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News

Every week we cover the latest news, useful tools and helpful techniques that keep you on the cutting edge of development for smartphones, tablets and other mobile technologies. Read on to find out what we’ve discovered for you this week.

New Android tools and tutorials

Things are moving forward in Android land, and Android Developers Blog recently announced Updated SDK Tools and ADT revision 17, which adds new features to the Lint static checker, improvements to the emulator and Eclipse/Ant build systems and an updated Support library. Check the release notes for details.

We’ll also steer you to Mkyong.com for a large and growing series of Android Tutorials. These don’t necessary use the latest versions of Android, but will get you started with the feature set available to a large number of Android devices currently in customers’ hands.

Let’s not leave the designers out in the cold. The folks at Xamarin have opened the Mono for Android Designer Beta Program. Sign up to check out a set of tools sure to make Android UI layout much less painful.

Designing a mobile Blackberry Management Center

Even the folks at RIM are getting on the mobile web bandwagon, and the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog walks you through their development of BlackBerry Management Center: Designing a “Mobile Version”. This is an interesting read since it includes not only some how-to tips, but also an insider view of companies juggling development priorities and device-and-browser compatibility issues.

iOS adoption rates and App Store trends

One feature of Apple’s mobile strategy that gives it some advantages is the ability to easily upgrade most recent devices to new versions of iOS. The Next Web points out that Apple’s OTA Upgrades Enable 61% Adoption of iOS 5.1 in 15 Days, meaning even owners of iPhone 4 and 3GS devices and all iPads can take advantage of new iOS features. Compare that to a 1.6% adoption rate of Android 4.0. More stats and analysis in the article.

What do users do first with a new iPhone or iPad? According to TUAW, the Majority of customers install games first on iOS devices. Whether that makes for an overcrowded market or a prime area for development I leave as an exercise for the reader.

And what happens after users download those apps? Wil Shipley thinks The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades and explains the consequences for his own app business. Yes, this is about the Mac App Store, but the issues Wil brings up apply equally to the iOS App Store.

iOS development tips

Apple recently changed their policies on Unique Device IDs (UDIDs) and we’re starting to see apps rejected from the App Store for using them incorrectly. Don’t get caught out by this change. ManiacDev.com explains How To Generate Replacements Quickly using either MAC addresses or other means.

Device-specific testing is never easy. The most straightforward technique has traditionally been to acquire and test against actual devices running, which can be slow, complicated and spendy. I can’t say this advice makes it much easier, but head over to the chpwn blog for some real-world advice about How to test your app on older iOS releases.

Windows Phone extensions for Visual Studio

Here’s a neat little project for Windows Phone 7 developers: Channel 9 has some details on Windows Phone Commands for VS2010, an open source project for communicating directly with WP7 isolated storage from Visual Studio, as well as build and deployment features and more. You’ll find the code in the Windows Phone Commands for VS2010 project page on CodePlex.

Until next week, watch your data plan minutes and happy coding!

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Latest Additions

New articles added

Android

• Writing Android Programs with HTML and JavaScript - shiuhlin
  "Togosoft Device Browser" allows web programmers to create Android web apps in minutes with pure HTML and JavaScript.
  Javascript, HTML, Android, Architect, Dev, Design, SysAdmin
  
  

Windows Phone 7

• Blue Hour - Patrick Kalkman
  This article describes the development of Blue Hour, a windows phone 7 application that calculates when the sunrises and sunsets at your location.
  C#, Windows-Phone-7, Visual-Studio (VS2010), Architect, Dev, Marketing, Application, Framework
  
  

Articles updated

Android

• How To Create Android Live Wallpaper - Evgeny Vinnik
  Step-by-step Android Live Wallpaper creation guide for absolute beginners
  XML, Java, Mobile (Android)
  
  

iPhone

• CoreData Persistence Framework - Jozef Bozek
  Ligth object wrapper for iOS CoreData.
  C (Objective-C), Mobile (iPhone), Dev, Framework