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

Android M Developer Preview and Tools

android-developers.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 153 posts

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#111

Post by threeseed »

digi_owl wrote: post #72
wongarsu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or google could just stop playing nice, they practically own the platform after all. If they would say "either you supply updates for two years or you are not allowed to preinstall google apps on new devices" the issue would be over.

And watch Samsung go Tizen over night, HTC partner up with Microsoft, etc etc etc. Damn it, Android without Google is already big in China. And lets not forget that Amazon is maintaining what amounts to a fork for their device range. Google can't really play hardball unless they want to go full Apple. In essence Android has gotten where it is by being more accommodating to OEMs etc than the competition. Something aki…

Samsung/HTC are never going to just abandon Android arguably no matter what Google does.

People have invested money in apps and content which locks them into that platform.

Tizen is a non-starter (nobody is building apps for it). And Microsoft is still struggling for traction.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#112

Post by NeutronBoy »

threeseed wrote: post #110
austenallred wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Uh carriers across Europe and Australia don't restrict OS updates afaik

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#113

Post by sangnoir »

pas wrote: post #76
kllrnohj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, would love to live in a world where it's impossible to write bugs. Things would be so much nicer if Google could just solve the halting problem already. Sadly it's more likely I'll just get some stupid pony instead.

The OS manages resources. It can temporarily grant (exclusive) control of a resource to an application. It can measure your other resource activity (touchscreen). If not touch screen activity for a long time, or when simply the screen is locked, then why is the camera on? Sure, it can be a spy app, designed to listen and record! But then the OS can expose a per-app maximum wake setting. Yes, it'd look like a spreadsh…

> If not touch screen activity for a long time, or when simply the screen is locked, then why is the camera on?

Because the OS shouldn't be making assumptions about applications' interaction models. People tend to write apps that OS creators never dreamed about. There are legitimate reasons for resource usage (camera) to continue without user interaction.From the top of my head, I can imagine writing a baby-monitor app that uses camera to stream video to my phone in the other room using wifi.

The resource-limiting heuristics have to be impossibly good, otherwise it gets in the way of useful apps.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#114

Post by socceroos »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #60
rentnorove wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspicuously absent: - Read external storage - Internet

Application YourTypicalMobileApplication is asking for access to the Internet to display advertisements powered by Google AdMob. [ D̶E̶N̶Y̶ ] [ ALLOW ] (Do you think we would give you the option to easily cut our income?)

Then please, oh please separate it out. Internet and Advertising. Shouldn't be hard.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#115

Post by nacs »

mahouse wrote: post #46
nacs wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was probably just a poor attempt by whoever edited the screenshot to de-emphasize the app in the background and highlight the actual permission dialog.

The permission dialog is also blurry and dithered. It's just barely noticeable because it's mostly white, but it's there also.

They might have saved as a 256 color GIF (resulting in the dithering) before re-encoding to PNG.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#116

Post by gusmd »

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…

This is very good news, thanks for sharing that.

I'm learning Android development by building a basic app that I've always wanted but couldn't find in the play store. I'm targeting SDK 21 and minSDK 19 and was afraid of having a small userbase (based on the dashboard numbers). That means that I can continue to focus on the latest SDK and leverage all the good SDK 21 features :)

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#117

Post by austenallred »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #112
threeseed wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Uh carriers across Europe and Australia don't restrict OS updates afaik

I don't think carriers do anywhere. I'm confused.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#118

Post by jwilm »

> Most notable is a much requested feature from our Android NDK & game developers: code editing and debugging for C/C++ code

Does this mean gdb integration with android studio? That would be fantastic! Working with the NDK has been a pretty painful at times, and this change will make a lot of people very happy.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#119

Post by jordanthoms »

jwilm wrote: post #118

> Most notable is a much requested feature from our Android NDK & game developers: code editing and debugging for C/C++ code Does this mean gdb integration with android studio? That would be fantastic! Working with the NDK has been a pretty painful at times, and this change will make a lot of people very happy.

Yes, They mentioned they integrate with the gdb and llvm debugger.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#120

Post by jordanthoms »

sangnoir wrote: post #113
pas wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OS manages resources. It can temporarily grant (exclusive) control of a resource to an application. It can measure your other resource activity (touchscreen). If not touch screen activity for a long time, or when simply the screen is locked, then why is the camera on? Sure, it can be a spy app, designed to listen and record! But then the OS can expose a per-app maximum wake setting. Yes, it'd look like a spreadsh…

> If not touch screen activity for a long time, or when simply the screen is locked, then why is the camera on? Because the OS shouldn't be making assumptions about applications' interaction models. People tend to write apps that OS creators never dreamed about. There are legitimate reasons for resource usage (camera) to continue without user interaction.From the top of my head, I can imagine writing a baby-monitor a…

One way of handling this is to have a separate permission - Use camera, which allows an app to use it for a limited time with the user interacting and while in foreground, and a 'Background Camera' permission which your baby-monitor app would request. Perhaps make the permissions dialog for the background permission scarier so developers have an incentive to use the less privileged permission.

This would work nicely for GPS etc - sure, I want to be able to have My Tracks keep GPS on for 3 hours, but I don't need Uber to be able to do that - and their app has a nasty habit of forgetting to turn the GPS off if you leave it at the wrong time.

Post reply on HN