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Hey all,
We went to the Yetizen "Android-i-fied" event and learned a ton about building games on Android, but if you happened to miss it, then we did a quick write up of what we learned. We put it below because we hoped that it would help you guys
Now, on to the event!
Charles Hudson kicked off the talk with some choice words:
ANDROID IS HARD!
Charles Hudson was not shy about his experiences building on the Android platform with his game studio, Bionic Panda Games. There was little sugar-coating of the six major challenges that Android developers face, especially when compared to iOS. He did have great suggestions for tackling each one, which we wanted to pass on to you. His six tips are below:
1. Fragmentation
Problem: Unlike the iPhone, there are many types of Android devices, which leads to OS fragmentation, varying screen size and resolutions, and types of hardware. This means that the user experience can vastly differ from user to user. Also, developers can drown themselves in work trying to make their game compatible with everything.
Solution: Charles suggests that you test your game on multiple devices to make sure the user experience can consistent across a sea of devices. He said that he bought old, “well loved” Android phones from resellers to cheaply test his game on each type of hardware. As for OS, if you need to draw a line in the sand and not supporting older OS versions to provide a consistent experience, then do so. According to Ngmoco, which spoke later in the evening, 94% of Android gamers are on 2.1 or above, so you won’t miss many customers by cutting out the troublesome 1.6 and 1.7 versions.
2. Development & Testing
Problem: Because it is so easy to launch new applications and versions on Android - you are essentially just one button away from pushing new versions - developers can sometimes get trigger happy. This can overwhelm users and stop them from updating your game.
Solution: Android users typically don’t update their apps as often as iOS users, so Charles recommended a minimum period of one week between app updates, excepting urgent bug fixes of course. And as we mentioned before, you should test your game on each major type of phone and supported OS version before an update goes live. This can prevent unforseen hiccups and help you avoid those urgent bug fixes.
3. Metrics
Problem: Developers are typically flying totally blind when it comes to the way that users are interacting with their app, especially on Android.
Solution: Look into integrating with an analytics platform that fits your budget. Google Analytics is free, but can be a trickier integration as it isn’t built for mobile. If you are looking for an easier and more mobile-friendly solution, there are mobile game analytics platforms that may be worth the cost such as Flurry and Localytics.
4. Platform Wars
Problem: 23% of all smartphone customers are on iOS devices, and conventional wisdom states that iOS users are more likely to pay for apps and complete in-app purchases than their Android counterparts.
Solution: To paraphrase Charles Hudson, “it is better to build a great game on one platform instead of a mediocre game on two platforms.” Each platform has different capabilities, so focus your resources in building an awesome game on one platform before you worry about iOS. Bionic Panda is an Android only game studio, so Charles clearly practices what he preaches.
5. Distribution & Discovery
Problem: Discoverability on Android depends less on category ranking compared to iOS, and getting Featured on the Android Market is just as difficult as it is on the Apple App Store. Also, Android does not have a united social graph like Facebook or Apple’s Game Center, so it is hard to lean on viral mechanics to acquire users.
Solution: There tends to be higher search activity on Android (as Charles pointed out, “it is Google product”), so make sure your app description is accurate and hits all of the important keywords that users would use to search for a game like yours. Also, he could not stress enough the importance of having a well-designed app icon that draws users in. This icon and your app title are often all the user sees before making his decision to download, so use that space wisely! Also, fortunately for Android developers, Android still allows incentivized installs, so jump on the ad networks such as Tapjoy and Admob to help capture your seed group of users. Assuming you’ve made a compelling app, once you get the seed group of users you should be off and running.
6. Monetization
Problem: It is conventional wisdom that iOS games typically generate more revenue when compared to Android games. Part of the story behind this is that in-app purchases on iOS is much easier than the severely fragmented Android payments.
Solution: Count on an eventual consolidation of payment methods on Android, and Google Payments is a good default because they will always be around. The key with monetization is to provide compelling reasons for users to buy in, and then they will find ways to do so, regardless of the difficulty.
While use of mobile technologies has potential to transform business, making it possible for an organization to be more agile in serving its customers, it can also disrupt IT. The new generation of employees expects complete freedom to use mobile devices, regardless of whether they are company-owned or employee-owned. most IT departments are struggling to define and implement a bring-your-own-device (BYoD) strategy. To a large extent, they still use the old command-and-control model of Windows-based device management, trying to dictate what devices employees can use and how they can use them. But the old model doesn’t work anymore. not only are new devices flooding the workplace, but today’s mobile devices bring a variety of new operating systems, such as ios and Android, and many applications to contend with.
