Google has just released new, and very helpful, Android design guidelines. They're detailed on the Android developer website. The main webpage is shown below.
It's great to have these guidelines grouped in one place for easy access and they appear to be a step forward in developing an improved user experience ... both for the operating system and applications.
The purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google is progressing. It has been approved by the Motorola Mobility shareholders and awaits approval by the U.S. government.
There has been speculation that one of the major motivations for Google is the patents held by Motorola Mobility. Owning these would help Google fend off patent lawsuits by other companies.
Aside from the legal aspects, the merger will likely have a number of benefits for Google. These could include:
Google's new Android version 4.0, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, is now available. However, for the moment, you'll only see it on new devices. Many of us with older model phones would like to have it retrofitted. Service providers will certainly get around to doing this with some of the more recent models, but older models may never get the dairy confection.
For those of us adventurous enough, "rooting" our phones and loading an Ice Cream Sandwich ourselves is an option. Please see our Blog entry on Rooting for more information before you give it a try.
HTML5 is the first major update to the HTML standard since HTML4 was standardized in 1994. Full approval by standards bodies and complete implementation may take another decade, but parts of HTML5 are already being implemented.
Each browser supports HTML5 to a different degree. The www.html5test.com website can be used to test the extent to which a browser currently supports HTML5.
The screens to the right were taken from a test of a Droid X running Android version 2.3.3. It scored 177 points out of a total of 450. As is evident from this test, smartphone browsers are not very far along in implementing HTML5 features. The lower screen to the right shows the status of some desktop browsers.
Possibly the most well known of the HTML5 features is the new tag that will avoid the need for Flash in playing videos. This is especially important now that Adobe has announced it will stop development of Flash for mobile devices.
HTML5 contains many new features. A number of these are focused on eliminating the need for proprietary plugins and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs.) This advances the idea of being able to develop applications that will run on any device that supports HTML5, including multiple smartphone, tablet and desktop brands.
In brief, rooting your phone refers to making changes to the phone operating system so that you can load a different version of the system than the one that's pre-loaded into your phone.
Reasons users root their phones include: enhancing performance, to get a different look and feel, to have more flexibility in what software can be used, getting the latest Android releases and to have some technical fun.
The term rooting refers to getting privileged root control access within the Android Linux core system. Rooting is necessary to install custom versions of the Android system. One of the more popular of these is CyanogenMod. It offers such features as improved sound processing, additional display themes and improved processing speed.
There has been quite a bit of controversy over rooting. Some vendors and carriers discourage it and some support it.
Potential risks include: voiding your warranty, loosing data and "bricking" your phone thus rendering it inoperable. Those that choose to root are comfortable with these risks and see them as being outweighed by the benefits. They're also willing to invest the time needed to make sure that rooting is done correctly and can be undone if something goes wrong.
The exact process of rooting can vary by type of device. It's necessary to find instructions specific to your Android phone. There are websites dedicated to rooting where you can find this information along with help for dealing with problems caused by rooting.
Essentially, rooting involves "flashing" (changing) a phone's ROM, or Read Only Memory. There are ROM Manager apps available on the Android Market that can be used to backup, change and restore ROM contents.
So, if you have the time and sense of adventure, rooting might be just the right thing for you.
If not, you can wait for new phone releases to bring you many of the benefits of rooting without the risk and hassle.
Google has just announced improvements in mobile search advertising. (See the Google Blog post for more information.) Apps that incorporate search capabilities will see more relevant ads appearing on their screens.
To date, mobile ads appearing on smartphones have not been particularly relevant to the nature of the apps displaying them. In contrast, desktop search ads are highly relevant to the search terms used. So, for example, if I'm searching for information on bicycles, I'll see ads related to this topic.
Making mobile ads more targeted should improve ad click through rates and improve user satisfaction.
If I'm searching on my smartphone for bicycles, I'll see ads related to bicycles, including information on bicycle shops near my current location.
Google's latest Android release is now available. You can find a good summary on the Android website.
