Setting up Eclipse 3.6 (Helios) for Android...the simple way

Open source, what can one say, it is open and as open goes the components are openly scattered and so is the documentation. I am not a philanthropist, the blog serves as reminder and gatherer of my thoughts, and if it serves any other purpose thats just swell (I will always put my disclaimer right in front and this is an indirect disclaimer for all the blunders I make). Now to the technical details and I am assuming that the person looking to install the Android dev kit is somewhat software literate and knows his way around the eclipse. Starting from the top.

1. Install the Java JDK from

https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_Developer-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=jdk-6u24-oth-JPR@CDS-CDS_Developer

(Choose the system and do the drill)

2. Install Eclipse Classical from (drill down to the right Eclipse Classical Helios)

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

OR go straight to

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-classic-361/heliossr1


3. I will say save yourself trouble with missing packages later and just Install them.

Here is how we do that.
a. Launch eclipse, goto Windows->Preferences

b. On the left side choose Install/Update and click on Available Software Sites. There should be at least two to three default update sites there. Make sure they are checked and "Enabled".

c. Surprisingly the installation will not work from with in the Windows->Preferences. For that you need to go and click on the help menu item. In the help menu click on "Install New Software". In the Work with field choose the "All available sites" OR whatever update site is available. After pending message number of packages will appear in the window. Select them all and click Next. After the installation is done we can move on to the next step.

4. Go back to Windows->Preferences and add the Android ADT download site using the instructions here

http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html#installing.

The instructions for download site are under the "Downloading the ADT Plugin " heading".

5. Now we go back to Help->Install New Software. Choose the "ADT Plugin" in the Work with and then choose the "Developer Tools" click Next. Since we installed/updated packages earlier, this installation should go smooth. If everything goes well you should see Android appear in the Windows->Prefrences.

6. Now we get to install the Android SDK, which can be downloaded from

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

7. We are not done yet. Going back to eclipse and Windows->Prefrences. Click on Android and in the SDK location enter or browse to the location of SDK that we installed in step 6.

8. Whew! after whatever many restarts of Eclipse during installation step we are ready to use the Android SDK of your choice for the target device.

I can jolt down the steps to do the Hello Android, but from here the budding Android developer is better off following the instructions here

http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html

Happy coding and hope you arrive to the following soon. Viva la open source.

Phonetainment...and mobile musings

There are thousands of apps to show the computing profess of the touch based mini computers from graphic intensive video games to professional slide makers but the point is out of thousands of those applications each person uses few and the firms that are trying to reach their consumers need to target their advertising dollars to a person and not an audience. It took me a short time to download a music sequencing application on Android and program a few bars. About 5 years ago, this would have been unthinkable and cost me an arm and a leg in software and hardware bundle, but today I spent my coffee money on a recurring happiness.

Mobile to business is same as wheels were to business earlier. The smart connected devices make targeted advertising easier in certain sense, since the user location can be triangulated and also the fact that the retailers warming up to free in store WiFi for their customers will lock in the user location to that store making it much easier to provide customized offers based on user shopping history or their location within the store. A device that has the computing power of a reasonable desktop computer coupled with WiFi capability and broadband data connection makes a very informed consumer. Approaching the consumer with the right channel is of utmost important, specially when the operating system and respective mobile devices are fragmented over regions.

I was reading AdMob metrics highlights and mobile developer survey from Appcelerator and there are some interesting details. For example thinking of iOS from Apple, the first thing that comes to mind is iPhone, and then the iPAD depending upon which line you were standing in last time. But in reality iPod touch still makes a large portion of Apple device usage. The access to broadband is also divided among WiFi users and WAN users thereby signifying usage patterns based on location/connection, since neither of the two technologies is available everywhere. Android has surpassed iPhone in the smartphone market share but in reality, the iOS devices lead the Android devices 2:1 ratio in US and 3.5 to 1 ratio worldwide. With the incoming onslaught of Honeycomb, WebOS, QnX and WP7 tablets/phones, these ratios will change, but with iPhone5, iPAD2 and "mini me" of iPhone coming, the balance will remain in Apple's favor.

Based on Appcelerator survey of mobile developers the interest in iPAD and iPhone app development remains more than for Android based devices. But the landscape will slowly morph into a tightly packed space with Android, Windows phone 7, WebOS and Blackberry. I am sure that many of the newly energized WP7 developers will jump into foray with the Nokia and Microsoft alliance along with the two companies themselves putting their developers to this task. The appcelarator mobile developer survey divides the developer landscape in three tiers Leaders (iPhone, Android, and iPad), up & comers (Blackberry and Windows Phone), and laggards (Symbian, Palm, Meego, and Kindle). The main theme remains that applications are becoming table stakes for the survival of platforms because the device is now a broad service platform and apps are the front face of those services. The adoption of hardware devices drives advertising as well as technology infrastructure of enterprises that have to factor in the hazards of supporting increasingly mobile work force which is blending consumer devices with work.