I must say it's an interesting whitepaper that discusses much more than this so I would like to share it with you !
Downloaded it from : bit.ly/yhmWAW
Microsoft is trying to pitch the Windows 8 to business phone users and ability to control and deploy them via their SCCM (SMS), however the popularity of Win 8 and windows phones are horrible to say the least, if Microsoft really wants to turn the tables around, they will need to start giving away Free Windows 8 phones to corporate enterprises, along with their "free" license of SCCM which businesses already gets included when they buy Microsoft license packs.
Blackberry have been the leader on this field all these years due their easy to use Admin Centre and mail server piggy back, hands down there's no real competition yet to kick them out of the king's throne in this area
Android offer the most extensive control, but require geek like us to do it for them (and some business will find this as a hindrance as they need to hire specialized people to do the job), there's no central control system in place, but it's relatively easy to build, reason why Lenovo is jumping into the Android bandwagon with all their new tablets and phones devices running on Android, as IBM + Lenovo they always take care of the Corporate enterprises for other companies, basically they are in the right spot at the right time, if all goes well Blackberry is going to lose its crown
End users choice will always be the iDrones, however it's the device with the least control by third party, and the one that is the most popular among end users.
HP tried hard with their WebOS, but failed miserably at trying to reproduce the success of its predecessor PalmOS in the business world.
... All that being said....
If work places are to allow people to BYOD then it means the IT team will need to have a GPO set to roll out to any new Windows phones that joins the SCCM system, also will require BlackBerry users to join to the new Domain (which is relatively easy as most updated BB phones are already ready for both personal + business mails and settings lockups), will need a new Android specialist, to either load customized ROMs or some alternative with a custom App that must be installed in their phones and let IT department control the phone, and Ban the iDrones from the workplace; clearly it's meant as an entertainment device instead of an enterprise ready phone
AllGamer said:
and Ban the iDrones from the workplace; clearly it's meant as an entertainment device instead of an enterprise ready phone
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Not true. Also not sure if you're being sarcastic. I rep Android to death (ANDRIZZLE). But seriously I work at an Apple Specialist store and with all the courses I had to take to become proficient here I've realized that Apple is trying very hard to push iPhones and iPads into businesses. They actually fit quite nicely with simple to use MDM controls and separate custom profiles for IT to set up for the end user.
Honestly, I think Android is the worst OS to bring into the business world, unless someone can come up with a RedHat for Android. And by that I mean a stable uniformed release for mass consumption. There's too much control to be had over the device by the end user no matter what IT sets up for it to be uniformed across a company like they would need it to be.
Blackberry are the Kings of business mobile right now. They will be until somehow steps up and makes a serious effort to point their whole company in the direction of business. But seeing as how that's only a small percentage of what they actually could have nobody will probably do that. It works well for blackberry because they've already realized that they aren't getting any more popular with the kids and have been able to focus on the strategies of effective business management capabilities being built into a phone.
That's my 2 cents there.
Is this just another Siri clone or is it closer to "AI" (define as you will). Is anyone here involved in this?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cogcode/silvia-for-android
I searched "silvia" and "silvia for android" before posting this thread. If this question or topic has been posted before, or if this is in the wrong place, I apologize.
MichaelHaley said:
Is this just another Siri clone or is it closer to "AI" (define as you will). Is anyone here involved in this?
...
I searched "silvia" and "silvia for android" before posting this thread. If this question or topic has been posted before, or if this is in the wrong place, I apologize.
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Hi Michael,
Prior to our launch of our SILVIA for Android Kickstarter project this past Friday (May 25th), we have been fairly quiet about SILVIA for Android.
So, you may not find much 3rd party information on SILVIA for Android, at least for a while.
However, we will be happy to answer your questions as best we can.
First off, we think that Siri is a fine product.
Of course, we feel we have something different and unique to offer with our technology, otherwise we would not be doing what we're doing.
We think that our context sensitive conversational approach to the user experience is very compelling for many reasons, and we also think it is an important difference that our technology runs natively on mobile devices.