There are significant improvements/additions to:
Look for phone manufacturers and service providers to start releasing phones running Ice Cream Sandwich.
According to a new study by IDC, mobile internet access via smartphones and tablets will soon outpace wireline access via PCs and other fixed position devices. Mobile device use is growing rapidly and wireline use is expected to level off and then decline.
This is expected to alter the very nature of how the internet is used. Consider some characteristics of mobile devices that will contribute to this change:
It looks like the shift from fixed to mobile devices may be every bit as significant as the historic shift from mainframes to PCs.
According to a new report from ABI Research, 97 percent of all smartphones will feature touch-screens by 2016. In 2006, only 7 percent of smartphones were touch-screen equiped.
Although it seems likely that special purpose smartphones for gaming, etc. will continue to use physical keypads, the flexibility of touch-screens is hard to beat.
Imagine being in a hurry between meetings and needing to find a nearby restaurant for a fast lunch. The QuickClick Restaurants app can locate and map places to go with one button tap. Or realizing that you're out of cash. A single click of the ATM app shows the nearest locations.
In developing software for the QuickClick Locale series, Marketimpacts.com took an approach different from other developers. "Many apps try to be too many things to too many people" said Don Cowan, the lead QuickClick apps developer and Director of Software Engineering at Marketimpacts.com. "As a result, it can take valuable time to scan through a sequence of app screens to find what you're looking for. We made speed and ease of use the top priority in our design."
See our press release.
As software transforms industry after industry, it's becoming apparent that the world is transitioning to a software driven paradigm that won't be denied.
Manufacturing, entertainment, journalism, music ... they are just a few of the business domains that have been dramatically altered by the power of software.
Software often gives an order of magnitude or two advantage to the new businesses that fully leverage its capabilities.
Some of the effects on society are profound:
What are some takeaways for businesses large and small?
The convenience of smartphones and tablets is causing an increasing number of computer users to ditch their PCs for these smaller, portable devices.
There are a number of advantages smartphones and tablets have over PCs:
Of course, the PC won't be replaced for power developers of software and content. But the majority of PC users don't fall into this category, and for them, the movement to smartphone and tablet devices is likely not going to diminish any time soon.
Google is rolling out a new Market app that will allow them to compete more effectively with stores such as those provided by Amazon and Apple.
There is speculation that an upcoming version of the Google Android platform (possibly 3.2) may have better options for displaying apps on tablets that are sized for smartphones.
Apps would have both stretch and zoom options. Zoom would be a new mode that would simulate a smartphone display and then fill the tablet screen with it.
The purpose is to give Android tablet users greater access to Android Market apps, the majority of which are designed for smartphone screens. Since smartphones greatly outnumber tablets, this seems to us to be a great idea. Some smartphone apps incorporate a mixture of screen size optimizations. For example, our QuickClick Locales series of apps use a smartphone sized screen for user query input and mapping function that is optimized for both smartphones and tablets.
Naming and creating symbols for your app, tabs, sections is important as an aid in remembering where users have been and where they want to go.
That's the name of their upcoming Android release due out in the fourth quarter of 2011. A major component of the release will be a "run anywhere" set of features that will allow Android apps to run on all Android devices regardless of the exact phone configuration. Looks tasty.
The news is full of stories about interest in and growth of cloud computing ... relying on services hosted on servers owned, operated and maintained by others. Some get nervous about having their information located in places they don't control. The growth of smartphones should, however, accelerate the move to cloud computing and gradually ameliorate those fears.
Relying on cloud computing with a smartphone, or tablet, isn't an option. It's all controlled "in the clouds." Faster and more reliable networks will also help. Over time, whether computing is done on your device or in the cloud should become a somewhat meaningless distinction.
A new study has shown that nearly 20 percent of smartphone users in the U.S. use check-in services. The study was conducted by researchers from ComScore. Check-in lets visitors take advantage of special offers and discounts and, if they choose, let friends know where they are.
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