Android: Mobile Device Applications

One of my students mentioned in class about the Android operating system for mobile devices that uses the Java programming language at http://code.google.com/android/. Applications are written in Java and bundled into an Android package that can be installed on mobile devices. For example, you can publish your app to the Android Market,

"Android Market is a hosted service that makes it easy for users to find and download Android applications to their Android-powered devices, and makes it easy for developers to publish their applications to Android users.

To publish your application on Android Market, you first need to register with the service using your Google account and agree to the terms of service. Once you are registered, you can upload your application to the service whenever you want, as many times as you want, and then publish it when you are ready. Once published, users can see your application, download it, and rate it using the Market application installed on their Android-powered devices.

To register as an Android Market developer and get started with publishing, visit the Android Market:
http://market.android.com/publish ".

I downloaded the sdk from http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.1_r1/index.html to get the android.jar to use with Eclipse. The HelloWorld example at http://developer.android.com/guide/tutorials/hello-world.html uses

package com.example.hello;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
public class HelloAndroid extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
}
}

Youtube has some good videos on applications at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LkNlTNHZzE show applications without borders. One of the great features is the com.google.android.maps and android.location which provides a spatial component for location based services such as resource tracking, proximity analysis and SMS messaging. Because it is written in Java, it is easy to interface with existing AI applications written in Java.