For developers, we are offering an SDK with a rich API, a graphical content development system, and a runtime engine that will allow developers to create new conversational applications for Android that run right on the device. For smaller developers, this is very important because there is no requirement for additional (and expensive) server infrastructure to host the AI.
We think that another important feature is the compactness and efficiency of our runtime. The average SILVIA for Android end-user application clocks in at about 7 or 8 megabytes on the device, and is efficient enough to run in the background without disrupting the performance of most other applications.
We will continue to release more details for developers over the next few weeks as our Kickstarter campaign progresses.
I hope this information helps.
Right on, looks pretty interesting, hope to see it available soon!
CogCode said:
Hi Michael,
Prior to our launch of our SILVIA for Android Kickstarter project this past Friday (May 25th), we have been fairly quiet about SILVIA for Android.
So, you may not find much 3rd party information on SILVIA for Android, at least for a while.
However, we will be happy to answer your questions as best we can.
First off, we think that Siri is a fine product.
Of course, we feel we have something different and unique to offer with our technology, otherwise we would not be doing what we're doing.
We think that our context sensitive conversational approach to the user experience is very compelling for many reasons, and we also think it is an important difference that our technology runs natively on mobile devices.
For developers, we are offering an SDK with a rich API, a graphical content development system, and a runtime engine that will allow developers to create new conversational applications for Android that run right on the device. For smaller developers, this is very important because there is no requirement for additional (and expensive) server infrastructure to host the AI.
We think that another important feature is the compactness and efficiency of our runtime. The average SILVIA for Android end-user application clocks in at about 7 or 8 megabytes on the device, and is efficient enough to run in the background without disrupting the performance of most other applications.
We will continue to release more details for developers over the next few weeks as our Kickstarter campaign progresses.
I hope this information helps.
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Click to collapse
We are definitely covering SILVIA and this project
http://www.androrev.com/2012/05/31/...-why-she-may-just-be-androids-answer-to-siri/
Developer Update!
Just a quick update, we have some more information for Android developers on our Kickstarter project page.
Unfortunately, due to the low post count, we can't post links yet. But a quick look at the first post in this thread should get you there.
In particular, we think there is some great opportunity for game developers, as our SILVIA Core has already been deployed as a conversational intelligence system in 3D training systems for the US Army. But even casual game and apps developers can quickly integrate SILVIA for Android into their projects.
The SILVIA for Android library can be used directly in just about any native Java or Mono for Android project, but as a bonus for you Unity 3D developers, we will be including a Unity 3D compatible version of our SILVIA for Android runtime library as part of the SDK package.
All the best,
The SILVIA for Android Team
what happened?
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
Andy Rubin, the boss of all things smartphone at Google, can barely contain his excitement. A huge robot he designed has just arrived at Google's office.
The machine's sole function? To inscribe the logo of the Android operating system - a squat, R2-D2-like robot - into the foam of employees' coffees.
Considering its purpose, Scribbles, as its known, appears comically overengineered. But the machine itself is not what's important to Rubin. It's the robot's brains, its operating system. Just like the majority of mobile gadgets sold in the world today, it runs on Android, Google's open-source software.
In the third quarter of 2012, worldwide manufacturers - among them Apple, Samsung, HTC and Research in Motion - shipped 181.1 million smartphones, according to market analytics group IDC. Google's Android operating system was installed on 75 percent of them, says IDC; Apple's system, iOS, was on about 15 percent. That market share for Android was a 91 percent jump from the previous year's third quarter.
While proud of Android's increasing reach, Rubin tries to be modest. He points to bigger trends like faster wireless Internet, improved batteries and falling hardware costs for Android's success.
"But obviously, it's hypercompetitive," he said of the smartphone market. "It's an opportunity to make the world a better place, but, if you're selling stuff, make a profit - if you're good."
Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Amazon all try to keep customers within "walled gardens" or "ecosystems" of proprietary software. Operating systems, a form of ecosystem, provide a captive audience of customers for selling more software. The Windows operating system, for instance, is one of the main reasons Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint are today's dominant business software.
For Google, Android is the means by which it keeps its popular services, such as Maps, Drive and YouTube, in play in the increasingly mobile Internet environment of smartphones and tablets.
