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[Q] USB Port Access

Hello there dear Android devs!
I have a question about the USB port.
Do any of you have any information whether it's possible to use the USB port manually with an app with Android? I have an idea that needs access to a hardware interface that needs to be connected directly to the Android device..
I might be able to use the bluetooth connection, but that would involve a lot more hardware development, and I'd rather avoid that.
So my question is, do you know any way for an app to use the Mini USB port with an external hardware interface?
Hope you have some good news
//Enslave
Edit: If you have any information if this would be possible on WP7 or iPhone, I'd appreciate hints to that too, but I'd rather use Android to be honest

Sorry to bump this, but surely someone must have some information?
I really wanna get this app off the ground! And it's gonna be something really really cool when it's done.. If it's possible that is ^^

[Q] Some advice on choosing a flexible tablet for research purposes

Hi all,
I'm looking for a tablet which is going to act as the user interface for my research project, but the technical nature means that I have some particular requirements which are pretty much impossible to ascertain from reviews or even some serious Google-fu. As there seem to be a number of experts in this forum I figured some people here might be able to lend some advice...
My main issue is that I need robust, ideally wired communication with a PC - presumably via USB. I have read that USB connections are possible with Android but I get conflicting reports about how easy it is, and no real information on the bandwidth of such a connection. Has anyone had any experience with this? I need to be streaming real-time images to the tablet, would this be suitable?
This sort of leads on to a second issue which is that it would really be preferable, from a development point of view, to have it running a Linux distro. I am wondering whether this might make USB connectivity easier, but again this information is very hard to come by. So, does anyone know of a tablet which I can put Ubuntu on and have full access to the USB port? Again, any sort of information or experience would be greatly appreciated.
As it's not my money I'm spending I really need to be sure that this will do what I want in advance, so any advice in general about doing this would be fantastic.
Thanks in advance
-Rob

Honeycomb 3.1 is a solid operating system which will be able to perform the actions you listed. However, steaming data seamlessly will require a device with suitable RAM and processor speed. One nice feature with android devices is the ability to overclock the processor. If you choose to go with android honeycomb a good device would be the Xoom or Acer
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Intersting, thanks, I'd not seen that. It looks like this ticks off Android 3.1 as a suitable platform, in which case my final question is whether anyone knows of a tablet which can have a native Ubuntu installation, with full access to the USB, display device etc. It would be the ideal situation from a development point of view.
Thanks again.

How do I begin developing an app that controls my computer?

Hi guys,
I am new to app development and I have seen a lot of articles about apps that control the computer, but how would I actually go about making one? It doesn't need to be over Wifi either; it just has to be able to do basic keyboard actions over USB.
- Adam

Bump. Anyone know where I could start?

Start with c+ and toss in a little Java coding.

amarcott11 said:
Bump. Anyone know where I could start?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You haven't even described what platform you're writing said app for.
Android apps are mostly Java... The rest, I dunno. MS is probably dotNET, apple is... objective C I think?

Sorry for the lack of information. All I know so far is I have Eclipse and ADT (I am developing an Android app). I understand XML and how to develop the GUI, but when it comes to making the app communicate with a computer, I don't have a clue where to begin or how to do it.
Any tips or guidelines on tools to use or how to start are appreciated.

amarcott11 said:
Sorry for the lack of information. All I know so far is I have Eclipse and ADT (I am developing an Android app). I understand XML and how to develop the GUI, but when it comes to making the app communicate with a computer, I don't have a clue where to begin or how to do it.
Any tips or guidelines on tools to use or how to start are appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By having a server program running on your computer which accepts data you send from your android.
If you want it to be difficult, do it over usb, the easy way would be wifi.
Check up on "sockets".

Thanks for the reply. The only problem is, I need it to have very fast response time. I would like it to be as similar to a USB keyboard as possible, so I don't think WiFi would work. What makes doing it over USB difficult?

Do you have the server side app already? what exactly are you trying to control on your computer?

It doesn't matter what I'm controlling, I just want to be able to get my app to send information that a server side program can take and be able to keyboard map.
So I'll need to code with C++ for the server side and java for the app itself?
Plus, from what I've read, I've learned that the Android platform doesn't support USB hosting. Is this true? I've seen ways around it but it seems pretty cryptic.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

There already is one that is apart of the android market and you can even use it on another computer It's called Team viewer not sure if this would help you or not, but I liked it when I needed to use it.

You can do app development on a pc emeulator instead of your phone (if thats what your asking) and Google App Inventor is great, but servers are closing soon. So goodluck!

