Tethering Apps Being Banned From Android Market

According to this Blog Post an Android Developer's App has been banned from Android Market for violating the Developer Distribution Agreement.

According to the agreement:

"Google enters into distribution agreements with device
manufacturers and Authorized Carriers to place the Market software
client application for the Market on Devices. These distribution
agreements may require the involuntary removal of Products in violation
of the Device manufacturer’s or Authorized Carrier’s terms of service."

And the T-Mobile Terms of Service say the following:

"Your Data Plan is intended for Web browsing, messaging, and similar
activities on your device and not on any other equipment. Unless
explicitly permitted by your Data Plan, other uses, including for
example, tethering your device to a personal computer or other
hardware, are not permitted."

You can read the rest of the blog post here, but this kinda goes against the whole "OPEN" thing Google was going for?

PAC-MAN CHASES PESKY GHOSTS ONTO FIRST ANDROID-POWERED DEVICE

Namco offers PAC-MAN application at no charge in support of first Android-powered device!




Namco Networks, a leading publisher and developer of mobile games
and entertainment for mass-market casual gamers, today announced the
availability of the arcade classic PAC-MAN® on the first
Android™-powered device, announced today by T-Mobile. When the phone
launches, PAC-MAN will be available to consumers in the Android Market™
at no charge, giving owners of the new T-Mobile G1 handset full access
to the game which usually retails for $9.99.

"We are thrilled to launch PAC-MAN on the flagship Android-powered
device," said Scott Rubin, senior vice president of sales and marketing
for Namco Networks. "To encourage consumers to checkout PAC-MAN on the
G1, we are picking up the tab for the game. We want consumers to see
how great PAC-MAN looks on this device and how well it plays on the
Android platform."

Who can forget the countless hours and quarters spent avoiding the
pesky ghosts while chompin' on the dots? In addition to the classic and
addictive game play, PAC-MAN, the most popular video game in American
arcade history, has been upgraded to fully utilize the T-Mobile G1's
features. Taking advantage of the device's large screen, PAC-MAN on the
T-Mobile G1 includes three unique control schemes:

• Swipe Mode allows players to direct PAC-MAN's path by simply swiping in the direction you want to travel.
• Track Mode lets players zip through mazes using the phone's trackball
• Accelerometer Mode allows players to control PAC-MAN by tilting the phone in the direction they want to move.

For more information on PAC-MAN for the G1 or other mobile games by Namco, please visit www.namcogames.com.

Visa to develop apps on Android, Nokia phones

Visa has announced plans to make mobile payment-related services broadly available to United States consumers by the end of the year. Central to this effort is Visa’s delivery of mobile applications for the Android platform, which will be available for download on Android-powered handsets and initially available to Chase Visa cardholders.


The first set of services that Visa is planning to develop for Android
will allow Chase Visa cardholders to receive notifications to their
mobile devices about transaction activity on their accounts; obtain
offers from a wide array of merchants; and use the built-in
location-based technology developed by Google to quickly map nearby
merchants where they can redeem Visa offers and locate ATMs that accept
Visa.

Visa mobile services that will be
developed for the Android platform will first be offered to Chase Visa
account holders. Following this initial launch phase, Visa plans to work
with additional card-issuing financial institutions to extend
availability of its mobile services for Android to their Visa account
holders. Visa is also developing a payment application that will enable
consumers with Visa accounts to make mobile payments in retail locations
nationwide, or while on the go, over wireless networks.

”By developing these mobile services for the
Android platform, Visa has taken a major step toward achieving our goal
of combining two of the world’s most powerful
and ubiquitous consumer innovations, electronic payments and mobile
technology,” said Elizabeth Buse, Global Head
of Product at Visa Inc. “Through this effort,
U.S. consumers will, for the first time, be able to download Visa mobile
service applications directly to their handsets. Visa cardholders have
come to expect more from their Visa account than just convenience and
security of payment, and wireless customers expect their mobile devices
to carry a multitude of applications. Extending Visa payments and
services to the mobile device is a natural extension, and makes the
consumer payment experience more convenient, more secure and more
rewarding.”

Visa mobile services developed for the Android platform include:

• 
  Alerts: Consumers will receive near real-time notification of
  purchase activity based on customized cardholder preferences. The
  consumer will be able to personalize the types of alerts delivered to
  their mobile device according to pre-selected parameters, such as the
  size of the transaction, or whether the transaction is in foreign
  currency. Because these alerts are triggered by the transaction as it
  passes through the Visa network, consumers will receive notifications
  almost immediately, typically before they even leave the store. This
  adds a new layer of peace of mind when using Visa, and a new way to
  combat fraud.
  