"We wanted to be sure those devices in your pocket were able to get to Google," said Hiroshi Lockheimer, Android's vice president of engineering. "In the end, we're an advertising company and we make money through ads."
Mobile future
Google bought Android in 2005 as it became clear that the future of computing was on mobile devices. About two years would pass before Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone, but BlackBerry, among others, had already shown the world that pocket-sized computers were where we were all heading. Rubin has been at the helm of Android's meteoric rise since the company's founding in 2003, and saw the first Android phone sold in 2008.
He shies from the idea that he is responsible for the proliferation of the open-source software.
"Everything has a point of inception, but after that, it's everybody's," he said. "Rather than being 'the father of,' we consider ourselves 'the shepherd of.' "
Making Android "everybody's" has been perhaps the key to its proliferation. Anyone can download it, for free. For large gadget manufacturers like Samsung and HTC, building and maintaining a working operating system is a huge task. Google's strategy was to give Android away, in the hope that manufacturers would use it so they didn't have to build one themselves.
Apple, which declined interviews for this story, has followed an opposite strategy. Every device that runs on iOS - iPhones and iPads - are made by Apple. Apple does not license or give away iOS. This gives Apple full control, but reduces the number of opportunities it has to expand the use of the operating system.
Still, that anyone can install Android in a device - examples range from microwaves to robots - makes it hard to keep Google's ecosystem cohesive. It also calls into question the definition of Android's "market share."
Author:Caleb Garling
Wrong place to post, lol.
Sent from my SPH-D710
Hazukashii said:
Wrong place to post, lol.
Sent from my SPH-D710
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should I remove it ?
EvaBrian said:
should I remove it ?
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Ask moderator to move this thread to android general.
Sent from Hubble Telescope
Good day community,
Over the past several months, a few of us have been working on a projerct some may be familiar with. We have bundled an add-on to specific BlueStacks versions to allow for a complete Operating System environment, full of communications tools.
We didn't "develop", any of it. We have taken the time to scour the internet and primarily this site to garner the education, information and knowledge to actually bring it to fruition. We would like to say a big THANK YOU to the entire community here. We feel this is am important piece to a software life-cycle where developed information is compiled into a fully functioning system, exposing your people's craftsmanship.
The motive here is a moral one. I have been a communications engineer for 22 years and have seen and done things I thought weren't possible. I have been tasked with trying to develop an education platform technology matrix for schools. Specifically using my innovation abilities to solve problems. I am not a coder, I am more of a script writer. I have found success in making disparate hardware and software work together, and producing middle-ware scripts and functions to technologically solve challenges. In every sector.
I believe I have identified one of the major issues related to student success rates. Basic communications is hindered in many schools, internet cut out, and dictator like classroom regime. I feel communications is the king of industry and whomever has the information the fastest, cheapest, and accurate, wins. This is proven time and time again in capitalism. I feel students should be able to sms, or exchange pictures and peruse social networks, both to each other and their teachers. These are real-world tools, and the primary back-bone of a child's social life. But students need to learn to be accountable for they digital actions,
This "OS" changes things ever so slightly., not every student can afford the gear required to have that type of communication. If every kid could afford an iphone and ipad, than I don't need to do this project. Android on the other hand, little or no cost at all.
I will be deploying Android for Windows across the board. Students will have to setup a Google account and online storage. Copies of AW can be had for their home computer. The environment is the environment kids all love and use, the emulated touch interface is "cool" and the kids can support it and maintain it mostly themselves, and sync it to their PC phones or other devices, but those are NOT required. And no need to upgrade the PC's for a while, BlueStacks is Linux(ish), it's hardware demands are low, and I can keep the PC's at there current level.
I distribute it on thepratebay, another long story for another day, but this is the best way to ensure it stays out there, and the price is right to be able to push it out to the world. We have tirelessly worked to ensure compatibility with the apps the devs release and I know this particular release of AW has restored many of the items BlueStacks cripples
We have started a mini marketing campaign to drum up interest, although modest. And for you devs, this open an ENTIRE new revenue stream you didn't even have before. Making Android the primary OS used.
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That's the agenda, I would like to open a support thread for it somewhere on here. I have an armada of info, tools, rootkits, tricks and troubleshooting information that we feel can be valuable to the community. I'll get things posted here ASAP. Anyone that has played with this at all before will be able to appreciate all of the challenges we had to solve.
