Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Standing Up For Android

shiftyjelly.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Standing Up For Android

#61

Post by udp »

phamilton wrote: post #13

As odd as it may seem, I cringe every time I think about developing on Android. It's not the development that gets me. Honestly, I can't stand the emulator. It takes so long to boot up, and is such a resource hog when running. The iPhone emulator is also a resource hog, but I can close it without anticipating a 2 minute bootup when I build my application.

It's a shame the Android emulator doesn't use x86 and wrap the host OpenGL APIs. Currently it emulates ARM (with qemu IIRC?) and then has the emulated ARM processor emulate OpenGL with "PixelFlinger".

I'm another Android developer who only ever tests on a device. I wonder if running Android x86 in something like VMWare might be better?

Re: Standing Up For Android

#62

Post by juliano_q »

baddox wrote: post #4

I'm still curious about the details of his conversations with his users about why they choose Android. Are any of them choosing an Android phone because of the Android OS or app ecosystem? Aside from some hackers that might like the hackability and extensibility of the Android OS, or people that reject Apple because of their business practices or philosophies, I strongly suspect most users that buy Android phones "be…

I am another user that owns a Macbook, an old iPod and an Android phone and I prefer Android. I really like my Android phone much more than iOS for many reasons: widgets, ability to use more "powerfull" (with more permissions to change the phone state) apps, deep integration with the Google apps (Gmail and Navigation are must have for me), much more permission to customize the home screen. ICS (Android 4.0) address many smoothness/usability problems of the previous versions, but even with Gingerbread (Android 2.3) I would not chose to leave Android.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#63

Post by untog »

Tichy wrote: post #50
georgemcbay wrote: post #31

I certainly don't speak for anyone other than myself, but I buy Android devices purposefully and pretty much for 2 reasons: #1 The Google ecosystem. I'm already committed to gmail, google voice and google calendar via multiple google apps accounts (my own personal gmail, plus a google apps work account). Being able to log into my google apps accounts once on the phone and have everything (contacts, events, voicemail…

Maybe Nokia might be interesting for you. I suppose they still ship free offline navigation with their newer phones. (Google Maps requires an online connection, although by now you can apparently cache some small parts of the map in advance).

It actually gives you the option to download the entire dataset on a country by country basis. Pretty nice.

I'm not sure Nokia would be right for him, though- I have a (Samsung) Windows Phone and the e-mail is great, but it's not a Gmail client.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#64

Post by ConstantineXVI »

udp wrote: post #61
phamilton wrote: post #13

As odd as it may seem, I cringe every time I think about developing on Android. It's not the development that gets me. Honestly, I can't stand the emulator. It takes so long to boot up, and is such a resource hog when running. The iPhone emulator is also a resource hog, but I can close it without anticipating a 2 minute bootup when I build my application.

It's a shame the Android emulator doesn't use x86 and wrap the host OpenGL APIs. Currently it emulates ARM (with qemu IIRC?) and then has the emulated ARM processor emulate OpenGL with "PixelFlinger". I'm another Android developer who only ever tests on a device. I wonder if running Android x86 in something like VMWare might be better?

I'd worry about relying on Android-x86 at the moment as it's not an officially backed project from any OEM. However, Intel and Google have promised first-class support for x86 soon; so virtualized Android will likely be more trustable at that point.

FWIW, the Google TV (Android 3.1) SDK can run in KVM on Linux (current Google TV hardware is Atom-based); some of the work is already there.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#65

Post by bitwize »

phamilton wrote: post #13

As odd as it may seem, I cringe every time I think about developing on Android. It's not the development that gets me. Honestly, I can't stand the emulator. It takes so long to boot up, and is such a resource hog when running. The iPhone emulator is also a resource hog, but I can close it without anticipating a 2 minute bootup when I build my application.

1) Get an Android phone and enable USB debugging on it.

2) Plug it in.

3) Use adb as normal.

I'm sorry, but if you hate the Android emulator (I find it slow but tolerable in a pinch), then it's easy to use a real device to do development on.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#66

Post by wallflower »

freemarketteddy wrote: post #34

As an iOS developer I totally empathize with marco and even I have decided that I will never touch android.Here is why? (Note : Like most personal reasons these are more emotional than logical.Trying to logically argue with me on this is a waste of time.) 1)The most important reason is that it is simply not a toy I want to play with.If developer X made a million dollars making app xyz then good for him.I dont really…

Actually point 9 is his most valid point. It is harder to figure out the more complicated things in Android because there are simply fewer developers actively sharing what they know. Which means you have to figure some stuff out by yourself and/or hunt for some code that is similar.

As an example, it is Google's fault but try dealing with an application that uses Fragments that also wants to utilize the non-Fragment Map View.

The best resource for real Android is CommonsWare.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#67

Post by Caballera »

Kylekramer wrote: post #3

I am 100% for holding a mirror up to the weird industry of Apple bloggers constantly patting each other on the back for being brave enough to support a giant company while throwing schoolyard insults at any one who dares compete with Apple (though I honestly just file them in the same department as sports writers now: rarely insightful, yet a highly amusing sideshow), but let's have some honesty here. The only reason…

I also notice that Pocket Cast is "only" $1.99 on the iOS App store compared to $2.99 on the Android market. Plus on iOS at least, they have some good competition from Podcaster and iCatcher etc. On the Android side, there seems to be less polished podcasting apps. The people in my office that use Android (i only use a dev android phone) all use Pocket Casts.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#68

Post by Caballera »

freemarketteddy wrote: post #34

As an iOS developer I totally empathize with marco and even I have decided that I will never touch android.Here is why? (Note : Like most personal reasons these are more emotional than logical.Trying to logically argue with me on this is a waste of time.) 1)The most important reason is that it is simply not a toy I want to play with.If developer X made a million dollars making app xyz then good for him.I dont really…

I'm still learning Android Dev but points 2, 6 and 7 I agree with. Also to an extent 9, a lot of Android Dev blogs are abandoned and dated.

Re: Standing Up For Android

#69

Post by _pius »

wallflower wrote: post #20

If Marco Arment was serious about Android, he would most likely give up control and outsource development to a talented Android developer. Maybe even one who is employed by Google... I'm sure Google would be more than willing to work closely with Marco, as they did in creating Twitter's app, as Instapaper is a brand. Twitter was supposed to open source the code to their Android app as a condition of the assistance bu…

If Marco Arment was serious about Android, he would most likely give up control and outsource development to a talented Android developer.

That's his plan.

http://www.marco.org/2011/12/07/standing-up-for-android

Re: Standing Up For Android

#70

Post by adambyrtek »

Supermighty wrote: post #58
adambyrtek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely over the top. Why should Google spend resources to drive profits for a developer who doesn't even care himself? Don't get me wrong, I love Instapaper and I would like to keep using it, but Marco's blatant dismissal of a large population of users forces me to consider alternatives.

If Instapaper on Android sells handsets then why wouldn't Google want to help.

First you have to prove that "Instapaper on Android sells handsets", which seems extremely unlikely.
Post reply on HN