• 
  Offers: Consumers will receive targeted offers from merchants
  directly to their phone. These offers –
  ranging from discounts to loyalty offers –
  could be based on a consumer’s previous
  purchase activity. For consumers and merchants alike, this service
  will ensure the most relevant offers are sent in a timely manner,
  helping increase merchant traffic, loyalty and customer satisfaction.
  
• 
  Locator: The Locator service is expected to integrate with
  technology developed by Google, such as Google Maps and Google
  location-based services, to show consumers nearby locations of
  merchants sending them offers, or of an ATM that accepts Visa. The
  location would be called out on a map displayed on the mobile device
  screen.
  

“We’re pleased to
extend the value of Visa to the mobile channel,”
said Buse. “With more than 3 billion mobile
devices already in market today, we have an opportunity deliver the
convenience and security of Visa to consumers around the globe.”

[Yahoo! Finance]

Installing Google Android SDK 1.0 On Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop

Falko Timme put together a nice guide together. The guide explains how you can install the Google Android SDK 1.0
on an Ubuntu 8.04 desktop. With this stable release of the Android SDK,
you can now develop applications for Android smartphones (like
T-Mobile's G1) and offer them on the Android Market.

Take a look at the guide if you are interested in developing apps for android on Ubuntu.

Android Developers Videos

Android Peeks - browser tricks

One thing I like about Android... browser tricks.
Watch Android team members talk about their favorite features.

Android Peeks - copy & paste

Steve what are you waiting for?

Android Peeks - reader and photos

Android Peeks - media in the browser

HTC G1, Google Phone Video

Here is a Video showing some of the things the new T-Mobile G1 can do.

Panoramio Application for Android, T-Mobile G1

The application starts by showing your current location in a custom MapView. You can pan and zoom this map to choose the area you want to search.




Once you have selected a search area, the application downloads thumbnails of the most popular photos taken within that area.



You can tap on an item to see more details.



You can use the menu to find more pictures by the same
photographer or to see the original photo on the Panoramio site. You can find the location of the photo in
the real world. You can show the location on the map along with your
current location.



Or, you can bring up a radar view that uses the compass and GPS to show
you the location of the photo in relation to your own location.

T-Mobile G1 Press Confrence, Google, HTC, T-Mobile Live Blogging

T-Mobile G1 Worlds first Android Phone from Google, launched on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time. On the market by the end of this year.

Creating an open mobile internet and platform. Mobile internet will be dominant in the future, Mobile Traffic has grown 250%.

Committed to open mobile platforms. G1 brings open mobile platform to market for the first time.

Develop Applications and also make Android better, Android is future proof.

HTC, Google, T-Mobile shares same vision making mobile internet open and fun. Want to make internet experience more enjoyable.

Iconic Design (G1) maximize mobile experience, touch screen, keyboard appeals to many people, nothing like it on the market. Flexible and very powerful.

Mobile Internet lags in the USA by 16%, T-Mobile and Android want to change that.


http://announcement.t-mobileg1.com/#

Showing Phone now with teaser reel, looks like pictures. Taking Photos and getting ready to do live demonstrations.

Touch Screen, swipe across to see, long press for more features. Frame pictures to add on home screen. Drag and Drop on Home Screen.

Amazon.com one click MP3 ordering. Long press for more song options.

Multitasking, full slide out keyboard. Contacts, click to go to address with map. Directions, Traffic View, Street View (Google).

Compass moves as you move the phone.

Web Browser (Full Featured) zoom, multiple tabs, dedicated search button, search from anywhere on device (Contacts, Web) Send links by email right from browser (Gmail).

Applications:

Android Market on Phone, with user ratings. Programs, Apps, Games and more. (They Showed Pac-Man)

Open Marketplace, Great Third Party Applications to market.

Open Source, Freedom to develop any application to hoops, free to develop and Google will not stop your application from being distributed.

Track your Carbon footprint with the EcoRio Application.

Shop Savvy application lets you use as a Bar Code scanner to compare prices on the internet right in the store.

Question and Answer session.

Pricing is $179.00 (Beats the iPhone) existing customers can order today. October 22nd official launch day. 2 plan options for Data $25 Unlimited (Data) $35 Unlimited Web and Messaging/Data.

3G Network.

Europe Availability UK early November rest of Europe early 2009 First Q.

Tethering? Pricing with just data?

No tethering, data plan requires voice plan.

Support for MS Office Files? Can read Word, PDF, can develop by third party.

