Week 3: Android App Programming Jeff Gray, Ph.D. - Associate Professor Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year (Alabama, 2008) University of Alabama Department of Computer Science
Today General intro Introduction to App Inventor Various Demos and Hands-on Exercises Lunch: Ms. Lynsey Dill Rest of week See end of slides Agenda for Week
Camp Introduction Liability forms Photos throughout the week Lunch each day – 11:30am-12:45pm Today: Pizza lunch (Shelby 3438) Tue-Thu: Lunch in the Freshens Food Court Fri: Catered lunch Restrooms USB Stick Assumption Java background
Camp rules Camp Rules No cell phone usage in class except for emergencies No headphones while instructor is speaking No surfing the web or playing games during lectures No food or drink are allowed in the lab Pay attention during class exercises; do not jump ahead and let us know if you fall behind
Bleeding edge – may encounter various “issues” throughout the week; App Inventor barely a year old Sharing of various Android phones Much different than week 1 Focus is on motivating you to practice Java on fun exercises Developing your own creativity while implementing a customized app General Info
Why Smartphones?
Motivation: Teaching CS – 1980s style Typical example was text-based, trivial, and uninspiring
Motivation: New and Exciting Contexts Media Computation (Georgia Tech) Programming in a more exciting context by manipulating images and sounds Robots Lego NXT 2D/3D Animation Environments Alice, Scratch, AgentSheets
Motivation: Newest Context Teen cell phone adoption at 84% March 3, 2011 Android marketshare (29%) passes Apple (27%) Android sales soar 888% Social networking and crowd sourcing a daily activity Increasing adoption of smartphones in science and medical applications
Android Overview
Brief History 2005 Google acquires startup Android Inc. to start Android platform Work on Dalvik VM begins 2007 Open Handset Alliance announced Early look at SDK 2008 Google sponsors 1 st Android Developer Challenge T-Mobile G1 announced SDK 1.0 released Android released open source (Apache License) Android Dev Phone 1 released
Brief History cont SDK 1.5 (Cupcake) new soft keyboard with an "Autocomplete" feature SDK 1.6 (Donut) SDK 2.0/2.0.1/2.1 (Eclair) Exchange support; refine UI Android runs on 3.5% of all smartphones Gartner Inc. predicts 14% in Nexus One released to the public SDK 2.2 (Froyo) wifi tethering, Flash SDK 2.3 (Gingerbread) refine UI; improve keyboard copy/paste Q4 Android passes Symbia as best-selling smartphone platform 2011 SDK 3.0 (Honeycomb) Table only release; Motorola Xoom in 2 weeks Ice-cream Sandwich (mid-2011)
Android Facts From Wikipedia Modified version of Linux kernel Android is composed of 12 millions lines of code 3M SLOCs pertaining to XML 2.8M SLOCS in C 2.1M SLOCS in Java 1.75M SLOCS in C++ Linux kernel tensions Oracle lawsuit
Android Developer Challenge : 10 teams received $275k 10 teams received $100k Each of top 50 finalists received $25k 2009 10 first prizes at $100k 10 2 nd prizes at $50k 10 3 rd prizes at 25k Overall: 1 st -$250k, 2 nd - $50k, 3 rd - $25k
Open Handset Alliance Established November 2007 Competes against Microsoft, Apple, Nokia (Symbia), Palm, RIM, and Samsung (Bada) Composed of 79 software and hardware companies URLs:
Key Differences: Android vs. iPhone iPhone OS is proprietary OS runs on iPhone or iPod Touches only Apps written in Objective- C Apple must approve all apps Application Store Some apps are more important than others (Safari is your browser) Android OS is open source OS can be licensed for any mobile device Apps written in Java No approval process for apps Android Market All apps considered equal (choose your browser)
What is Google Android? A software stack for mobile devices that includes An operating system Middleware Key Applications Uses Linux to provide core system services Security Memory management Process management Power management Hardware drivers
App Inventor Overview
URL: Purpose Teaching Prototyping Components of App Inventor Designer GUI builder Block Editor Provide behavior behind the GUI Based on MIT OpenBlocks and Scratch
App Inventor Overview
Installing and Running /index.html#setupComputer Requires Java 1.6 Install App Inventor setup App Inventor environment loads in a web browser Login using Google account Run from a phone or the Android emulator Stores programs in the cloud
Designer Provides a WYSIWYG editor for designing the visual parts of the app Also provides ability to attach non-visual components
Blocks Editor Provides an ability to give behavior to an app; the programming part Typical and expected basic predefined constructs (logic, conditionals, iteration) Ability to refer to the components and their properties from the Designer Very similar to Scratch Built on Open Blocks library from MIT
Limitations File I/O Custom objects Printing your code! Reliability
Examples Many tutorials available: Developed by Dave Wolber (Univ. San Francisco) Standard Google Kitty app (embarrassing!) emulatorpart1.html emulatorpart1.html Other Examples Where’s My Car, No Text While Driving
Schedule Monday Intro to App Inventor Think about an app idea Tuesday More on App Inventor Java-based intro to writing Android Apps Prepare project presentation (3 minutes each) Wednesday Start at 8:30am Project proposal presentation More Java-based Android Start project implementation
Schedule Thursday Project implementation Late Afternoon: CS AP GridWorld Mr. Martin and Mrs. Woessner Friday Project wrap-up and final presentations Lunch Say good-byes