Yeah I would start looking up about c+, c++, and java coding.... goodluck

I appreciate the help. Ryan1918, I have used Teamviewer myself, but I am looking to develop more of a controller, as opposed to a remote desktop app.

amarcott11 said:
Thanks for the reply. The only problem is, I need it to have very fast response time. I would like it to be as similar to a USB keyboard as possible, so I don't think WiFi would work. What makes doing it over USB difficult?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Both can be done with java and if you program it right and the wifi signal is good you shouldnt have much of a delay.
It will be difficult to use the USB as a network interface for your application.
Using TCP/IP or UDP over Wifi will be much much easier.

I don't mean to ignore what you're saying about WiFi, but I strongly believe that for the market this app will be directed toward, USB will be necessary. I don't feel comfortable giving away my idea, but just know that my goal is to make the responsiveness virtually seamless if it is at all possible.
I will test it out with WiFi first, but in case I don't get the results I'm looking for, can you expand a little more on USB?
Will it only be hard for me on the developing side, or will the consumer have to also put in extra effort to get it to work over USB (installing other apps, rooting, etc.)? If I was to develop the app around USB, I would want it to be easy to set up if I did all the coding right.
From my continued research, I have found a few articles in the following links that might be leading me in the right direction:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/usb/accessory.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/usb/UsbManager.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5848876/java-sockets-transmission-in-real-time
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4762620/sending-simple-commands-from-android-through-usb

I don't have much expertise in the area, i just took a quick google shot at it and it showed from some forum posts and questions, that doing it through usb is not the easiest way.

PC emulation on Android - OS XDA project links.

So in this thread it tells you how to install pc operating systems like windows and linux on the Evo 3D.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1459153
This, is freaking awesome. This one is a big breakthrough.
----
Here is the thread in the Nook Color forums for ubuntu on the device:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1055954
----
These two threads are native installs, not using some client to access the installation, the device itself is the client as it should be.
This is not some chrooted virtual OS simulation, but the real deal installed to the device.
----
In the back of my mind i've wanted to play with ubuntu installed on the MT4GS, but not a virtual installation I want it installed and running on the device natively.
I definitely don't have the time to do this and a lot i'm trying to do around here even if I wasn't in my busy season for work.
Dropping this information so I can find it later when I do get to trying to get ubuntu (and now windows XP looks like a possibility) installed on this device.
If anyone else feels like looking into this, here's a good place to start. If anyone comes across any other projects that are the real deal and not virtual installs please post links here.
Have fun!

Blue6IX said:
So in this thread it tells you how to install pc operating systems like windows and linux on the Evo 3D.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1459153
This, is freaking awesome. This one is a big breakthrough.
----
Here is the thread in the Nook Color forums for ubuntu on the device:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1055954
----
These two threads are native installs, not using some client to access the installation, the device itself is the client as it should be.
This is not some chrooted virtual OS simulation, but the real deal installed to the device.
----
In the back of my mind i've wanted to play with ubuntu installed on the MT4GS, but not a virtual installation I want it installed and running on the device natively.
I definitely don't have the time to do this and a lot i'm trying to do around here even if I wasn't in my busy season for work.
Dropping this information so I can find it later when I do get to trying to get ubuntu (and now windows XP looks like a possibility) installed on this device.
If anyone else feels like looking into this, here's a good place to start. If anyone comes across any other projects that are the real deal and not virtual installs please post links here.
Have fun!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Regardless of what impression you may have, it is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to run MSWin on ARM hardware natively. The reason for this is that MSWin is x86 and ARM is... ARM. The approach used in the first link is to use BOCHS (pronounced "Box"), which is a VIRTUAL HARDWARE EMULATOR. It requires a host operating system to be functioning in the background, in this case Linux.
As for Ubuntu... well sure. No problem. Its Linux and the phone runs Linux. Not that big of a stretch to replace the Android parts with GNU.
Note that NONE of this is any kind of "great breakthrough". Bochs has been around for a VERY long time. First OPEN SOURCED in early 2000. Yeah, 12 years ago. As for Ubuntu... well I suppose that the main reason that most people aren't making a native android replacement out of ubuntu, is that not many people are all that interested in it. Cute in theory, but not practical.
What would be a more worthy project would be to upgrade android to GNU libraries and utilities. This would afford us an actually USEFUL balance between the two. Also the ability to run X *through* android without having to do stupid things like VNC. Have the proper interface ***AS AN ANDROID APPLICATION***, leaving Android to work (i.e., phone calls, etc.) while simultaneously offering the standard Linux applications.
My thought though, is that this is becoming less and less important. Firefox is on Android now, the Document foundation has announced LibreOffice for Android -- supposed to be by late 2012 to early 2013... GIMP has no place on Android... That certainly covers the basics.

