How new Google Play policy impacts mobile advertising

An interesting post on AppsFire blog explains how the new Google Play policy impact mobile advertising, mainly the trendy "Native Ads".

What Google wants to achieve is clearer advertisement messages for the user. Today there are many applications hiding them in the application using a look and feel well mixed with the rest of the interface deceiving the user who can't distinguish between what it is an application content and what it is an advertising content.

This is what new Google Play policy claims:

Apps published on Google Play may not directly or indirectly engage in or benefit from the following behavior

• Promotion via deceptive ads on websites, apps or other properties, including simulated system, service, or app notifications or alerts.

• Promotion or install tactics which cause redirection to Google Play or the download of the app without informed user action.

• Unsolicited promotion via SMS services.

It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct users to pages tat make your app available for download.

Developers must be assure that the adv networks they use comply the rules above.

The new policy hits both native and interstitial advertising where it is now required to be very clear (place a native ads in your app feed needs a clear way to inform user that it's an ad),  to be dismissible, explain what is promoted (no more interstitial message "Download app of the day") and who is running the campaign and with a clear "call to action" button.

Open a connection with the new Android SDK 0.9

It took sometime to me to understand why my connection class wasn't working anymore after the update to the new Android SDK 0.9.

Trying to open a simple socket I got the error "UknownHostException" even if my code wasn't changed.

The solution has been add to the AndroidManifest.xml this line:

<uses-permission xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"></uses-permission>

Magically the problem disappears.

New Android SDK released

After the rumors about the HTC Dream which should be on the market earlier than expected after the supposed delays, Google has released a Beta of the new Android SDK.

The SDK can be downloaded at http://code.google.com/android/download_list.html and for information about upgrading from the previous version you can visit http://code.google.com/android/intro/upgrading.html .

Google wants to move quickly towards the release of the SDK 1.0.

The important changes in this new BETA release are:

• First and most obviously, the new Home screen is included, along with a ton of UI changes for 1.0.


• Some new applications are included: an Alarm Clock, Calculator, Camera, Music player, Picture viewer, and Messaging (for SMS/MMS conversations.)


• Several new development tools were added, such as a graphical preview for XML layouts for users of Eclipse, and a tool for constructing 9-patch images.


• Since we've got a new Home screen application now, we thought the now-obsolete version from the M5 early-look SDK might be helpful to developers, so its source is included as a sample.


• A number of new APIs are fleshed out and improved, and others are now close to their final forms for 1.0.


• Tons of bugs were fixed, of course. (If you had problems with the MediaPlayer, try it now!)

This is how the new main screen of the emulator looks:

Will TMobile make the first Android phone available on 17th ofSeptember?

The unofficial TMobile blog (TNO News) claims TMobile will offer the first Android Phone (called with the (code)name G1) on 17th September for their customers at the price of 150 $, much less than the expected 399 $.

The other customers (not already TMobile) should wait until the beginning/mid October when the national launch will take place.

Expected specifications:

• 3g


• a 5" long by 3" wide touch screen


• a slide out QWERTY keyboard


• 3.0 Megapixel camera


• Three available colors: brown, white and black

Users will be required to have a GMail account to get the phone working.

We have only to wait and see if TMobile will really meet this exiting deadline.

Android: HTC denies GPhone delay

HTC has confirmed that their first Android phone will be on the market on the 4th quarter of 2008 denying the rumors which claimed a possible delay to first quarter of 2009. No more details came from HTC.

A video (not very high quality to be honest) showing the first images of HTC Dream, an Android based phone, has been posted on YouTube:

Build service enabled android application: an useful article

This is an useful article containing three tutorials showing how build an Android applications which performs all the networking I/O operations in a background thread completely decoupled from UI.

That is a good practice not only for the Android platform but also in J2ME development to avoid the lock of UI while the network operation is being processd.

Read the article at http://developerlife.com/theblog/?p=430

Google Android UI shown in SanFrancisco

Google showed off the new Android user interface in San Francisco during a developer conference. The demo has been done using a prototype device provided by an unamed manufacturer.

The interaction between user and device is in IPhone style...everything is drivable with a finger.

Watch the Steve Horowitz (Engineering director) presentation video:

First Android phone

The first Android phone prototype has been shown in the Gizmodo website.The look and file is very close to the emulator of the SDK provided by Google.

Here you are two links (one in Italian and one in English) with two different article and photos about this first Andorid phone:

Punto Informatico (in Italian)

Gizmodo

Reset the android emulator

The Android Plugin for Eclipse is a complete solution to start Android applications emulator development where you can use the specific emulator to test your code.

The Android SDK comes with a command-line environment as well. From there you can launch commands to perform some actions useful in the development  and the debugging process.

One of the bug in the emulator is that sometime you launch it from Eclipse but it doesn't start your application and it stucks on its main screen. To solve this problem, you have to go to the command line and launch the command "adb kill-server".

To use the command line tools, be sure you have the "tools" folder of Android SDK in your environment PATH variable.

Google Maps now with Street View

Google announced the adding of new features to their Google Maps on Wednesday 17th. The most important is Street View coming with the same street-level imagery available on desktop. You can use the Street View feature clicking on the apposite command after a search or clicking on a map and selecting "Street View".

Another interesting feature is the introduction of the business reviews: now it is possible know in advance if visit a store worths or not.

Also the walking directions introduced recently in the desktop version are available in the mobile application.

The search speed and the accuracy of the location has been also improved. Users with J2ME phone and BlackBerry can now enjoy the new features!

 

J2ME Google Maps API

I've found this interesting article from the wiki of Forum Nokia describing a library to query Google Maps to geocode addresses to their geographic coordinates and to retrieve static images with custom size, zoom and format.

The article is complete with source code and shows also an utility to scroll the map you get from Google

Go to the article clicking J2ME Google Maps API