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Android M Developer Preview and Tools

android-developers.blogspot.com

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Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#101

Post by magicalist »

on_and_off wrote: post #83
hyperion_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the developer preview now there is no difference when installing new apps, so do developers all have to make manual changes in their apps for it to work, or will Google flip a switch at some point? Currently you can change app permissions once an app is installed, but they gain all the permissions they ask for when installed. If each app has to be updated by the developer for the changes to take place, it might…

The app needs to target M in order to access to these granular permission. An app targeting a lower API level will work in legacy mode where it gets its permissions at install time, like before. I guess it makes sense in order to give enough time to the devs to update their apps to this new system. As long as the checking/warning becomes more aggressive in N, I am fine with that choice.

According to the session after the keynote, you'll still be able to at least go back and revoke permissions individually for apps targeting older API levels.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#102

Post by zmmmmm »

wikyd wrote: post #99
Sargos wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if the developer uses app indexing where Google can search through the content and make it searchable to end users and other endpoints. It doesn't come for free so Google has no access to things like your bank app's screen.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now... makes it seem like they just walk the view hierarchy. They show examples of using this in a chat app, which makes less sense to be found via app indexing.

The presenter actually mentioned app indexing on stage at some point so I think it does rely on the developer opting into indexing.

On the other hand, it's not clear to me that the user opts into the indexing, so Google might suddenly silently be getting access to a huge number of user's deep within-app data without them realising it. But that is old news, app indexing has been around for a while.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#103

Post by Ologn »

jraines wrote: post #13
quotemstr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how people see Android developments as a choice of heavyweight IDEs. I do all my Android development, Java and native, with Emacs and Buck.

Can you recommend any good resources learning about taking this approach?

I often program Android in Emacs as well. I use the Java Development Environment for Emacs and have been happy with it.

If you add an Android-specific class like TextView in your code, you can easily have Android Studio add the needed import command for it.

With Emacs/JDE, I point my jde-global-classpath to the Android jar, then when I need to add an import line I highlight the class and do a Control-C, Control-V, Control-Z. It is slightly more convoluted than Studio but works well enough, I could probably automate and simplify it more if I needed to. This was the main shortcut I missed when moving from Eclipse/ADT to Android, but doing this got it back for me.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#104

Post by mattei »

krschultz wrote: post #87
27182818284 wrote: post #28

Google is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android. In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO) Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negot…

Damn lies and statistics. The Android dashboard numbers are always super pessimistic on upgrade rate. I am the lead for an app with >250,000 installs. Over 45% of our usage is coming from Lollipop. The rest is JB & KK. We see I know other major apps that have even better numbers. Looking at my data, L usage was basically nil in January 2015. There was slow growth from there until April, when we saw an inflection poin…

Awesome Mixpanel trends reports. For comparison iOS8 adoption according to Mixpanel, >85%. Very fast adoption since iOS8 release ~8 months ago. https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_8/from_date:-270,rep...

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#105

Post by wikyd »

zmmmmm wrote: post #102
wikyd wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now... makes it seem like they just walk the view hierarchy. They show examples of using this in a chat app, which makes less sense to be found via app indexing.

The presenter actually mentioned app indexing on stage at some point so I think it does rely on the developer opting into indexing. On the other hand, it's not clear to me that the user opts into the indexing, so Google might suddenly silently be getting access to a huge number of user's deep within-app data without them realising it. But that is old news, app indexing has been around for a while.

I think the way to think about it is Google is doing what it does best: search. They use whatever content they can scrape from the screen using the view hierarchy once the user signals intent that they want to search. It's a faster way to do search using context (in this case the screen) to provide the "keywords". The app indexing part is how they are able to show related apps with deep links. They use app indexing of other apps to find relevant results for the query.