T-Mobile only? Yes Sim Locked to T-Mobile

Push email? Yes, Push, IMAP Pull

Desktop Application to Sync? No not yet, syncs with network.

Outside of 3G Markets? Yes but best experience in 3G. Also has Wireless.

How locked is this Phone? Issues like the iPhone?

Deflects Question.

Marketing? Google Marketing?

Yes, T.V. Ad's Marketing starts in October largest Advertising Campaign ever.

Server Sync? Bluetooth?
Sync with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and more. Supports wireless headsets.

Chrome Browser?

No, but works on Web Kit. Chrome like but not Chrome.

Device Aimed at? Consumer, Business....?

Mass appeal for everyone. Young, Family, more consumer but thing enterprise will enjoy.

Gmail Functions?

Robust experience, same as desktop experience. Integrated in front end. Online Google Talk presence inside contact list.

iTunes, Skype, International?

works with any AAC, WMA, MP3, would need to be DRM unlocked for iTunes, up to consumer. No Skype support.

Dual band and Quad Band works on any band in the world.

Special Guests, Google Founders take stage.

Awkward moment......

They have been using the Phone for a while now. Throws phone in Air uses accelerometer to demonstrate app he created to measure time in the Air.

They enjoy the phone. 

Describes Phone as a computer.

Asks crowd to do a web search on their phone to demonstrate how easy it will be to do on the G1.

Computer like functionality on Phone.

Location based services.

Taking Photos. Everyone has their G1 Phones out.


Press Conference ends, press making way downstairs to see live phone demos.


 

Android Photostream

Photostream is a simple photos browser and viewer for Flickr. All you need to use it is a Flickr screen name or user name.

This application serves as an illustrative example of several Android features and APIs:

• Activity aliases
• Adding custom shortcuts to Home
• Adding a new wallpaper chooser to the system
• Custom layouts
• Custom XML attributes
• Use of themes
• Use of styles
• Use of text colors
• Use of <include>
• Use of bitmap and layer drawables from XML
• Use of HttpClient
• Proper interaction between background threads and the UI thread
• Efficient display rotation (using the new onRetainNonConfigurationInstance() API)
• Animations and layout animations
• Cropping an image
• Image manipulation

Type in Home, to create a shortcut to any Flickr account. The shortcut
shows a custom icon, downloaded from the Flickr user profile:




If you plan on reusing the source code to access Flickr in your own application, you should modify the Flickr.java file to replace the existing API key with your own. The application source code also contains a very handy class called UserTask.java. This class is designed to help you easily write background operations that interact with the UI thread.

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/09/android-photostream.html

Skypop on Android

Skypop on Android

Bruce Leak and Timo Bruck from SkyPop demo a couple of their new applications for Android.

Android Market Images and Features

Go to ImageShack® to Create your own Slideshow

The Android Market is an open content distribution system that will help end users find, purchase, download and install various types of content on their Android-powered devices. The concept is simple: leverage Google's expertise in infrastructure, search and relevance to connect users with content created by developers like you.

Developers will be able to make their content available on an open service hosted by Google that features a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube. Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only
three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your
content and publish it.

More information Here

Android App: Life360

Created by Chris Hulls, Dilpreet Singh, Luis Carvalho, Phuong Nguyen, Steve Potell

Life360 uses a multi-channel messaging system and neighborhood-centric
social network to keep you up-to-date and in contact with your family
and local community. Fire warning in your area? You’ll hear about it
right away and can instantly let your entire family know you are safe.
Dog ran off and you want to ask your neighbors for help? Post a request
on the map that everyone nearby will see.

Using Android’s always-on networking capabilities, Life360 can ensure
you always stay in contact with your family and know when important
events happen in your area. Unlike most emergency alerts, these are
specifically customized to you.

Track your family on the map, know everyone’s status instantly, and
access their important medical information and emergency profiles. Get
in an accident? Life360 monitors the accelerometer to detect if you are
in a collision and automatically displays your emergency data onscreen
when you need it.


A location-based message board where you can ask for help and assist
others. Unlike other social networks, this one isn’t about interacting
with friends, but helping your neighborhood overcome challenges as a
group. Need help in a hurry? Push panic and we will notify everyone
nearby.

Android App: Compare Everywhere

Created by Jeffrey Sharkey

Scan a barcode to instantly check if that "sale price" really is a good
deal. Read reviews to find out if those hiking boots will last a
lifetime, or fall apart next month. Keep track of shopping lists, wish
lists, and more.

Use the built-in camera to effortlessly scan barcodes, making shopping a breeze.

