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Possible convert my iPhone-app to Android?

Hi!
Ive just finished an iPhone-application, and Im looking into the possibility to convert it to an android-application.
Let me tell you the basic structure of the app:
- It has a simple drill-down-menu, with three levels of lists. Pressing a list-item will bring you deeper down into the hierarchy, and pressing a back-button will take you up a step.
- At the bottom of the hierarchy is a webview that loads a unique webpage depending on the hierarchical path the user has taken. These web-pages (html and javascript) are all localized on the device so it never goes online.
- The webpages has two main resources: images, and sound (mp3). The sound should be playable from within the webpage. All these resources are also loaded from the device.
- When exiting the app, it should save its location and when relaunched it should reopen that location.
As you can see, its a pretty simple application. Im wondering if anybody could detail a little what I need for this to come alive on Android. Perhaps the application-layout Im after is so generic, even, that there is a template for this?
My background as a programmer is mostly C++ and C#, so Im more at home with the Java-syntax than the awful Objective-C that iPhone uses.
So far Ive installed the development-environment, and have tried out the basic "Hello Android"-sample. Thats about it for the moment.

porting your iphone add to android
hi there,
i'm a android programmer and did many games already. you can see my games at:
not sure you still need help to port your iphone app to android. may be you can send me the source code. i can do it for you. very easy for me.
Tony Chan
[email protected]

Android uses java syntax and java libraries
so if you like java, then you would probably like android
layouts are done in XML

chingy1788 said:
Android uses java syntax and java libraries
so if you like java, then you would probably like android
layouts are done in XML
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hehe well said

I don't think anybody can tell you what you need to do. Just start by reading through all of this: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html and you should be able to handle this.
Note: your application appears to be trivial.
One thing that I suggest is that you forget about locally-stored web pages and just rewrite those pages in Android/Java. The reason I suggest this is that unlike apple, you can't make any assumptions about what browser the user has installed (if any), or what rendering engine their browser happens to have, or javascript engine, etc. There are AT LEAST three different rendering engines in use on Android, including khtml, gecko, and presto. There are at LEAST two different JAVASCRIPT engines, including SquirrelFish and V8, and soon you will be able to add SpiderMonkey to this list (when Firefox launches). And no, you can't force your application to call on a particular browser since this would violate the modularity designed into the platform.
DANNEMAN101 said:
Hi!
Ive just finished an iPhone-application, and Im looking into the possibility to convert it to an android-application.
Let me tell you the basic structure of the app:
- It has a simple drill-down-menu, with three levels of lists. Pressing a list-item will bring you deeper down into the hierarchy, and pressing a back-button will take you up a step.
- At the bottom of the hierarchy is a webview that loads a unique webpage depending on the hierarchical path the user has taken. These web-pages (html and javascript) are all localized on the device so it never goes online.
- The webpages has two main resources: images, and sound (mp3). The sound should be playable from within the webpage. All these resources are also loaded from the device.
- When exiting the app, it should save its location and when relaunched it should reopen that location.
As you can see, its a pretty simple application. Im wondering if anybody could detail a little what I need for this to come alive on Android. Perhaps the application-layout Im after is so generic, even, that there is a template for this?
My background as a programmer is mostly C++ and C#, so Im more at home with the Java-syntax than the awful Objective-C that iPhone uses.
So far Ive installed the development-environment, and have tried out the basic "Hello Android"-sample. Thats about it for the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

look at the NDK

Freedomcaller said:
look at the NDK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The NDK is *NOT APPLICABLE*.

Why don't you create a converter from iPhone to Android? There are few Italian app.. only this is better than Android for Italian user.. but I love Android!

I have an app that has been created for android, and I need help creating it for the iphone. I'll share the source code if someone will create the app for me please.

