For many developers (me included :) ) it's always difficult to build an application with a slick design. It is then useful to have a list of good examples of design from which take inspirations.
The following are some sites that show screenshots (especially taken from iPhone) of applications with nice designs, great UI pattern and different ideas from which a developer might be inspired to build or at least improve his application:
I think this is very useful tool for any Android developers. Sometimes you need to check what you store in your application database or SharedPreferences. Ok, you can always write a good test for it, but in some case you just need a quick check to verify the integrity of your stored data or the structure of your tables.
Since a lot of Android developers uses Eclipse to implement their application, it would be great to have a tool inside our IDE to explore our application Database.
SQLite & XML Browser is the tool that allow that. You can download it clicking here
After that you have downloaded the plugin you can:
Put the file in your Eclipse plugins folder (e.g. /usr/lib/eclipse/plugins)
Restart Eclipse
Start up an Android Emulator w/ Debugging in Eclipse
Switch to the DDMS Perspective in Eclipse
Go to the 'File Explorer' tab to locate your device's database file
Navigate to: e.g. 'data -> data -> com.myapplicationpackage -> databases -> myapplication
Click on the little Database icon at right top
Switch to the 'Questoid SQLite Browser' tab that appears
Soccer Score Pro is a free application that provide many informations about the most important soccer tournaments all around the world. Live scores, notifications when the results change, matches' statistic data, league tables and schedules and rich news section. A nice user interface completes this very good products. The list of leagues includes:
The results of a research done by the German firm DFKI (“Falling asleep with Angry Birds and Facebook and Kindle”) and presented at the Mobile HCI 2011 unveils which mobile applications are used and when.
The research has been done using AppSensor that is able to record which applications run, the time (start and stop) and the place in which they are used. The library has been installed on 4100 Android phones and the data have been collected in anonymous way.
In 4 months, around 22000 applications have been monitored with around 5 million of recorded sessions.
Some of the main achieved results:
The average execution time is 71 seconds and the total time of usage of mobile applications is 1 hour per day;
The "Alarm" application has a peak of executions between 6am and 8am: I would say that this is not a surprise at all!!!
During the day the communication applications are the most used. The games win in the interval between 6am and 9am and around midnight. During the morning the news applications are the most popular;
The social network applications seems to be used a lot at the end of the day: for example Facebook is used a lot between 8pm and 11pm with a peak around 10pm. Twitter has a constant usage with peaks around the lunch and dinner time.
One of the major subject at Blackberry Developer Conference in Amsterdam was the introduction to the new Blackberry OS 10. Well...there won't be Java in Blackberry 10.
There will be two main possibility to build applications on the new Blackberry OS versions:
Use the new Cascade UI framework with QT libraries to build application with the new Native SDK;
Use Webworks to build application using HTML 5 (having access to native features tough);
There is no clear reason about the decision that lead RIM to cut off Java from the next generation platforms, the speakers didn't give any valid feedback about that.
The funny thing is that Blacberry 10 will integrate an Android player to run Android application but there won't be any player for Blackberry OS 5, 6 or 7 applications.....
Yes, when a developer completed the implementation of an applicaation or of a game, that is just the beginning of the work. Now, he needs to publish his app and make it known to the market. First step: the application stores on which he will publish his work.
There are plenty of choices outside. Talking about Android we can say that the number of application stores is growing fast and it's easy receive emails informing you that a new amazing store is going to launch and that it want to publish your super applications.
Of course, the Android Market is almost a forced choice....But it worths spending time on all of them? Not always...
For that reason, the article published by Simon Judge might give help to choose the most suitable solutions for the developer expectations. He refers to some stats coming from Ziggy’s Games and the number of downloads of their free mobile application BusJumper. From their data, we can see the impressive result for the Amazon Market and that SlideME, Appia, Mobango and AppChina (if your app is also available in Chinese) are other actors to keep in mind when we are going to publish the applications.
Strange the position of GetJar, well known application repository but that seems to be not the main source of downloads for the Ziggy Game's solution. Another step after having published the application is trying some kind of marketing activities in the store as well: banners, space in the newsletters, get our application featured and so on....
Only few big fans continue to play Subbuteo, a game forgotten, nowdays, in favour of the videogames.
But this is the age of smartphone with touch screens on which you can swipe your fingers...so, why don't use it to allow Subbuteo player to play on the train...
Of course, nothing will be like having your real green table but the idea has its cool side. Peter Rook of Paul Lamond Game announced the development of a version of Subbuteo for tablets and smartphones during the London Toy Fare. Unfortunately there is no image of the app yet.
An online multiplayer option would be cool...who knows if they will implement it? Warm up your fingers!