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After seeing a twitter post asking about HTTP MultiPart on Android which linked to a Google Groups thread which recommended a solution which required the inclusion of multiple libraries, I thought it might be worth sharing a method I’ve used in the past w…

It’s coming to that time of year again when one of the main Android events comes around - Droidcon UK Last year I spoke about taking Android beyond ‘phones, this year I’ll be speaking about developing apps which scale well on single and multi-core devices…

This morning Google announced a number of new developer events around the world, and, as a result of what was announced, it would appear that the UK will not see a high profile Google developer event this year, which seems odd to me.

I currently use Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and this blog for interacting with other people.

Why I recommended an iPhone I’m disheartened to admit that I’ve just had to recommend a current iPhone user upgrades to another iPhone instead of switching to Android.

[Imported from Google+] One plug change and 15mins to setup/update, and I have a Logitech Revue Google TV working in the UK; Now all it needs is the TV schedules for the UK and a silencer for the fan… [Update 1 - Answers to some questions asked] TV Schedu…

[imported from Google+] I’m not convinced of the benefits of the Motorola-Google deal.

[Imported from Google+] I’ve seen the rumoured Ice Cream Sandwich leak, couple of things make me suspicious; Kernel Version; It’s the same as the current Gingerbread AOSP build, and all of the 3 Honeycomb devices I have are based on 2.6.36 kernels, not 2.…

[Imported from Google+] The new Android Market client recently started to roll out and looks like this; I can’t help feeling the following tweaks to the new non-US Market layout might be useful; Change the “Staff Choices” button to an “Apps” button Put “S…

I’ve been following the rumours around Apples’ data center and WWDC announcements for a while and I can see an idea that ties them together in a way which would seem to make sense.

I’ve been split between running two companies for the last couple of years; Enterprise Data Safe Ltd. and Funky Android Ltd., and while the two operate in different technology areas it’s been a bit tough to keep both plates in the air, so I’ve decided to…

[This post builds on an exchange with Tom Riley on twitter] I’ve seen and heard a few reports about Samsung producing an Android tablet for Amazon, and, while I’ve been told things which would appear to make that very difficult for Samsung specifically, an

I rarely do hardware reviews because I know most people have their own personal tastes, and not everyone will agree with what I find appealing in a device, but every now and again something comes along which I feel is a real game changer and worth mention…

After checking over the Android Open Source Project repository I noticed an interesting comment in the manifests project; “State of master capable of building GPL code from 3.0” which made me wonder if some of the Honeycomb source code had been dropped in…

Background [You can skip this if you’re not interested in the history of Google and me] My first exposure to Android was at the Google developer day in London in September 2008.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Google planning to hire Android application developers which, to me, seems to have the potential to be the worst possible thing they could do to the Android eco-system.

Some people have noticed some niggles with the Android Honeycomb Preview emulator, so I’ve put together a few tips which may help improve your experience.

(This was prompted by a question asked by Reto Meier) As many of you may know my company built and later sold AndAppStore over the course of two years.

Some of you may already be familiar with multi-core programming, so a lot of what I’m going to cover will be very familiar to you, but some Android developers may have never written for (or considered) how the multiple CPU cores available on CPUs such as…

I’m personally thrilled to announce that my company, Funky Android Ltd., has sold AndAppStore to the Seavus Group.

(the code and application links are at the bottom of the article for those who are a bit impatient) At DroidCon UK this year I presented a talk on why Android developers should be thinking about tablets and I touched upon creating UIs which can adapt to t…

Since Android 1.6 Google have been asking developers to use specific size and density groupings for their graphical resources to ensure that their user interfaces looked good on a range of devices, but unfortunately developers are not fully supporting it…

At the end of October I’ll be giving a talk on Android Tablets, eReaders, and other devices at droidcon London, so if you’ve found my posts on the subject interesting (or if you want to see any of the other speakers who are going to be presenting), the you

A short while ago I posted about how many Android applications hadn’t allowed for tablets by assuming a direct correlation between screen density and screen resolution.

