app development

Technical training courses, articles and blog posts tagged with App Development – which is hopefully why you’re here :)

The use of the term “App” as a small, lightweight / portable piece of software is largely due to the rise of the Smartphone, whose footprint requirements are still relatively small compared to desktop / server applications, however it’s becoming more mainstream in usage and is used to describe pretty much any kind of program these days.

Android Studio preview is live and it’s based on IntelliJ IDEA

One of the most exciting tidbits that’s come out of Google IO is the new development platform for Android developers, called Android Studio.We’ve noticed a fair amount of grumbling around the internets about difficulties using ADT with Eclipse in terms of stability, and there has been an almost audible sigh of relief in the many Android developer forums across the globe in reaction to the news that Android Studio is now built upon the IntelliJ IDEA IDE.

Android Studio IntelliJ IDEA Training Course

As with pretty much …

One of the most exciting tidbits that’s come out of Google IO is the new development platform for Android developers, called Android Studio.
We’ve noticed a fair amount of grumbling around the internets about difficulties using ADT with Eclipse in terms of stability, and there has been an almost audible sigh of relief in the many Android developer forums across the globe in reaction to the news that Android Studio is now built upon the IntelliJ IDEA IDE.

Android Studio IntelliJ IDEA Training Course

As with pretty much anything Google releases, the current version is very much an early preview (read: beta), but it’s already creating quite a buzz.

Some of the features you’ll find in addition to all the IntelliJ goodness that Google is touting include:

  • Build support for Gradle
  • Android-specific refactoring and quick fixes
  • Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility and other problems
  • ProGuard and app-signing capabilities
  • Template-based wizards to create common Android designs and components
  • A rich layout editor that allows you to drag-and-drop UI components, preview layouts on multiple screen configurations

You’ll be glad to know our Android App Development training course will henceforth offer delegates the opportunity to do all the lovely juicy hands-on coding exercises using Android Studio (while still supporting ADT / Eclipse).

 

Google Nexus 10 – first thoughts

Ian’s first thoughts on the new Goodle Nexus 10 Android tablet

Hi all,

Our Nexus 10 16GB Tablets arrived yesterday; the original delivery estimate took us into next week so we were pleasantly  surprised to have some boxes to open.

Nice boxes too – decent packaging is a good start and comes as standard with an iPad.

First impressions in the hand were good. Very thin, reasonably light no uncomfortable edges and corners and the rubberised back feels nice and grippy.

After firing it up it took about 15 minutes to synch with my Google account and automatically download my core apps it prompted me to install a system update to Jelly Bean 4.2 which I did – if you’re firing yours up for the first time this week (16th Nov today) you may wish to wait a few days (more on that below!).

A quick web browse with Firefox was a major fail; I once managed a few minutes without a crash but mostly it only took seconds. This is the first 4.2-update related problem which has apparently been solved in the forthcoming Firefox 17 release which should hit the updates on Tuesday 20th November.

Mildly frustrating but surfing with Chrome was very snappy through our 24Mb/Wireless N web connection and the tablet renders text and graphics cleanly and quickly.

As I’d hoped the display is stunning. Completely gorgeous in fact.

I plugged the tablet into my Windows 7 desktop and there was an instant driver match for Nexus 10 which was nice. I uploaded a folder of high-res photos taken with my DSLR.

The image quality is superb, the colours are strong and vivid and the sharpness provided by 300 pixels per square inch is breathtaking. The Jelly Bean gallery app is great for browsing big folders of pictures and seems to offer some pretty sophisticated image editing tools.

I then tried to fire up iPlayer; no deal. The tablet has no flash support so the desktop website doesn’t work and the BBC Media App “is not compatible with your version of Android” (temporary Jelly Bean 4.2 fail  number 2). Gah!

The standard Google Play eBook reader looks great in landscape with a double page view. The page-turn animation was good enough to have me flicking backwards and forwards for a minute or two. I couldn’t see an easy way to access a locally-stored folder of eBooks, so fired up FBReader (my usual smartphone eBook app).

FB Reader worked fine as usual but now I’d seen the open-book view of the Google app I felt I was missing out!