App indexing makes sense when you have more stable content inside of an app like a traditional public website. Think Yelp and their 'screen' per place inside of the app. It doesn't make sense to publish the contents of a chat conversation to Google's app index -- that would be a huge privacy leak! It would be the equivalent of GoogleBot indexing my Gmail inbox.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#106

Post by yareally »

kuschku wrote: post #93
krschultz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn lies and statistics. The Android dashboard numbers are always super pessimistic on upgrade rate. I am the lead for an app with >250,000 installs. Over 45% of our usage is coming from Lollipop. The rest is JB & KK. We see I know other major apps that have even better numbers. Looking at my data, L usage was basically nil in January 2015. There was slow growth from there until April, when we saw an inflection poin…

As someone developing another Android app, a FOSS app for an IRC bouncer: About 25% of our users are below ICS even. Yes, one quarter of our users are on Gingerbread. And then the rest is shared equally between JB, KK and L.

The Android Market lets you depreciate old versions of Android now for your apps by leaving up the last compatible apk for them while newer devices get the latest version of your app.

With that, you can either let the old version die slowly as users upgrade devices. I haven't attempted it, but I assume you can still somehow push bugfixes for the older version without newer devices also getting it.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#107

Post by threeseed »

mattei wrote: post #104
krschultz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn lies and statistics. The Android dashboard numbers are always super pessimistic on upgrade rate. I am the lead for an app with >250,000 installs. Over 45% of our usage is coming from Lollipop. The rest is JB & KK. We see I know other major apps that have even better numbers. Looking at my data, L usage was basically nil in January 2015. There was slow growth from there until April, when we saw an inflection poin…

Awesome Mixpanel trends reports. For comparison iOS8 adoption according to Mixpanel, >85%. Very fast adoption since iOS8 release ~8 months ago. https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_8/from_date:-270,rep...

It has been rumored that for iOS9 Apple will be focusing on reducing the overall footprint.

There are a lot of 8GB devices that could be upgraded to iOS8 but are unable to because of lack of disk space.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#108

Post by biafra »

magicalist wrote: post #101
on_and_off wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app needs to target M in order to access to these granular permission. An app targeting a lower API level will work in legacy mode where it gets its permissions at install time, like before. I guess it makes sense in order to give enough time to the devs to update their apps to this new system. As long as the checking/warning becomes more aggressive in N, I am fine with that choice.

According to the session after the keynote, you'll still be able to at least go back and revoke permissions individually for apps targeting older API levels.

And they will most likely crash if you do, because they are not expecting a SecurityException. I prefer the CyanogenMod way to just give out empty data, if a permission is not given by the user.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#109

Post by threeseed »

kllrnohj wrote: post #54
27182818284 wrote: post #28

Google is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android. In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO) Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negot…

Your post was word for word identical to posts made 2 years about KitKat when it was released. Only instead being compared against Gingerbread. And several years before THAT when Gingerbread was released people were saying it about Donut & Eclair. So yes you'll have to wait ~2 years for the majority to be on M or higher. Oh well. Does that suck? Yeah. Is it a major, show stopping, "omg google why haven't you devoted…

I have no idea what your point is.

Why shouldn't Google be devoting resources to solving this issue ? Being unable to upgrade is a massive security risk and prevents developers from rolling out new and interesting features in their apps.

It is largely a solved problem. You have a core OS/SDK which is upgradeable and some sort of plugin style architecture around it for themes/new features. Sure some OEMs may ignore it and fork the OS but then Google has the leverage of Play Services / Android brand they can use as a stick.

And whether iOS is licensable or not is irrelevant. For their particular phone it is upgradeable without carrier intervention. Why is every Android phone different ?

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#110

Post by threeseed »

austenallred wrote: post #98
vardump wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you'd be fine with your ISP being the gatekeeper for which operating system(s) and version(s) you can run on your computer? The U.S. system where operators are such gatekeepers for mobile devices is an anomaly. It doesn't need to be so, and it is not so elsewhere. I don't understand the overall picture of the U.S. telecom industry in the first place. Slow speeds, data caps, bad coverage, high prices and control f…

I didn't say anything about them "controlling" what I can run on my computer/phone. They load it with a default that you can change. That doesn't inhibit my choice in the slightest. But a large number of people don't care to change their OS from the default, so the ecosystem gets loaded with a large number of those phones. I just don't understand why the telecoms wouldn't use the newest OS as the default.

> I just don't understand why the telecoms wouldn't use the newest OS as the default.

Why would they allow you to upgrade the OS when they can sell you a new phone and a new multi year contract. It's a pretty basic strategy.

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