DANNEMAN101 said:
Hi!
Ive just finished an iPhone-application, and Im looking into the possibility to convert it to an android-application.
Let me tell you the basic structure of the app:
- It has a simple drill-down-menu, with three levels of lists. Pressing a list-item will bring you deeper down into the hierarchy, and pressing a back-button will take you up a step.
- At the bottom of the hierarchy is a webview that loads a unique webpage depending on the hierarchical path the user has taken. These web-pages (html and javascript) are all localized on the device so it never goes online.
- The webpages has two main resources: images, and sound (mp3). The sound should be playable from within the webpage. All these resources are also loaded from the device.
- When exiting the app, it should save its location and when relaunched it should reopen that location.
As you can see, its a pretty simple application. Im wondering if anybody could detail a little what I need for this to come alive on Android. Perhaps the application-layout Im after is so generic, even, that there is a template for this?
My background as a programmer is mostly C++ and C#, so Im more at home with the Java-syntax than the awful Objective-C that iPhone uses.
So far Ive installed the development-environment, and have tried out the basic "Hello Android"-sample. Thats about it for the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it possible to post this in the Q&A and not development section?

sparksco said:
Is it possible to post this in the Q&A and not development section?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is from the first half of 2009, I highly doubt that they care where it should be posted (now).

Converting iPhone app to Android will be greate.
I would like to have All My Recipes iphone app in my Galaxy Tab

It was be great if somebody can port the secret of mana game from iphone to android ! =)

[Q] Can a P/Invoke be used to call native APIs?

Since I'm not strong in C++, is it possible in a native/hybrid app to use a P/Invoke call to call native APIs from C# code?
So far what I have seen is COM interop where you have to code the bulk of what you want to do in native C++.
Any possibility here and if so how?

No. At least not that we know of. You have to create COM wrappers for native functions.

Various Marshaling APIs, which makes P/Invoke tick, are off-limits.

WP7 apps run under silverlight - the best place to learn about the security model and why p/invoke is not possible is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd470128(v=vs.95).aspx
As you can see the restriction is quite deep routed in the framework.
It still might be possible to run proper .NET CF executables in the future though if we can get it installed.

pInvoke
I just met a guy today, who successfully published WP7 app, that uses pInvoke - he just filled the Technical Exception form and ... done
It's used for muting system volume when the phone is in range of specified WiFi network (using BG agent) - for example when in range of school Wifi, turn the speaker off.
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/6813ea1f-8d71-4ad5-a6d2-f80c193c6ac9
Can anybody confirm this actually works? He haven't tested it, because it won't work in emulator and even not in default developer unlock.
Here's the code he used, disassembled from the app:
http://pastebin.com/PfFm9Wxg
Do you know about any other apps, except apps from OEMs and Microsoft, that use pInvoke?
This gave me an idea, what else could be possible using small use of pInvoke? Maybe even something lot of users are asking for, like battery status on the start screen, who knows?

Thread Moved To WP7 Q&A​
This is a development section, not Q&A. Please post in the correct section!​

OK, a few things:
P/Invoke not working is *very* well documented. The DllImport attribute *appears* to be available, but calling a function that uses it invariably fails. The work-around for native code access is to use COM. There's also a project to re-implement DllImport.
Native code access has been available to homebrew developers for about a year, now. There are many apps which use it, ranging from web servers to registery browsers to yes, even an app that shows your battery status as a live tile on your Start screen...
These apps are not, however, permitted by Microsoft's Marketplace rules. It may be possible to get an exemption (some Marketplace apps do use native code) but by default, all apps that try to use native APIs (either via COM or P/Invoke) are automatically detected and rejected during analysis of the app prior to its approval.
As for the code you linked, it doesn't even compile (WP7 doesn't include CharSet.None, apparently). If you remove the CharSet directive, or if you set it to CharSet.Auto, it will compile but fails when used. You also didn't include any of the #using directives (OK, without the # in C#). Better would have been to just send us the XAP directly (yes we can get it, but a copy/pasted smidge is a lot less useful)

Downloaded the XAP. It's a paid app, so many tools won't find it.
Examining now. Nothing exotic so far. Possibly P/Invoke only works on signed apps?
The actual message signature that I see:
[PreserveSig]
[DllImport("coredll.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Winapi, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi, SetLastError = true)]
private static extern int waveOutGetVolume(IntPtr device, out uint volume);
Note that CharSet.Ansi still doesn't seem to exist. That said, this might simply be due to an outdated interop library that shipped with NoDo, and the Mango one does support this? More investigation...

