Android 2.3 Platform | Hacker News Reader

Android 2.3 Platform

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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.

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.

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

Or root your Android phone.

I'm finding more and more people outside of tech-circles are doing this as it allows you to run WifTether, extra apps, etc.

Those "Mobile Phone Repair Shops" that used to unlock Nokias are doing a roaring trade rooting and changing firmware on 'regular' user's phones.

What's WifTether? I'm looking for reasons to root it, but for now TempRoot is working fine. I am also not sure if it will have any adverse effects, like preventing updating or anything.

Sorry I meant WiFi Tether (officially called "Android Wifi Tether"), it is an open source project that does the same job as the "official" wifi tether app that the carrier usually lock or require you to pay extra for them to set allowWifiTether = TRUE;

Being rooted allows the app to provide the same functionality without needing to check the carrier setting.

It's the killer app of being rooted. Unless you are on AT&T in SF or NY in which case your network is probably hosed anyway

Hmm, I see. I'm guessing it creates a WiFi hotspot you can connect to and access the internet? If so, my stock Desire HD does that already, since I'm not in the US. It's pretty shit that your carrier would disable that, our carriers don't mess with the phones at all...

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).

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

This is so backwards that it hurts. A Network which wont support the latest and greatest phones with the most awesome features will lose out customers.

Around here where I live (Europe) you chose the phone you want and you chose the plan which fits your needs. Two entirely different and disconnected things.

I can't believe you Americans let the telcos boss you around like that. Didn't you believe in freedom of choice, and all that? Why do you put up with this? Vote with your wallets. Pay whoever gives you choice. Don't let Apple's (or Google's) latest shiny toy fool you into choosing serfdom, just because it's (currently) only available on a few (or one) carrier.

Where I live, the iPhone was launched (US-style) exclusive to one operator. This is totally Alien here, with a capitol-A. People had to go to a lower-quality network operator to get the first iPhone 3G. The market didn't like this, data heavy users didn't like going to a network with a reputation for being sucky on data. They waited it out.

Voila. More operators got it, because Apple figured they could sell more by not being exclusive. It's not that hard.

It's might be backwards, but it's an unfortunate truth.

I live in Europe too .. but go to any phone shop, and you'll see that carriers pick specific phones to support. People traditionally buy phones with contracts - and a lot people shy away from buying a phone upfront (although this trend seems to be waning).

Also, a large part of the massive amount of money that's spent on marketing comes from the networks. Without their support a phone platform would be dead in the water.

I don't think the iPhone situation was an example of market forces creating pressure, I think the intention was always to allow other networks access .. in the UK Apple had a specific business relationship with O2 which must have been profitable for both parties. I think restriction to one network, was an example of clever (devious) marketing.

The situation will continue to change - but for the time being the power of these carrier networks is an unfortunate fact of life.

Subsidies can and should be independent from carrier exclusivity. It was in germany since the late nineties. Until the iPhone I could get any GSM-phone on any carrier with a subsidy (for extending my contract).

Why do you put up with this?

Essentially because we're really bad at math. $500 for a phone is completely unacceptable, but hiding the cost in inflated monthly rates is just peachy.

Vote with your wallets.

I ordered the Nexus One the day after it was announced; unfortunately I was heavily outvoted.

Americans allow this because in general it's much cheaper to buy a phone subsidized over contract. Only one carrier here (T-Mobile) provides a monthly discount for unsubsidized phones. Most people don't just have $500+ to drop when they want or need a new phone, so it's much easier for people to go on contract and spread out that cost, even if it costs more in the long run (which it usually doesn't since most networks don't make any distinction in monthly cost).

The carrier exclusivity, restrictions, and crapware are annoying, but in most cases it's not irritating enough to convince someone to pay $300 more for the same thing.

I think you understand how it works, but phrased it wrong.

T-mobile is the only one who doesn't markup its prices for contracts used with unsubsidized phones. Where, "subsidized", means subsidized by the customer. The other carriers charge you the same extra phone subsidy fee (in effect), regardless of whether you bought the phone at full or "discounted" price, so there is no incentive to buy a phone at full price.

I agree that this is a consumer hostile model. T-mobile seems to have the best offer, where they let you make multiple payments on a full price phone (at no markup I believe).

> Americans allow this because in general it's much cheaper to buy a phone subsidized over contract

Subsidized phones are very popular in Europe, but the phone doesn't really enter the equation when choosing a network.

I actually think Europeans are cheaper than Americans ... over here people choose networks based on reliability and monthly bill, which is influenced by included minutes or bandwidth / area or demographic popularity (since voice minutes in the same network are cheaper).

