non 3.0 tablets (e.g. thunderbolt)

or skype video support on android

yeah, having the standard gtalk client support it everywhere would be nice

it's too bad they haven't updated the windows client in years. i dislike using the web interface

@MatthewRead apparently google will no longer do native apps since that is sort of anti-web and that is what they are all about

@BryanDenny heh, they're doing a good job of supporting the native apps for android instead of ruthlessly pursuing webapps