We did not knowingly disassemble or modify any of the original distribution files of any applications, staying in accordance with about every license agreement on earth.
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Looking for some feedback, questions, thoughts, ideas.. have to get 10 posts or something anyway...
Thank you to everyone!
-js
What's the difference between your project and the Android x86 project?
syung said:
What's the difference between your project and the Android x86 project?
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AFAIK Bluestacks has its own VM, so you doesn't need to install Virtual Machine any more.
I used this for a several months and it helps me to try an application without to send it to any Android device.
If you use Android x86 project, yo need to install it inside a Virtual Machine or make a USB Bootable, and as far I know it has limitations in the Play Store. Only some application that supports the architecture can be downloaded..
The Android x86 project is a piece of this absolutely. What BlueStacks is and what they have done is this:
Taken x86 gingerbread and ad an arm translator inside there. This is very unique, all of the other arm emulations fail out there after you even try to put them to the test with heavier use or apps. Basically the compatibility is just not there.
BlueStacks then added the vm player which is the most sophisticated player there is. Network mounts to shared fordler without installing drivers, and opengl support for limited HD graphics.
What we did
BlueStacks also crippled the hell out of the original ROM. All kinds of things missing that had to be put back in piece by piece, and still ensure compatibility. Some things fine to leave out, other maybe useful.
poring over the information, rooting bluestacks came easy, so we rooted every single v7.x of bluestacks, and began the mountain task of building compatibility. The winners are 7.4 for SD and 7.8 for HD. 7.8 handle the interface scrolling operations WAY better than later revisions. I can tell it was after this rev they forced on Surface Pro support, not back checking compatibility. And 7.4 installs on any machine but drops the arm translator. Still a nice product to put on an old machine, but little support for modern apps, and there won't be
Then doing a fair assessment of applications to do all the tasks one needs, file manipulation, printing, music, calling etc, We've spent over 200 hours trying to get a reliable lock screen, failed on that But we got most of it.
Finally adding and getting gapps to fully function was about like trying to drink a beer while standing on your head, it was like a marathon game of whack mole, we'd fix something, then something else friggen slam us over the head. Then we got to writing script, and adding widows apps like virtual keyboards and mouse to basically be able to run the entire OS with 1 finger as if you were Stephen Hawking.
We had an excellent response to the initial concept stuff version 1.1. It held on to around 400 seeders and 1000 user swam for about a week then began to fizzle. We expect that to triple and estimate 100,000 downloads in the first week. It is my opinion thepiratebay is the most accurate source for demand of anything digital, people that keep a copy and seed, actually really like something, versus an artificial "like" that other sites have and profit from. That's all Trip9d0zen stuff, about removing fake values and replacing it with real information exchange freedoms, so actually all financial can get to a creator, don't want to digress to far in this thread, but there is an ideology we have in common with thee twitters and thepitatebay's who have just the extreme basics of censorship, only to ensure safety, but never manipulated the information. We have evidence and models to change current businesses, and put the devs out in-front of these projects (or the artist selected agents). The more systems Android runs on, more success one can have. And Windows being the biggest, hands down, why not?
We feel this is by far the most compatible Android environment one can use, and can actually be used by anyone as an effective tool.
We know full well that once released, the ungodly amount of app work requests will be at its highest, but that's why I am here, where the devs are.. is this a revenue stream they want to suppport,?
I am personally using it exclusively for all my communications, social media and document creation, I only use windows for video playing files.
Hope that helps answer, here is the info to commercials for it, as our lil-1337s eloquently cranked out, smartasses...
youtube search for js99912
-js
It looks interesting, i'll check that up!
Dexcellium said:
It looks interesting, i'll check that up!
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Me too. Thanks
Android for Windows 2.0
new version just went live..... can someone reply with a hot-link, thanks
thepiratebay.sx
/torrent/8440340
Adding Game Data / Mount SDcard.sparse BlueStacks
Ok, I have been asked about this more than anything,
Used to be the SDcard was a .fs file and could be manipulated easy, now it's a bit more involved, but none to difficult.
You need to download:
thepiratebay.sx/
torrent/8453985
This will get you to be able to mount the SDcard.sparsefs as a drive letter in windows... Nothing new, just consolidating info as I have been requested for this more than anything else. Enjoy!
-js