Android 2.3 Platform

[brown9-2]

Description of a new developer feature named Strict Mode from Brad Fitzpatrick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Fitzpatrick): http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/eh2jf/gingerbread_a...

Really neat how they are dogfooding and collecting metrics on performance from all the employees walking around with dev builds.

[tshtf]

The integrated SIP stack look excellent, but from http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html:

"Support for the platform's SIP and internet calling features on specific devices is determined by their manufacturers and associated carriers."

This is disappointing, but not unexpected.

[lwhi]

Well - Google have to be friendly with the networks. It's in their interest.

A phone OS which allows the networks to be totally supplanted wouldn't be marketed positively (by the networks).

[mike-cardwell]

You can always install a SIP app, but yes, I'd much rather have access to the integrated client.

[JonnieCache]

The new audio support is the most exciting thing to me here. Multitouch interfaces have such enormous potential for musical applications that have not even begun to be explored.

iPhones and such have long had the ability to drive PC-based instruments by sending MIDI or OSC signals through bluetooth or wifi, I have been to many gigs in the last year and seen people using iPads running touchOSC in their performance setups; however the high specs seen in current devices are easily enough to run fullblown synths, samplers etc on their own. This will open up the burgeoning art of musicians creating their own instruments to a much wider audience.

We're going to be hearing some pretty fun noises over the next year :)

[rquirk]

The new NDK lets you write an application entirely in C, no need to get your hands dirty with Java at all. Of course this only works with android-9 (2.3), so if you want to write a game that people can actually play you'll still need a Java wrapper, but going forward you can bet that a lot more game ports will be Gingerbread-only.

[keltex]

This page discusses the highlights over 2.2:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3-highlights.html

[SingAlong]

Here's a quick summary from the SDK release notes:

* Alarm clock APIs

* ability to detect first install time and last update time of an app

* Download manager API

* Mixable audio effects API

* A lot more locales (including indic language support)

* SIP VOIP support

* Front camera support

* 5-point multi-touch API

* Barometer

* Gyroscope

* NFC support (near field comminucation) - can interact using high frequency wireless communication with other stuff with NFC chips. Wikipedia has a pic of a phone interacting with a smart poster.

Can anyone throw some more light on NFC stuff and also why does a phone need a barometer?

[ravichhabra]

There are indeed locales, but no indic support. While for some strange reason Android got Indic locale, specifically Hindi, there is no support for it in terms of rendering and the built in font does not contain any Indic. Pretty wierd stuff as the Input Language selector is just showing Square Boxes for Hindi and after setting locale to Hindi all numerals are just square boxes. The Arabic support is also spotty as currently Android Gingerbread just doest not have any shaper for these complex scripts.

[jason]

Barometer = Altitude.

[martythemaniak]

Here's a great reddit post from the author of StrictMode: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/eh2jf/gingerbread_a...

[charlesdm]

FUCKING FINALLY, Audio access from native code. This is going to be awesome.

[wzdd]

In general it looks like they are moving closer to pure-native app support -- native life cycle and more access to Surfaces as well. This is interesting as even quite recently the official position was apps would be written in Java with JNI portions to accelerate the slow parts. It's a good shift imo.

[nkassis]

Sensor API now supports a barometer? Are they paying their dues to Gene Roddenberry descendent's yet?

[pdx]

    SIP-based VOIP

Good. Let's get some competition to the adware SIP apps that are out now (I'm looking at you, SIPDroid).

[jancona]

Are you saying the original open source Sipdroid (http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/) is adware? If so, why don't you remove the ad code and publish a clean version? You can, it's open source.

Or are you talking about the many clones that re-sell it in the Market--which they can do because it's open source?

[crocowhile]

I wish they added partition encryption through the kernel (LUKS / dm_crypt).

[barmstrong]

So...any word on when Android 2.3 will be available over the wire for Nexus 1? Surprised this wasn't mentioned.

[orangecat]

A few weeks according to a "Developer Advocate" at Google: http://twitter.com/retomeier/status/11830023140937728# . Probably shortly after the Nexus S hits stores.

[portman]

Wait, the NFC implementation is receive-only?

Doesn't this preclude using your phone as an NFC payment device (which would be transmit, not receive)?

Can someone confirm if I'm parsing this correctly:

"An NFC Reader application lets the user read and interact with near-field communication (NFC) tags. For example, the user can “touch” or “swipe” an NFC tag that might be embedded in a poster, sticker, or advertisement, then act on the data read from the tag. A typical use would be to read a tag at a restaurant, store, or event and then rate or register by jumping to a web site whose URL is included in the tag data. NFC communication relies on wireless technology in the device hardware, so support for the platform's NFC features on specific devices is determined by their manufacturers."

[naner]

Yes, an NFC Reader application only supports reading. The chip on the Nexus S supports reading and writing[1] so, assuming the OS allows it, you can write an application to swap contacts or whatever.

1: http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/06/google-nexus-s-review/

[trotsky]

Oh, that is crappy. I had assumed it was both read and write, but it is in fact read only in 2.3 according to the API docs:

Provides access to Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality, allowing applications to read NDEF message in NFC tags. A "tag" may actually be another device that appears as a tag.

Here's a summary of the classes:

NfcAdapter - This represents the device's NFC adapter, which is your entry-point to performing NFC operations. You can acquire an instance with getDefaultAdapter().

NdefMessage - Represents an NDEF data message, which is the standard format in which "records" carrying data are transmitted between devices and tags. Your application can receive these messages from an ACTION_TAG_DISCOVERED intent.

NdefRecord - Represents a record, which is delivered in a NdefMessage and describes the type of data being shared and carries the data itself.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/nfc/package-d...

[dinedal]

What makes transmitting from the point of sale through the internet any more secure then transmitting from the phone itself?

[orangecat]

Any details on WebM support? I see it listed as a feature, but no specific API for it. I have an app where it would be very useful to turn a bunch of images into a video file, but I haven't found a reasonable way to do that and was hoping WebM would help.

[wmf]

There are APIs to play video and capture video from a camera, but for general encoding you may have to do it yourself.

[kgutteridge]

I remember discussing gestures and NFC back at Motorolas conference the day the iPhone 2g launched in the UK and back then all of us thought NFC would happen in the next 12 months! Glad to see its finally arriving, though this patent is going to prove interesting http://www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com/2010/12/03/35337...

[Locke1689]

http://developer.android.com/sdk/images/2.3/selection.png

This looks familiar...

http://www.christian-kalmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/i...

[ljf]

or rather... it doesn't.

[schammy]

Yeah, because everything Apple does is 100% original. For example, they don't notice someone has written a nice app for organizing your books and copy it to the point where it's almost cut and paste for their own iBooks software. Nope, Apple would never do such a thing like that.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/27/think-ibooks-looks-familiar...

[bni]

Still no GPU accel for the GUI?

[martythemaniak]

Bouncy scrolling too. Yay.

[jonursenbach]

Finally I no longer need to use my clunky Nexus One trackball to pick text to copy/paste. Finally!

[thinkcomp]

Anyone want to help us integrate NFC into our Android app?