Archives For Mobile

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Debugging With an Android Hardware Device

Richard Layton —  March 8, 2013

Hi again Android programmers!  I can call you that now since you have completed our first tutorial right?  In our first tutorial I picked you up off the bare floor, dusted you off a bit, and gave you to tools necessary to embark on our journey.  We installed the Android SDK, setup the virtual machine, and wrote our first Android app.

This time we are going to slow things down just a tad a focus on just one thing.  We are going to break out of the confines and slowness of the emulator and bring that app into reality.  And by that I mean running and debugging your applications on your own phone or tablet!  How else are you going to show off what you have done?  “Hey guys, come and look and what I made on my computer.”  WRONG!  That’s NOT how we do it.  You have to put it in their face!

You don’t have an app to show off?  You didn’t complete the first tutorial did you?  You don’t have an Android device?  Why don’t you take this coloring book and sit in the corner?.  The rest of us can get started.

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Getting Started With SDK And Building Your First Android App

Richard Layton —  January 18, 2013

Hello aspiring programmers! How cool would it be to write an app in Android? The great thing about Android programming is its freedom and portability. When I say freedom, I’m talking about its zero cost and open source nature. All the tools will be provided. You won’t even be needing an Android phone. A virtual machine is included to run your apps. Of course you can also run your app on your phone, your aunt’s phone, or on anyone’s you like. Maybe you’d like to try and strike it rich and publish your own brilliant app in the Google Play Market. What do you want to make? The hottest game? A cool productivity app? Something that could save lives? Ideas like these will fuel your learning. So think of something you might actually want to build beyond these tutorials. Are you ready? Through the rabbit hole we go.

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How Apple Maps Spurred Innovation On iOS… For Google

Anthony James —  December 16, 2012

It’s a cutthroat, dog-eat-dog world in the realm of the smart phone. Microsoft has declared war on all smart phones and the bitter battle between Android and iOS fanboys is certainly not declining. Flame wars, cyber bulling, and every other possible online confrontation seems to take place when talking about phone operating systems. It’s a rare win when we can objectivity look at several events and identify innovation that came from a feud.
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Appcelerator Development Guide & Open Source Code

Anthony James —  August 3, 2012

Appcelerator is a platform that allows you to use JavaScript to build cross platform native applications, and use native features that only Objective-C and Java can reach on the Android and iOS platforms. This gives you the ability to reach millions more people with your native apps than if you were just developing for one platform. You also have the ability to develop for both platforms twice as fast with this ‘write once, distribute everywhere’ platform. This Appcelerator development guide will take you from beginning Appcelerator to writing apps in no time. You can also start by taking a look at Quote Keepr an open sourced Appcelerator app. It was built as a newbie app, so feel free to fork and contribute as you please.
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Why Firefox Mobile OS Is An Actual Game Changer

Anthony James —  July 3, 2012

The Mozilla Foundation today announced plans to release a new mobile OS in the next couple of years. The OS has already gained the support of many phone carriers. Firefox OS has a lot of competitors in the field like iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 8. However, perhaps the best part about Firefox OS is that it is truly open. Companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft do not have 100% open platforms like Firefox will. The other side of this is that the Firefox OS will allow you access to the entire phone functionality. Meaning, developers can code using HTML5 and JavaScript to build native applications, and even have access to the phone, SMS functions and other functions that are traditionally only available to native apps through programming languages like Objective-C, Java, or Appcelerator Titanium (a framework for building native apps).

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How To Add AdMob To your Appcelerator App

Anthony James —  June 29, 2012

In this screencast we are going to look at how to monetize our native iPhone or Android applications by using ads or more specifically AdMob. AdMob is a great way for you to offer free iPhone or Android apps and still make money as a developer, through the available ads in your app. This process will require you to download the AdMob module from the Appcelerator market place. You can find the direct link here.

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Understanding How PhoneGap & Appcelerator Apps Communicate With A Web Server

Anthony James —  June 27, 2012

There is a rather large difference between a jQuery Mobile (or HTML5, appMobi, sencha etc) web app and using those same technologies in PhoneGap to create a native app. The main difference is how the code interacts when built directly on a server and run in a web browser versus running directly on the user’s device. By definition, a mobile web app is a remote site that runs off a web server at all times. That allows us to easily use programming languages such as PHP, Ruby and Python to create them. Using those languages, we can perform easy functions such as creating contact forms and sending mail directly from the server.

However, when you package your web app into PhoneGap you have to build your code with HTML5/CSS3/JavaScript and you cannot use server side programming languages such as PHP. The other difference is when an action is ran on PhoneGap it is native/local to your device, meaning the device doesn’t have to be connected to the internet.
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Appcelerator: Setting Up Your IOS Developer Profile To Test & Submit Your App

Anthony James —  June 26, 2012

In order to submit your PhoneGap, Appcelerator, or even objective-c app to the app store you need to go through a verification process that identifies you are the owner of that app. The first step in the process is creating a private RSA key and submitting it to the app store, then following through and creating your developer provisional profile and installing all of the certificates on your computer with the OSX keychain. This screencast will walk you through the process of configuring and setting this up. The specific example will use Appcelerator to show how you can then install your native application onto your device once you follow the steps of the screencast. We do encounter several issues but solve them in the screencast. It’s a simple processes that can sometimes be accompanied with random errors you would not expect.

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Introduction To PhoneGap + IOS

Anthony James —  May 18, 2012

PhoneGap is a wrapper type application that allows you to package HTML5/CSS3 Web Apps inside of a native app. This is a great feature because it gives you the ability to distribute your app via the app stores and have a so called “native app” without having to learn Java and Objective-C to code in the operating system native languages.
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Tip: Apple Airplay And HTML5 Video Tag

Anthony James —  May 14, 2012

HTML5 has been evolving super fast. Not only that, Apple, the driving force (and owner) of webkit, has been making changes as well. In IOS 4.0 a tag called x-webkit-airplay was needed in order to give controls to the video to airplay stream to an Apple TV.

The exact command needed was x-webkit-airplay=”allow”. By default the x-webkit-airplay was actually set to “disallow.” If you wanted your video to have the ability to use AirPlay and stream to an Apple TV you needed to turn it on or “allow” it with the x-webkit-airplay parameter. However, this changed in IOS 5.0. Apple changed the default behavior of x-webkit-airplay to be x-webkit-airplay=”allow.”

So by default if you’re using the video HTML5 tag it will be able to use AirPlay and stream to an Apple TV. You only need to worry about the parameter x-webkit-ariplay if you want to set x-webkit-airplay=”disallow” and not allow streaming over AirPlay to an Apple TV.

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