Compare prices across dozens of stores in only a few seconds.

Use GPS to find nearby stores, then call them directly, or find driving directions using Google Maps.

Android App: cab4me

cab4me enables you to easily call a cab to any location worldwide. You
do not need to know the number of the local cab company. You do not
need to enter or even know the address you want to be picked up at. You
do not need to place a call. With cab4me you can order a cab to your
current location with a single click.


cab4me integrates the Google Maps component provided by Android. This
enables the user to select their cab destination by simply moving the
map. Cab4me shows places where cabs usually wait as overlays and uses
geocoding extensions to find and display addresses.

cab4me uses the location awareness of Android (GPS and cell-based), to
make it easy for the user to order a cab to his current location
without the need to know the exact address or to know the name of the
cab company.

cab4me integrates the phone’s contact list to select pickup locations.
It can initiate calls to a cab company and uses notification services
to inform the user about the current cab order status.


App Created by Konrad Huebner,
Henning Boeger

Why Google Removed some API's from Android 0.9 SDK Beta

From Android Developers Blog

GTalkService
We were all really excited when the "XMPPService" (as it was called, at first) was included in the first early-look SDK. Once we brought in our security review team to examine Android, however, they soon realized that, as exciting as it is, the GTalkService has some fundamental security problems. Rich Cannings is one of our security researchers, and here's his explanation of the issues:

When I first read about GTalkService, I was both excited and scared. As a developer, I was interested in a feature that provided a simple interface to send messages between two Google Talk friends. The messages would appear on the receiving device as a standard Intent that was easy to handle. How simple and beautiful is that? Unfortunately, when I put my tin foil hat on, I recognized that things are a little more complicated than that.

We decided to postpone GTalkService's data-messaging functionality for the following reasons:

1. "Repurposing" Google Talk Friends
Google Talk friends are intended for a different purpose than that envisioned by the GTalkService. Your Google Talk friends can contact you at any time via IM. They can see your email address and often can see your real name. However, the idea of a Google Talk friend does not always line up with the types of people who may want to interact with via an Android application. For example, imagine a really cool mobile Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game using GTalkService. You would have to add all the players to your Google Talk friends list in order to play with them. Next time you log in to Google Talk from your desktop or on the web, you would notice that you have many new "friends". You may not want to chat with these friends -- and perhaps worse, you may not want them to know what your real name or email is. We do realize that Android users will want to interact with other Android users anonymously and for short periods of time, especially in gaming scenarios. Unfortunately, it turns out that using Instant Messaging is not really a good way to do that.
2. Verifying Remote Intent Senders
Intents were designed to send messages within the device. The Intent subsystem can conclusively determine who sent Intents only when the Intents originate from the same device that services the Intent. When Intents come from other devices, the Intent subsystem cannot determine what application sent the Intent. This can lead to a variety of problems. At first, remote applications could send arbitrary Intents, meaning that your Google Talk friends had almost the same control of your device as you did. Even once that issue was resolved, we recognized that we could not trust the identity of the application who sent the request. We could only trust the identity of the user. So a "bad" application on your friend's device could send a message to a "good" application on your device which would negatively affect the good application. In the end, we determined that the Intent system, as designed for local use, did not lend itself well to being the vehicle for a Remote Procedure Call (RPC).
3. Placing Too Much Security Burden on Developers
As originally designed, the GTalkService placed a significant burden on the application developer to avoid security flaws and perform user and relationship management. An Android application using GTalkService would be reachable from all of the user's Google Talk friends, and a flaw in that application could pose an inviting target to a malicious "friend" or automated malware. There are automated mechanisms that could be used to help protect vulnerable applications or stop the spread of malware, but the deployment of these technologies was not possible in time for the launch of the first Android handsets.

Although we would have loved to ship this service, in the end, the Android team decided to pull the API instead of exposing users to risk and breaking compatibility with a future, more secure version of the feature. We think it's obvious that this kind of functionality would be incredibly useful, and would open lots of new doors for developers. One of our top priorities after the first devices ship is to develop a device-to-device (and possibly device-to-server) RPC mechanism that is fast, reliable, and protective of developers and users alike.

As a final note, I want to point out that since the GTalkService was always a Google "value-added" service anyway, it was never guaranteed that it would be present on every Android device. That is, GTalkService was never part of core Android. As a result this change actually allows us the potential to build a new system that is part of the core of a future version of Android.

