SDK

Nothing lights a fire under hesitant mobile app developers like $10 million dollars.

The Android Developer Challenge will be run in two stages. The first will accept submissions between Jan. 2 and Mar. 3, 2008. the second will run after the first Android handsets are launched.

The first stage will see 50 of the most promising submissions awarded $25,000 to fund "future development" (or a sweet house party). Those selected will then be up for ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

Google's suggestions:

# 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

Accoring to the FAQ, the developers will retain the IP while granting Google the right to test the app and use it for Android promotion. Sergey also reserves the right to harvest the developers' brains for medical and culinary experimentation (Joke. Mr. Brin seems like a very nice man. I admire his hair.)

This is the incentive the platform needs. If Google can get 50 cool-ass apps by hotshot developers available before the first Android handset is released, the platform will instantly be viable competition for the Symbians and Windows Mobiles of the world.

Tried to run Eclipse and got some sort of error about Java missing. Installed the java6 runtime environment and development kit, tried Eclipse again, and it's up and running.

And, boy, is it pretty:

That's some hot, hot welcome screen action right there.

Okay, follow the instructions on the Android install site:

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install....
2. In the dialog that appears, select Search for new features to install and press Next.
3. Press New Remote Site.
4. In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the remote site (e.g. Android Plugin) and enter this as its URL: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. Press OK.
5. You should now see the new site added to the search list (and checked). Press Finish.
6. In the subsequent Search Results dialog box, select the checkbox for Android Plugin > Eclipse Integration > Android Development Tools and press Next.
7. Read the license agreement and then select Accept terms of the license agreement, if appropriate. Press Next.
8. Press Finish.
9. The ADT plugin is not signed; you can accept the installation anyway by pressing Install All.
10. Restart Eclipse.
11. After restart, update your Eclipse preferences to point to the SDK root directory ($SDK_ROOT):
1. Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel. (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences)
2. Select Android from the left panel.
3. For the SDK Location in the main panel, press Browse... and find the SDK root directory.
4. Press Apply, then OK

Seems to be all well and good. Went off without a hitch, except...

After the "Press Apply..." part of step 11 substep 4, I get the following:

Now that's interesting. Grabbing info about "active usage" and "which tools are most popular" is fine, but if I start getting targeted ads in my IDE I'm gonna be pissed.

Coming up next: okay, it's installed, so now what?

Here we go with an install of the SDK.

Alright, gotta make sure Eclipse is installed.


Get:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main ant 1.7.0-3 [1281kB]
Get:2 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main ant-optional 1.7.0-3 [694kB]
Get:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main java-common 0.26ubuntu1 [77.1kB]
Get:4 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe libswt3.2-gtk-jni 3.2.2-3ubuntu3 [211kB]
Get:5 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe libswt3.2-gtk-java 3.2.2-3ubuntu3 [1579kB]
Get:6 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe eclipse-rcp 3.2.2-3ubuntu3 [4059kB]
Get:7 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe liblucene-java 1.4.3.dfsg-1.2 [691kB]
Get:8 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe liblucene-java-doc 1.4.3.dfsg-1.2 [176kB]
Get:9 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main libjsch-java 0.1.28-2 [170kB]
Get:10 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main libservlet2.4-java 5.0.30-6ubuntu1 [143kB]
Get:11 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe libcommons-el-java 1.0-3 [218kB]...

... etc., etc.

I've actually never worked with Eclipse much before. I've installed it a few times, gone in and done some sightseeing and sampling of the locals' daughters, but never considered calling it home even temporarily.

Meanwhile, unpack the .zip. I've set up a folder in my home directory called Android and exrtract the subfolders of the .zip into it.

As the instructions instruct, add $SDK_root/tools to my path toolkit:

export PATH=${PATH}:/home/user/Android/tools/

echo $PATH
/home/user/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin
:/bin:/usr/games:/home/user/Android/tools/


'Kay. Good so far.

Coming up in the unboxing part two: Will Jordan's Eclipse install work? Howabout installing the Eclipse plugin for Android? Stay tuned for the answers to these exciting questions, and more...

John Roese, CTO of Nortel, has weighed on Android, in a lengthy post on his blog.

This is less a cohesive essay and more a rambling stream of thoughts. Mostly it's a cool splash of reality in the face of hype – Roese rightly points out that a multi-platform OS is nothing new, and although the promised openness of Android and the hope for tight integration with Google apps is enticing, the realities of economy might mitigate Android's paradigm-shifting potential.

He throws in a few near-unintelligible bits (“...just because a phone has an interface and operating system on it does not mean that the network it is connected to freely presents all the capabilities that that network can provide.” --what?), drops a few network-geek abbreviations, and caps it all off with a completely misleading title (“Android/G-Phone Software Development Kit - First Look.”)

It is, altogether, an interesting read. I guess.