"Possibly P/Invoke only works on signed apps?"
That's the question! If this actually works, it's possible we can get exception for more pInvoke calls and it might be even possible to certify app in marketplace for showing battery status or similar goodies. It won't be possible using that dllImport project, that's more than sure, but if we use only well defined set of safe pInvoke calls, we might get submission exception. It's definitely worth finding it out, what's possible here

Learning about Android as an OS

I hope this isn't a stupid question. But I couldn't find any real info regarding this. And after reading the Mysteries of Science thread it seemed to me, there really isn't much information regarding such things. So:
I noticed that for almost all Linux based OS you can find in-depth descriptions on how the OS works on a basic level. For example where specific settings are stored.
The guides at android.com deal with app development, but don't specify how you use the OS as a root user. For example, if I want to change WLAN settings, there must be a way to do that without using the GUI or by using special classes but by editing a config file. Or where does Android store the startup settings, i.e. which apps to start at boot time or at specific system events. Or where do apps register as default app for viewing certain filetypes. There is a description how to code it, but not how Android stores that information and how it can be edited/viewed manually.
Since it's linux based I guess there are plain text config files for all those things. But where...? Was such information ever released by Google?

bur2000 said:
For example, if I want to change WLAN settings, there must be a way to do that without using the GUI or by using special classes but by editing a config file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can change network interface with 'ifconfig' command.
You can get ifconfig command by installing busybox.

There are commands that can be used, but this is still a bit liek try&error. So it seems there is no full documentation on how Android works?
Has Google ever addressed this, do they plan to release such documentation?

How can I view the source code of an android app?

This is probably a noob question, but how can you view the coding of an android application? I just had a small test app developed for me and I would like to look at the "guts" of it.
I downloaded the emulator but I haven't been able to figure out how to see my app's code using it. Maybe there is another way that's easier? You know, something akin to the "view page source" tab enabled in many browsers that allows you to see an html page's code?
I tried opening it with TextEdit on my Mac but it says its not readable.
What's an easy way to take a look at/edit the code?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Android-apktool
Android-apktool - A tool for reengineering Android apk files ...
http: / / code.google.com/p/android-apktool
It is a tool for reengineering 3rd party, closed, binary Android apps. It can decode resources to nearly original form and rebuild them after making some modifications; it makes possible to debug smali code step by step. Also it makes working with app easier because of project-like files structure and automation of some repetitive tasks like building apk, etc.
It is NOT intended for piracy and other non-legal uses. It could be used for localizing, adding some features or support for custom platforms and other GOOD purposes. Just try to be fair with authors of an app, that you use and probably like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Google "apk manager"
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

Thank guys, however it says it can't be found - see this screencast I recorded: screencast.com/t/kII8UcBqE1RQ
Any ideas?
I feel like it can't be that complicated, but there is almost no info about in on Google...

[Q] To which language does the following code belong to ?

Hey Guys,
Recently I was planning to learn to code android apps, so I decompiled an app I wanted to modify & was going through the source code. All of the .smali files were un-encrypted. I would like to know if this code is Objective-C or Java.
I tried to add the code snippets & also tried to pastie it but apparently the posts doesn't seem to accept foreign links so I'll try to post it in the comments.
File Names: h, h$a
Also, I wanted to know what do these file names represent & what does the "dollar" sign stand for in the file names.
Thanks in Advance,
Netguy
Update: I tried posting it via comments but it wasn't possible. Let me know how can I share the code over here. Thanks.

Smali is disassembled Dalvik virtual machine byte code.
The source of it is Java, although you can't easily reconstruct the original source.
MyClass.smali is the class file for MyClass
MyClass$SubClass.smali is the class file for the nested subclass SubClass
MyClass$1.smali is the class file for an anonymous nested subclass.
ab.smali and ab$bd.smali are obfuscated file names.
Some companies rename everything using automatic tools to hide the intent.
Yes, you can write in smali if you like.
Usually such use is limited to small changes in an existing program.

Thanks a lot for the information Renate NST. While digging through some of the smali files, I found some URLs related to the google ads. So will changing the URL to something else disable the ads or will it just result in malfunctioning of the app ? Thanks a lot once again.