WebProNews

Tag: Android Development

  • Making A News Reader For Android? You’ll Want To Watch This

    Google is killing off Google Reader on July 1. The move opens an opportunity for somebody, maybe Digg, to come up with a news reader of their own. Now the very same company that’s killing the most popular RSS reader on the net is now offering suggestions for developers building their own news readers:

    Join Nick Butcher, Adam Koch and Roman Nurik as they discuss various elements of Android Design. This week, we’ll discuss design ideas for news consumption apps and get into some design math—specifically about various units of measure and common grids for designers.

  • Here’s The Latest Android Developer Hangout

    Google has uploaded a new Android developers hangout discussing various Android dev topics. They do note that the U.S. version of Office Hours has moved on to another format.

  • Will OpenJDK Ever Come To Android?

    Will OpenJDK Ever Come To Android?

    It’s no secret that Android apps are built on a customized version of Java. That being said, some Java developers haven’t made the jump to Android because they would have to rewrite their apps. Is there anything they can do?

    JavaWorld reports that some recent rumors suggest OpenJDK, the Oracle-sanctioned open source version of Java, would be coming to Android. It would provide Java developers with an easy entry into Android development. The question now is whether or not it’s possible.

    Speaking to JavaWorld, Java founder James Gosling said that there’s no major technical hurdles standing in the way.

    “Technically, it’s not a huge problem. Android is just Linux on ARM, and there’s already a nice ARM/Linux version of OpenJDK,” said Gosling. “There are issues that would make the current binaries inappropriate (mostly graphics integration), but it’s not insurmountable.”

    That being said, Gosling thinks that the bad blood between Oracle and Google might impede any efforts to bring OpenJDK to Android. If you recall, Oracle and Google were locked in a lawsuit earlier this year over accusations that the latter copied the former’s Java APIs when developing the Android OS. The jury sided with Google, and then Oracle was ordered to pay Google $1 million. After all of that, it doesn’t seem like Oracle would want to play nice with Google.

    Even if there was no bad blood between the two companies, analysts seem to think that OpenJDK on Android just isn’t worth Oracle’s time. John Rymer of Forrester Research told JavaWorld that he thinks “the Java on Android ship has sailed” and that developers wouldn’t care for it anyway.

    At the moment, it seems that the prevailing feeling towards OpenJDK on Android is one of pessimism. The major problem is the obvious conflict between Google and Oracle, but developer interest is also questionable. It’s too early to say that OpenJDK on Android will never happen, but chances are not looking good.

  • Treehouse Is Growing, Is About To Offer Android Courses

    Web design and development site Treehouse is gaining users. Users that are willing to pay at least $25 a month to build their skills.

    Over the weekend, Treehouse surpassed 12,000 users. “That’s not just 12,000 folks signed up to an email list for free classes they don’t get much out of,” the company tells WebProNews. “That’s 12,000 students paying $25/month for access and regularly spending time learning.”

    Treehouse does have videos that are free to watch, but only a small portion of them are free. “To learn from all of our courses, you need to pay $25 per month,” CEO Ryan Carson tells us.

    Treehouse does have a couple of different plans. That’s the cheap one – the “Silver Membership”. There’s also a “Gold Membership,” for $49 a month with some additional perks.

    Treehouse offers courses in web design, web development and iOS development. Carson says the interest in web design is greater than both of the others.

    On the advantages and challenges of developing for iOS versus the web, Carson says, “The advantage of iOS is that there is a huge app economy in the Apple App Store and the Android App Store. It’s a brand new channel to customers that was untapped before. The disadvantage to iOS apps are that the iteration cycle is much slower as each time you change the app, you have to re-submit it to the app store, wait for approval and then it goes live.”

    There are plans to add Android developer training. In fact, it will be going live in a few weeks, Carson says.

    Treehouse will also soon launch courses in PHP, WordPress, jQuery and some other unnamed areas. Without getting into specifics, he says they’re also going to make learning more fun.