Smart interaction with such a consumer can be a deciding factor for hyper competitive industries which vie for similar pie of consumer segment with more or less same offerings. One need only look at any of the Mobile projections from industry analysts for smart mobile devices to mobile Internet usage for the next 5 years and one can see an exponential growth. The speed of technology evolution around mobile devices is evident from TI announcing OMAP5 when the OMAP4 devices have barely surfaced, not forgetting, Qualcomm, Nvidia and forgetting Intel. The focus has clearly shifted from PC and online to mobile and always on.This is transformational time and companies that are even in the early majority of adopters will reap the benefits of their efforts; the area under the curve for innovators and early adopters has long been filled. This is not simple specially for global firms because different device manufacturers have dominant market share in specific regions and with that comes variety of software platforms and usage habits, crucial to deciding upon which mobile channels to follow. For example in Africa and Asia Nokia has the lead market share, they are on Symbian platform but Nokia recently chose Microsoft Windows Phone 7 for their next generation smartphone OS, how will this effect the usage habits if at all of users in those regions.

Well, if CES and NRF were any indication of trends we can guess the talk of the floor on MWC and it will be all about the big fat data pipes and the containers they load up for the consumers to slurp all that data resulting in consumers knowing what they want; "more" than the marketing machines...or do they!.

Mobile is here....now what? (Part 1)

I think the projections of smartphone surpassing feature phones and 50 billion gazillion being sold is now clear to us. Putting the OS wars aside, and bearing with the throttling and unthrottling of user data usage I want to explore how the mobility craze will impact businesses and consumers as the "smartness" becomes ubiquitous. I will reiterate here that it is less about smartphone or tablets then it is about data access becoming a necessity and then commodity. There are number of folks who still have their feature phones and are happy with them, but how many people can one find with a black and white TV. Then their are those who say that data is expensive and it is, but just having a phone service may not remain an available choice for long. Yes, one didn't need a satellite or a cable subscription catching the "white" waves off air. But even uncle Sam decided that the nephew needs to move on to digital world.

In this blog I just want to look ahead, far from now, when the mobile back haul is ready to carry 100MB per user load, when the ISP servers can support the same for each user and all but few will have the devices that can make those data speeds sing and dance.

I want to explore what will happen to us when all the hooplah has settled into reality. What kind of seismic shifts can we expect to see with the advent of data so readily available along with devices that can manipulate that data to users ecstasy, and users that can swipe their way through mobile experiences without blinking. Beginning with the gross changes that come to my mind.

Paper to Mobile (books, magzines, brochures, handouts, tickets, forms etc)

Plastic to Mobile (credit cards, loyalty cards, metro cards, ID cards, library cards etc)

Digital online to Mobile (Video, music)

Mobile voice to Mobile video (video telephony, video conferencing)

Bricks and Mortar (to Online) to Mobile (Banking, shopping)

Desktop (to notebook) to Mobile

The shift from paper to digital is happening with the speed of light. From books, magazines and news papers to business forms, such as transaction vouchers, insurance claims, medical records, airline tickets the previously paper domain is rapidly transforming itself to be agile in mobile world.

The next shift that is slow to come but is definitely on the move, is the drift from plastic to digital. The plastic money will become mobile money and all other plastic cards will become mobile identity. This I already mentioned in my previous blog, includes loyalty cards, identity cards, business cards, and credit/debit cards. This will also lead to changes in private access in terms of lockers, clubs, houses, apartments through mobile identity or digital keys stored on a mobile.

The music made the shift to digital with the advent of mp3 and it has been mobile for sometime even on feature phones in form of fancy ringtones. The fat content of video is only recently beginning to enjoy the luxury of wider bandwidths. This transformation on a timeline basis is mostly dependent on the availability of higher bandwidths of the next generation wireless networks such as LTE and WiMAX, since the streaming transformation began first with the explosion of YouTube and then Hulu.
Another big shift that will happen is to the main feature of telephony itself. Video has always been more addictive than voice. This transformation from voice to video for the gen Z will change the social norms. Although social networking comes close to breach of my privacy I don't consider myself an "oldie" and I am a "techie" by design, still my fingers don't punch out emoticons or those LOLs with the speed of my 8 year old nephew.

The reason I identified mobile banking with mobile shopping is because it is part of the same shift. A consumer walk out from bricks and mortar, to online and soon many will walk with most services they need in their pockets. The distance that a user covers on foot is now reduced to few clicks for many of the services that these within the four wall fronts provide. Even within the four walls the traditional sales associate role is disappearing as consumers go for discount shopping and comparative price checks while they are looking at the item in the isle.

As I keep thinking about trends, I had to add this bit, which I find is very important. The ability of mobile devices to act as fully functional computing devices by leveraging cloud computing or remote controlling the desktop using Bluetooth, WiFi or other available broadband. The mobile device are a cross between a completely thin client and a thick client with enough computing power to render the remote terminal and handle the data throughput. This is will be a more prominent feature on the tablets than on smaller form factors.

To continue exploration - the next blog will be on the more difficult topic of actual impact to businesses.........