I also have an iPhone, and in my country iPhones are still exclusive to a single carrier. But I did what every one of my acquaintances did ... bought one with a cheap monthly contract for 199 EUR; then unlocked it. And I didn't even pay my last 2 monthly bill (haven't used it, so I felt like it was unneeded); so they can sue me, but I don't really care because lock-in is not seen favorably in Europe and they've got customers with actual debts to worry about.

Of course, I wouldn't give this advice to other people ... just saying that the phone doesn't enter the equation; and the marketing campaigns are reflecting that.

I'm not sure if the iPhone is sold locked here in Greece, but I would be surprised if it did; it would be the only one. You can get a subsidised phone with any carrier, and they don't lock it or otherwise restrict you. The basic view is "you promise to pay us X money per month, we give you a roughly X12[1] subsidy on your phone now". They don't even care what phone, if any, you decide to get with the subsidy.

Also, this happens every year. Once a year passes, you're eligible for a new subsidy of X12 euros.

[1] I'm not at all sure if the multiplier is as much as 12, but it's at least 6. The main point, anyway, is that they don't care what phone you get.

My brother skipped paying a tiny amount like that - he received a letter from a debt collection agency demanding payment of the £20 bill, plus £100 payment for the cost of hiring a debt collection agency. He then payed immediately before it got any worse but his credit rating is still poor many years on.

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 :)

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.

This page discusses the highlights over 2.2:

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

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?

Barometer = Altitude.

Or it just senses when it's going to rain.

Indeed. The reason that pressure altimeters work on airplanes is because your starting altitude is known and you calibrate the barometer at that point. As the flight progresses, you keep it updated depending on weather readings on the ground.

But I guess the phone can just get this information from the Internet. (Or it can just set itself to 29.92 if the GPS says you're above 18,000 feet!)

I'm relatively certain they will be combined with gyroscopes for dead-reckoning [1] so that location-based services can nail you down to an exact office and floor indoors.

All this technology and I bet its primary use will be to check into conference rooms on foursquare.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_reckoning

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.

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

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

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.

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

    SIP-based VOIP

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

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?

Yes, it seems to be becoming an ad for PBXes, which is now on the very front page when you open it.

I am aware that it's open source, which is what makes it so frustrating that this has happened to it.

I hope that somebody does do as you suggest, but it won't be me, at least not in the next several months. That doesn't mean I'm happy with the current state of things.

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

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

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

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."

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

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/

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...

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.

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

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...

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

This looks familiar...

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

or rather... it doesn't.

The draggable copy points seem to work exactly like the iPhone version. I never said that was bad, but it definitely seems familiar.

It works better, actually. The anchors are much larger, so there is less room for error (I have fat fingers!)

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...

Still no GPU accel for the GUI?

Bouncy scrolling too. Yay.

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

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

What's a SIP account?

A voip standard

Why downvoted? I truly didn't know, and a Google search didn't turn up anything.

SIP is an internet telephony standard. vonage etc. (but not skype)

A google search for "sip account" turns up "Easy to use VoIP phone system. Complete web-based telephony system" as the first advert, and the SIP page on Wikipedia as the second link and a bunch of tutorials and howtos.

Finally. Google waited until the telcos told so to enable voip.

Remember most telcos a while ago removing the unlimited data plan? And apple forcing skipe to only using wifi on all platforms.

Truth that google allowed work arounds for being evil this time... you could use sip with the buggy sip app. And you could even get free sip from google voice if you had an old gizmoproject account.

Truth that google allowed work arounds for being evil this time

I doubt this is some conspiracy between Google and the telcos. It's more of a collection of unrelated events that happened to occur around the same time. AT&T wanted more money (around iPad launch), so they capped the data plan. Apple said, "sure, OK", so AT&T didn't risk losing any customers. The other carriers noticed the lack of backlash, and here we are...

Love how you can't read the android site in a android phone

Unless you send a android user agent, then it changes most of the css to enable it. Really a dumb move

Just tried it, and yes, this is sad. Gmail is another Google site that fails in the same unscrollable way, although at least there you can get around it by falling back on the HTML version. Do you suppose this is due to sniffing the particular User Agent being sent, or is it a general shortcoming of Webkit?

it's the general shortcoming of the site designers. they COPIED MICROSOFT MSDN website! that's enought to know it's no good :)

and that's even bad while viewing in the desktop. if you increase the font, if increase the header, to the point the header uses most of the screen space!!! how wants to see the header?!?

just don't use the header/sidebar fixed like that. it just breaks the browser scroll functionality. in every browsers.

I don't have any problems reading this site on my HT Desire. I don't like the mobile versions of some sites, so the "Mobile View" setting in my browser is usually off ... but I can read the android site with it off or on.

try to scroll

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