Bluetooth API
The 1.0 version of Android and the first devices will include support for Bluetooth; for instance, Android will support Bluetooth headsets. In the early-look SDKs, there was an incomplete draft of an API that exposed Bluetooth functionality to developers. Unfortunately we had to remove that API from the 1.0 release. To get the skinny on why, I contacted Nick Pelly, one of the Android engineers responsible for that functionality. Here's the story on Bluetooth, in Nick's words:

The reason is that we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come.

Here's an example of the problems in the API. Client code is required to pass around IBluetoothDeviceCallback objects in order to receive asynchronous callbacks, but IBluetoothDeviceCallback is meant to be an internal interface. That client code would break the moment we added new callbacks to IBluetoothDeviceCallback.aidl. This is not a recipe for future-proof apps.

To make things even more tricky, the recent introduction of the bluez 4.x series brings its own new API. The Android Bluetooth stack uses bluez for GAP and SDP so you'll see more than a passing resemblance to bluez's interfaces in Android. The bluez 4.x change requires us to carefully consider how to structure our API for the future. Again, remember that once we settle on an interface we need to support it for years going forward.

Rather than ship a broken API that we knew was going to change a lot, we chose not to include it. We absolutely intend to support a Bluetooth API in a future release, although we don't know exactly when that will be. This should include some tasty features, such as:

* Bindings to GAP and SDP functionality.
* Access to RFCOMM and SCO sockets.
* Potentially, L2CAP socket support from Java. (This one is under consideration.)
* An API to our headset and handsfree profiles.

On a personal note, Nick adds, "I would love nothing more than to start seeing some neat third-party applications and games over Bluetooth. In my opinion, Bluetooth is completely under-utilized on most mobile platforms and I'm excited to someday see what the developer community can do with Android."

I'm definitely bummed about these API removals. I was particularly looking forward to the P2P capabilities offered by GTalkService, but, as always, user security and privacy must come first. In all these cases, we'll work with the developer community to create some great APIs that balance these concerns.

Enkin Video, Android App

"Enkin" introduces a new handheld navigation concept. It displays location-based content in a unique way that bridges the gap between reality and classic map-like representations. It combines GPS, orientation sensors, 3D graphics, live video, several web services, and a novel user interface into an intuitive and light navigation system for mobile devices.
Check out our web page enkin.net.

Enkin from Enkin on Vimeo.Technorati Tags: google phone, gphone, Enkin, android

Google releases new Android SDK

Android SDK m5-rc14 now available today.

There are a couple of changes in m5-rc14 I'd like to highlight:

• New user interface - As I mentioned when we introduced the m3 version
  of the Android SDK, we're continuing to refine the UI that's available
  for Android. m5-rc14 replaces the previous placeholder with a new UI,
  but as before, work on it is still in-progress.
• Layout animations - Developers can now create layout animations for their applications using the capabilities introduced in the android.view.animation package. Check out the LayoutAnimation*.java files in the APIDemos sample code for examples of how this works.
• Geo-coding - android.location.Geocoder
  enables developers to forward and reverse geo-code (i.e. translate an
  address into a coordinate and vice-versa), and also search for
  businesses.
• New media codecs - The MediaPlayer class has added support for the OGG Vorbis, MIDI, XMF, iMelody, RTTL/RTX, and OTA audio file formats.
• Updated Eclipse plug-in
  - A new version of ADT is available and provides improvements to the
  Android developer experience. In particular, check out the new Android
  Manifest editor.

You can download the new SDK here:
http://code.google.com/android/download.html

Upgrading?

If you have already downloaded an earlier version of the SDK and developed applications on it, please read the Upgrading the SDK document instead. The Upgrading document explains
how to migrate your existing development environment and applications to the new SDK release. The document also provides
information that you will find useful during the upgrade, such as lists of framework and API changes.

To develop Android applications using the code and tools in the
Android SDK, you need a suitable development computer and development
environment, as described below.

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows XP or Vista
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later (x86 only)
• Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake)

Supported Development Environments

• Eclipse IDE
  
  • Eclipse 3.2, 3.3 (Europa)
  • Eclipse JDT plugin (included in most Eclipse IDE packages)
  • WST (optional, but needed for the Android Editors feature; included in most Eclipse IDE packages)
  • JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
  • Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
  • Android Development Tools plugin (optional)
  
  
• Other development environments or IDEs
  
  • JDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
  • Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
  • Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows
  
  

Note: If JDK is already installed on your development computer,
please take a moment to make sure that it meets the version
requirements listed above. In
particular, note that some Linux distributions may include JDK 1.4 or
Gnu Compiler for Java, both of which are not supported for Android
development.

Take a look at our extensive gallery of pics right here.




Technorati Tags: android sdk, android applications, google phone, gphone