Appreciate the post. I didn't have time to dig into it too deeply, so took it at face value for the impression I got. Happened to come across it in passing and didn't want to lose track of something vital to the future dev of a project like this on the doubleshot. (but definitely this doesn't belong in the dev section at this time - just clutter there.)
I was hoping people would add to it, especially the way you have, who had more of an understanding of what's going on there - I didn't realize that it was a virtual environment for the windows stuff, but it did seem to good to be true.
Even if no one responded I figured the thread would get pushed down out of the way, but still be here when I got the time to come back to it.
----
My reason for running native linux on the device itself is to be able to use the Android SDK and tools without needing a computer to do so. I have 2 of these phones and a Nook Color. The NC has USB host support, so I could plug the doubleshot into it without frying either device. (yes, i'm blending android and linux concepts here - but usb host support in android shows that it's capable of doing it)
Even from one doubleshot to the other I could use wifi adb for a lot of stuff without plugging them into each other through USB and frying the phones. So that would be a victory as well.
The lack of a hardware charging circuit in the doubleshot makes the worry of frying the phones a big deal, power transfer through USB is a big hurdle to jump in management.
Beyond that - the doubleshot is powerful enough on hardware specs to be able to compile a kernel, but that's not gonna happen through a virtual linux install because the overhead is too much. A native install might just be able to do it though. Won't know until I try, but it's worth the work to get to the point of trying, even if it doesn't work out.
The Nook Color probably won't be able to compile a kernel - it's asking too much from a device not really able to handle that.
Getting what I mentioned above to work would mean I could do all my dev work with what fits in my pocket, and let me keep working wherever I am.
I do like the idea of an app to work with this through Android itself - but I don't see how I could use the SDk and variety of user-created tools without a native linux install. Worth pursuing either way though.
If anyone has anything to add, i'd be welcome to hear it. Just understand this is not a project i'm working on or actively pursuing right now - but fully intend to down the line.

Actually blue. There is a thread somewhere that has a step by step on installing ubuntu on gingerbread. I meant to add it when I added the backtrack link. For some reason I didn't, I probably forgot, I actually think the link for it is in the backtrack thread in the sticky.
If I do find it ill let you know.
Sent from my ICS Splashed using Tapatalk

MHL and Android

I really need a developers answer to this question as this is a very technical one.
Ever since I've seen Ubuntu's site about Ubuntu on Android, I've wanted to do the same concept on my phone. I want to be able to do it myself as I've had experience with working with Gentoo and Arch but unfortunately not as deep of an understanding of how xorg and the kernel relate to each other (other than knowing xorg loads kernel modules and sets up the display) but understood that the Android OS has it's own display mechanism for creating things on the screen.
I'm also guessing that MHL (the tech behind the microUSB to HDMI) is a module of it's own as not all Android devices have access to doing this. If it's a module, I'm also guessing it's got it's own display driver which might be separate from the Android OS.
The root of my question is, would it theoretically be possible to get an xserver running off of that device for a chroot linux os so we can have a native linux on the phone when plugged into a MHL adapter? I am also guessing that I could script a chroot environment to start when the phone starts and maybe run a script on a hotplug from the MHL device to run the xserver... or if it works this way, have it running and it just needs a display show? Maybe an app to swap from linux to android display on the output through the phone? Would be a nice thing to have for us. Imagine being able to just work directly on the device through linux on the same device without using vnc.
I don't know if the Android OS display server (don't know what it's called) takes over all display devices and if that's why it's a problem or what the technical hurdles are, maybe that's another question that could be answered for me please?
I feel like I'm going to get a search the forums answer to this but I am searching, just hard to find answers to some of these questions since it's not the typical "I want wifi calling." or "I want (insert feature here)." or even "How does (insert feature here) work?"
This would be my first steps into developing, and I'm willing to take the time to learn, just would like a nice push in the right direction as to what the hurdles are and where I need to go for answers. Thank you in advance. =)

You may want to try the xda irc and look for linuxonandroid. You'll probably get much better answers than in q&a.
Sent from my M886 using Tapatalk 2

I am also interested in MHL support.
If you find any info please post it here too.