A few quick goes on the standard Android games (Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Winds of Steel, Osmosis) showed off the screen well.

In short – lovely hardware, overly new OS, no ground-breaking Android Tablet apps. Great purchase.

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Google Nexus 10 Tablet – WANT WANT WANT!

Hi all,

We’ve long been Android fans here at Framework Towers.

Although we love Apple’s devices too and have trained development teams from some of the biggest UK organisations in iOS development our choice of smart-phones and tablets for business and personal use are mainly Android-based.

Whilst I’ve been really happy with the numerous Android phones I’ve had  to date (‘and killed’ says Tom) the Android-based tablets (can I coin a portmanteau and call them AndTabs from now on??) just haven’t hit the spot for me.

Nexus 10 Android Tablet

Hi all,

We’ve long been Android fans here at Framework Towers.

Although we love Apple’s devices too and have trained development teams from some of the biggest UK organisations in iOS development our choice of smart-phones and tablets for business and personal use are mainly Android-based.

Whilst I’ve been really happy with the numerous Android phones I’ve had  to date (‘and killed’ says Tom) the Android-based tablets (can I coin a portmanteau and call them AndTabs from now on??) just haven’t hit the spot for me.

Nexus 10 Android Tablet

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Line of Business (LOB) Mobile Apps

Businesses and organisations are ramping up development of internal and external customer-facing mobile and tablet apps which are highly specific to their industry, rather than relying on off-the-shelf packages and old-school web-apps. We can help with mobile app design, development and deployment strategy.

If you hadn’t already noticed, smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous in daily life – you’re just as likely to see someone pull out an iPad on the tube ride into work as a copy of The Times. And you can bet the chap with the tablet is less likely to annoy his fellow commuters than the one struggling with a large, noisy broadsheet.

So with all this portable gadgetry taking on such a starring role in people’s private lives, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that we are pretty comfortable with the idea of integrating smart devices in the workplace.

Businesses and organisations are ramping up development of internal and external customer-facing mobile and tablet apps which are highly specific to their industry, rather than relying on off-the-shelf packages and old-school web-apps.

We’ve helped many software development and project management teams in a wide variety of sectors pick up the skills needed to understand and capture user requirements, create and test code, and develop and maintain a strategy for deploying Line of Business mobile apps for platforms such as Android and iOS (iPhone, iPad).

Through our custom mobile software development training sessions and consultancy activities, we’ve been involved with projects focussing on the development and deployment of Line of Business apps in areas such as:

  • Sales & customer survey app for large event organiser (iPad)
  • Knowledge Base front-end for major software house (iOS / iPhone / iPad)
  • User Interface for roving customer reps for large CRM developer (Android)
  • Business Intelligence dashboard for public sector organisation (iOS)
  • GUI design and workflow for major Antivirus developer (Android)

Not everyone needs a mobile app for their business – there’s no point investing time and energy just for the sake of it. But if you are considering how your workforce and/or customers might benefit from native mobile apps with which to interact with you and your products or services, then we can help get the ball rolling, and keep it moving in the right direction.

Here are some courses you might want to check out –

…our team of experienced mobile experts are also happy to help with consultancy services in all aspects of mobile app development and deployment, so please do get in touch if your project needs a kick-start or on-going guidance.



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Windows 8 Surface Tablet Surfaces

Two new tablets released by Microsoft – one running on ARM, the other on Intel Ivy Bridge.

Windows 8 on Microsoft Surface – is beauty skin-deep?

By choosing to step back into hardware we can assume Microsoft are hoping these products will follow in the footsteps of the hugely-successful Xbox consoles…

Their latest foray into the hardware market was announced this week trumpeting the arrival of two tablet lines running Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 Pro respectively. The level of technical detail is hardly of a forensic level, but there’s enough there to tweak our interest.

Both of these tablet product lines are constructed around an all-magnesium case, have 10.6 Gorilla glass displays and a magnetically attached cover that doubles as a full multi-touch keyboard and trackpad.

The Windows 8 RT tablet has an ARM-based architecture, connectivity comes via Wireless Networking, micro HDMI, microSD and USB 2.0 and a choice of 32 or 64GB of solid-state storage. This kit is packed into a case 9.3mm thick and weighs in at 600g – almost identical to the third gen iPad (9.4mm and 652g).

