Mario Live WallPaper

I've just seen this live wallpaper on Frandroid, and i was just really impressed by this work !

I guess the guy took the Mario code from the Mario AI Competition, and make a Live Wall Paper out of it !

On my FRF50 Froyo version, it is really smooth and hypnotic.
I just think it will waste my batterie  (but actually, the wall paper is not executed that often : only when switching from one application to another, so I don't think it is that bad ).


Here is a video :

You can find it on the market with Android 2.2 ( search for "Mario Live Wallpaper" ), or from this Xda-developer forum.

Enjoy !

Application to SD card : it's working !!

Yesterday, I discovered that the applications should put a special tag in the manifest in order to let the user put them on the SD card.

Today, I tried it on Word Prospector, and
Tadaaa ! It's working great :

(Here in french, obvisouly)

The move is instantaneous, completely transparent.
 And the application looks as fast as when running from the internal memory.
Nice !!

Additionnal note :
I love the Bug-Droid icon when you are connected for debugging !!!

Installation of applications on the SD card with Froyo : the how- to !

Youpeee !!!
Froyo is finally here, sooner than I expected it !Thanks, Google !!!

Now, like every other geek with their new toy in hand, I tried most of the new things...
And all is great, but...
The install on SDCard is always greyed...

Then, I just read a tweet from Romain Guy explaining it in a few words.
Your application should add this line in the manifest

 xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:installLocation="auto"
    ... >

in order to be installed by the end user on the SD Card.

http://developer.android.com/intl/fr/guide/appendix/install-location.html

libraries in Android : the new feature no body speak about in the SDK

Hi all,

This Google I/O has been rich in announces and new and nice features.

So everybody is speaking about :
*  flash : This is really nice, and a big plus for Android ( no, I didn't mention the Fruit Phone... )
* performances : x2 - x5 for free is always good for developers. It also seems the general OS has been improved in this direction.
* Teethering
* Installation on SD card ( the size of applications will now explode !! )
* Cloud to device messenging : this is like the push function in the Fruit Phone, but one step further, as it use the intent system, and can launch some application from the Cloud...
* Application Backup Data : This is nice. Some developers were already doing it on their side, but having it included in the SDK is really a big plus.


But there is a little new feature that I was waiting for for such a long time, and that is totally unexpected :
The project Libraries !!

Project libraries are basically, Android libraries, with code and resources included.
This is awesome !!

It means that now, we can finally have one common code for a free and a paid application !
In my case, I have 2 different application for the english and the french version of my game, I will now have only one version !

Here is the thing :
http://developer.android.com/intl/fr/guide/developing/eclipse-adt.html#libraryProject

And there is a sample :
http://developer.android.com/intl/fr/resources/samples/TicTacToeMain/index.html

Enjoy !!!

Google added crash report feedback for developers !

Hi all,

I was telling it over and over again : crash reports are essential for developers, to make their apps more stable, and user experience more enjoyable.
It looks like google agree with this statement, as they added some crash reports in the developer page :

This is very good news, as it will make the Android platform a better platform to develop on.

How does it work ?
It looks like when a application crashed, the phone let the user send a feedback to the developer( with a custom message from the user, the callstack, and ... ??? ).
I still don't know what is in this feedback - as I got 0 reports - but it definitively looks interesting !
You can also see that is also reports freezes, that user made crash reporters can not intercept !
The developer can then mark a report as 'old' ( so it won't appear again ? ).

For the moment it is still at experimental state. For instance, it looks like you can check feedbacks from other application, but I couldn't get it to work ( having 'server errors' ), and I find it strange for privacy reasons.

This is good to see that Android is going in the right direction !