The update doesn’t change any of the Android APIs or introduce any new ones. Eclipse users don’t need to update the ADT plug-in either. Once you’ve unzipped the file on your machine, you will want to update things like your PATH variable and, if you’re using Eclipse, the SDK location setting for ADT (hint: Preferences > Android).

Notice that if you did not yet upgrade from m3 to m5, you might take a look at the upgrade instructions and then the API changes overview. For even more details on the changes, there is an API differences report.

No big changes should be expected after the m5 release and the major API change in the SDK, in the next months at least. There will be more bug fixes and API improvments until we get hands on the first Android Handset.

Based on the great feedback you’ve given us, we’ve made significant updates to the SDK that we’ll be releasing in several weeks. In order to give you extra time to take advantage of these forthcoming UI and API enhancements, we’ve decided to extend the submission deadline. In addition, a fair number of developers have also asked for more time to build and polish their applications.

Below the updated timeline :

• April 14, 2008: Deadline to submit applications for judging
• May 5, 2008: Announcement of the 50 first round winners, who will be eligible for the final round
• June 30, 2008: Deadline for the 50 winners of the first round to submit for the final round
• July 21, 2008: Announcement of the grand prize winner and runner-up

1. ./adb shell sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db “\”INSERT INTO system VALUES(99,’http_proxy’,’ [host_or_IP]:[port]‘);\”"
2. Change [host_or_ip] and [port] to your correct proxy values
3. Try to connect from Android and it should be working fine.

Luisa posted also the way to access some Android’s system setting using SQLite, this will help to get more information on how Android work, for example to retrieve all settings :

1. ./adb shell sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db “\”SELECT * FROM system\”"
2. This will return :
   1|music_volume|3
   2|voice_volume|3
   3|ringer_volume|3

To run the emulator with a different skin, use from command line :

emulator -skin HVGA-L

While HVGA-L is the skin ID, the available skins are :

QVGA-L 320×240, landscape (default)

QVGA-P 240×320, portrait

HVGA-L 480×320, landscape

HVGA-Q 320×480, portrait

From eclipse you can also run the emulator with a different skin, just goto run dialog -> select project -> in the right panel, select Emulator tab as shown in screenshot below :

Thanks to NuuNeoI and Dmitriy

I just didn’t like the emulator so much, but I guess there will be more amazing devices in the future. So as development platform it’s very fine, I just have to be more familiar with the navigation pad.

So back to Android platform, the home screen show the browser in the middle screen, which based on Webkit, then three major applications included with the system Contacts manager, Recent calls and Maps in addition to sample demos. Below the full list as shown in Android. I still don’t know much on installing applications, and how to make more personalisations, but with such great documentation I guess this would be for the next days.

There is a special page on Youtube showing Android talks, and I stopped at the first video where Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz showing some of the main features. Steve showed something that I didn’t know how to try on the emulator, which is the text notifications. It’s a small chat application where you can receive notifications from your friends. I noticed xmpp settings in the system so I guess it is for gmail chat, or other jabber servers.

Well, that’s all for today. We’ll make certainly more experiments in the next days to get to know Android better.

As we were expecting in the previous post, the development platform is around Eclipse. An eclipse plugin is available to help developing and debugging Android’s applications. Android documenation is very well done and include all the necessary from requirements, to getting started, developping applications, references informations, until sample code. In addition to the API demo showing the SDK capabilities, two demo applications are available with sources : Lunar Lander game and a simple notepad application.

Android Challenge: $10 million to give away

With the announcement of Android SDK, the alliance offered $10 million for developers in a challenge to finance developments and certainly encourage getting more amazing applications in a very short time. There will be in total 50 winners and getting each one from $25k, to $100k or $275k. This is not just for fun I’m sure, the challenge will be in two parts. In the first part, submissions will be accepted from January 2 through March 3, 2008, and the second part will be after the first handsets built on the platform become available sometimes in the second half of 2008.

You can build any kind of applications from from Social networking, Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos, Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc., Gaming, News and information, Rethinking of traditional user interfaces, Use of mash-up functionality, Use of location-based services, Humanitarian benefits, Applications in service of global economic development, to Whatever you’re excited about!

This will certainly bring amazing applications to Android and slow down development for other platforms by loosing some open source mobile developers.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that Android succeeded its launch, the time to get more familiar with the SDK and the platform, you might check the new Android developers blog, and official dev group to ask questions and meet the Android team. Also the time to finish my download and get the SDK working on my laptop. Amazing but true, the open mobile platform is already here !

“We’re likely to want to enter into such agreements with handset partners because sharing in the revenue, sharing in the advertising, produces just a better total ecosystem. Our whole strategy around partnership has been to work with people, literally share in the profits, share in the revenue, under whatever terms make sense, because then everybody’s in alignment. The fact that Android allows it does not require it. I think it’s highly likely we would do it.”