Mike's Blog » Android http://www.mikechandler.com Discussions about Software Development Fri, 27 May 2011 02:15:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 To Root or Not to Root http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/05/to-root-or-not-to-root/ http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/05/to-root-or-not-to-root/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 02:15:52 +0000 Mike Chandler http://www.mikechandler.com/?p=20 I enjoy my Android phone a lot because the platform allows me to highly customize my experience. Android users can enjoy a lot of flexibility without having to root the phone, but rooting your device opens additional possibilities. Recently, Google announced movie rentals as a soon-to-be service, but indicated that rooted phones would be excluded from the service. The likely reason is because of the unknown or uncontrolled factors of rooted devices and how that may conflict with digital rights management.

I can’t say that I completely object to the move. Contracts with film distributors are probably difficult to lock down with the notion of a tampered device. Convincing movie studios to stream their intellectual property has been an uphill battle for years and I can see this being a necessary compromise in order for Google to get this service off the ground. But as a user, this just plain ol’ sucks. My device is rooted for completely different purposes, and I suspect most others who are rooted are as well. Frankly, I have no clue how to get around DRM with a rooted device and am not inclined to find out. I suspect I’m not alone.

From my standpoint, rooting my device is more important than streaming/watching movies on my phone. I doubt I’m the only one.

]]> http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/05/to-root-or-not-to-root/feed/ 2 Mobile Dev – ColdFusion or Native? http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/mobile-dev-coldfusion-or-native/ http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/mobile-dev-coldfusion-or-native/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:11:02 +0000 Mike Chandler http://www.mikechandler.com/?p=12 For mobile application development, I’ve participated in discussions (or debates) about the best approach to take from a development standpoint – native versus a web-based hybrid using your tools of choice. Ultimately, the answer depends on the long term objectives of the application and its intended user base, but it’s hard not to determine a preference early on.

As a ColdFusion developer (and obviously someone who is surrounded by ColdFusion developers due to my job), it’s hard not to be interested by the concept of building a web based solution.  ColdFusion could be used for back-end hosted functionality, and the front-end can be developed as a web view with HTML and JavaScript. Thanks to tools like PhoneGap, the source can be compiled as a native application on several platforms. It sounds interesting at first, but the details make me want to reconsider this choice.

To be competitive, the user interface needs to be a relatively rich experience that takes advantage of all things possible with the smart phone user experience.  While those are all possible with HTML and JavaScript thanks to powerful libraries like Sencha Touch, they’re certainly not overly simple to produce.  JavaScript is an elaborate, object-oriented capable language, and frameworks like Sencha Touch contain many custom libraries and components that take a bit of studying before you can implement them.  In my opinion, you get no short-cut advantages building a mobile app using HTML and JavaScript.

My preference is to build a native application.  The Android SDK is just plain old enjoyable to work with. The UI API allows your app to look and feel like what an Android user would expect without a lot of wrestling or trial and error. There is also a nearly limitless number of open source initiatives out there, both plain old Java and Android specific, that can really give you a leg-up on your final development goals.

I think there’s a place for web-based development of mobile applications, especially in a client-server situation where deployment to multiple platforms is an expectation. But for me, native is the way to go.

]]> http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/mobile-dev-coldfusion-or-native/feed/ 1 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Android http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-on-android/ http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-on-android/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:21:03 +0000 Mike Chandler http://www.mikechandler.com/?p=5 Sadly, my blog became uninteresting to me and by the time I thought to revive it, I had lost all the posts.  And so begins another…

As a long time ColdFusion Developer, I have a loyalty to the language and platform. However, I have strong interests elsewhere. Among them is Android development. To get into a new language, it’s always good to have a project that interests you. For me, that project is the revival of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — the classic text adventure from Infocom.

As a kid, I loved playing the game on our Atari 800XL. We had obtained a bootleg copy of Zork I and completed the game, so when my brother got a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for Christmas, despite not being familiar with the famous novel by Douglas Adams, we were very excited. The unique story-telling style, characters and language in the game made it one of the most enjoyable and memorable text adventure games. Thanks to a couple of open source initiatives in Java, I’ve compiled a working install of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that I plan to make available as a free download for Android.

I spent about an hour playing it the other day and can safely say that it works, though some unforeseen bugs may be lurking. Hopefully I can get some feedback from the user base upon release that will help keep it stable and well used by retro gaming fans. More to come…

]]> http://www.mikechandler.com/2011/04/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-on-android/feed/ 1