The Windows 8 tablet is Intel-based with an Ivy Bridge Core I5 with either 64 or 128 GB of storage, USB 3.0, Mini Display Port, pen input support and a higher resolution display (1080p). It’s a little more chunky that its stable mate – 13.5mm thick and 900g

The release dates are tied to the Windows 8 launch, so we expect sometime around mid-autumn 2012 for the RT and the end of the year for the Pro.

If you are considering developing for these devices we provide scheduled and on-site courses in Windows 8 Development and Windows 8 Metro style App Development




Scribbled by

Windows 8 Store App Development with HTML5 and JavaScript

Our WIndows 8 Store App Development course is aimed at web and desktop application developers who need to understand the new ways in which Windows Store apps (previously known as Metro-style apps) are developed for Windows 8 mobile and desktop platforms.

You’ll gain excellent hands-on experience with Visual Studio 2012 and program code / develop apps using HTML 5, JavaScript, CSS3 and gain an understanding of the C++ elements that underly native apps on Windows 8.

AIDE – IDE available for Android

There’s a tool now available that could well become an integral part of most Android App developer’s toolkits. AIDE – Android App Development IDE

There’s a tool now available that could well become an integral part of most Android App developer’s toolkits.

AIDE - Android App Development IDE

AIDE is an entirely free app developed by a group of (mainly German) Android boffins that offers an integrated development environment (IDE) for developing Android Apps directly on an Android device. This is something that’s only recently been feasible due to the increasing processing power of the devices.

Although there is compatibility with Eclipse projects it’s currently lacking a full WYSIWYG interface, but looks to be a pretty handy piece of kit for those not afraid to get their hands dirty with real code.
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Raspberry Pi – release date tomorrow?

Here at Framework Towers we’ve been keeping a keen eye on developments on the Raspberry Pi project – and according to the teaser posted yesterday on the landing page at www.raspberrypi.org it looks like we are about to see the release of this fantastic piece of kit into the wild. Announcement will happen at 0600h GMT on Wednesday 29 February 2012.

Update, 17 May:

Yay – we’ve finally received an invitation to order a Raspberry Pi!

Update, 02 May:

Still no Raspberry Pi :(

I thought we were pretty quick with getting our orders in, but clearly not as quick as the 700 who have already received their kit.

“Our second batch of Raspberry Pi’s is currently being put together, and we’re expecting it in next week. We’ll be inviting the next 4,000 people in our queue to come into the Raspberry Pi store and place their order very soon.”

Will we be one of the 4,000? Let’s hope so….

Update, 23 March:

RS Online have sent out an update to registered parties – good to know they’re taking a measured approach and keeping people informed as to why. No complaints from us that their main concern is quality over quantity!

Welcome to the latest Raspberry Pi update from RS Components!

Much has been happening behind the scenes since you received our last update, not least the start of compliance testing on the Raspberry Pi.

Why are we doing this? Compliance testing is an essential part of bringing any electronic product to market. The Raspberry Pi is being tested to make sure it conforms to all the regulations that apply to electronic devices around the world. This means that we can be sure the Raspberry Pi we deliver to you meets the correct standards and is as safe as you would expect any electronic device you purchase to be.

We’re working with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to manage the testing process as quickly as possible, while ensuring all tests are carried out to guarantee safety. More information is being posted on the Raspberry Pi website , as well as on our own FAQ pages rswww.com or DesignSpark. We’re also regularly tweeting updates on progress. Follow @RSElectronics on twitter to catch the latest news.

Alongside this, we’ve also been contacting the first group of people who registered for a Raspberry Pi from RS, to help us plan delivery of the initial batch of boards. In next week’s update, we’ll provide more information on how we’re managing the queue and the order process.

Update, 9 March:

Aaargh – looks like we’ll be waiting a while longer yet – manufacturing mistake delays shipping of first batch of Raspberry Pi’s.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/781

 

Update, 6 March:

Looks like we’re on a waiting list… Had the following email from RS Components over the weekend.. (more…)