Today is a sad day for me as I’ve decided to greatly reduce my involvement in the Android community, and I thought it best to explain why rather than leave the rumour mill to run its’ course.

In the last day or two lots of people have helped circulate a link to an O’Reilly effort to create a cookbook of community supplied Android examples, which is a noble effort, but there is a big drawback; and that’s the potential quality of the information.

When the Dell Streak was first launched there was an aspect of it that caught me off guard, its’ pixel density, and it would appear I’m not alone.

Please Note: Messing around with the firmware and OS on any device can render the device unusable.

[Declaration of interest: My company runs AndAppStore, an alternative to Googles Android Market] Theres been a fair amount of talk around Googles use of “Private APIs” in their Android applications since the Andy Rubin interview which appeared in the NY T…

First off the good.

After certain events in recent weeks I thought it was worth putting up a post trying to encourage people to be more constructive in their criticisms.

If you ran a competition and stated that; “The number of votes your concept receives will decide whether it makes it to the top 10 for the next round (unless we find gross abuses such as scripting in the voting process).”

After spending some time trying to build a firmware I’ve seen some things which have opened my eyes as to why the Android Open Source Project may not be seeing the kind of community contributions that would be expected of such a high profile project.

A project I’m working on requires the use of a custom firmware image, so I’ve been exposed to the joy that is trying to build and use the open source version of Android, and to be honest it’s left me a little battered.

After all of the problems with seen with the PayPal X Developer Challenge we’re hardly surprised that PortaPayments didn’t make it through to the next round.

I thought that on the final day of voting it would be worth recapping the “experience” which has been our listing as a PayPal X Developers Challenge finalist.

[Update: Within 12 hours of making this post PayPal made the voting stats public again, briefly, and then they dissapeared once more] Some of you may wonder why I’ve stopped updating a previous post with the current percentage of votes PortaPayments has in

[This body of this post was updated on the at 08:45 GMT - 28th Feb 10 with the latest statistics] When we entered the PayPal X Developers Challenge we hoped for a good result (who doesn’t when they enter a competition?).

Update : I’ve put a list of 17 apps out of the current 54 which we believe don’t comply with the rules.

I thought the effect of “New customer only” deals on long term business were well understood, but, in the last month, I’ve seen some examples which show that some companies still haven’t grasped their long term effects.

With my companies Funky Expenses Android applicaion we have two versions; An ad-supported version and a pay-for ad-free version so that users can choose how they help to fund development (yes, we do get requests for a free ad-free version, but unfortunate…

During my morning check of Twitter I came across this tweet from Google; “Introducing the #Google Chrome OS http://bit.ly/N1rNZ” Which started to raise some concerns.

(If you want to tweet this please use the tag #O2iPhoneRipOff) Is it me or is the new O2 iPhone pricing policy looking like a bit of a rip-off?

There seems to be a lot of variation on how many stars people give an application on Googles Android Market.

Android developers have been waiting for the ability to list pay-for applications in Googles Market, but now most of them wish it had never arrived because the experience it’s giving users may just turn them off Android forever.

Over recent weeks there has been a lot of speculation over when Android users will be able to buy applications from Googles Market, but some of the terms and conditions in the Developer Distribution Agreement could scare many developers away before they d…

In recent days there the issue of the US patent obtained by Apple relating to the multi-touch functionality has reared it’s head on the Android development lists, and the discussions have left me deeply concerned about whether Android will ever become a s…

Funky Android has made available a Android application licensing system via AndAppStore.

It looks like the folks at Google are listening and they’ve taken a big step which will help a number of developers get at least one Android powered device to work with.

The G1 has been around a few weeks, it’s billed as “The phone that’s built for the internet”, but it would appear that the G1 isn’t built for email which many people consider as being one of the most useful things on the internet for over 35 years.