Questions from First Time Android App Developer

Bluefrog

Hey Folks,

I've been spending my spare time in the past couple of weeks building out my first Android app - non-commercial at this point. I'm a freelance web dev by trade with 14 years experience and have found getting what I need to done relatively painless but I've made a compromise and I'm wondering if it will come back to bite me in the arse if I don't address it now rather than later.

Compromise is that I decided to dev this for 4.0 devices. I did this mainly for the simplicity of customising the theme (Holo light in this case - really more a 3.0 compromise I suppose) and for easier implementation of tabs and side swipe navigation between them. I've seen Sherlock mentioned a couple of times so I'm wondering if I wanted to down the line, could I integrate Sherlock retrospectively without too much of a code rewrite should I want to support older devices or is it better to just bite the bullet now, learn how to work with it and take the hit on extra dev time?

Second question regards Google Maps integration. A section of this app relies on presenting a user with a map of their current location and adding a set of markers for locations of interest in their immediate vicinity.
I had initially looked at doing this project a couple of years ago when there were basically 2 ways to go with mapping from my pretty half-assed research. 1. Using a web view and manipulating that with a java/javascript bridge or 2. using the Android mapping API. From my brief look at the time it seems that option 1. was the way to go from the point of view of feature updates on the Google maps side as well as my familiarity with their mapping API and Javascript.

Now I see that Google are pushing such integration of their services via the Google Play Store which seems to take care of the making the most of new API features drawbacks of using the Android mapping API of old but will also be more of a learning curve for me. Does anyone have any thoughts on which path I should go down, webview or Play Store?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Atomic Pineapple

If it's non commercial you should just weigh up the development time versus the benefit to yourself, about 45% of my users are on pre 3.0 devices, so it is still quite a large market but if your app is non commercial at the minute and your just learning them maybe continue with it limited to 4.0 and then if there is a demand for it then look into developing for pre 4.0

On the mapping question I don't seen any reason not to use the native MapActivity to do what you want, it was capable of doing this from the very first releases of Android.

ChRoMe

draffodx wrote: »

If it's non commercial you should just weigh up the development time versus the benefit to yourself, about 45% of my users are on pre 3.0 devices, so it is still quite a large market but if your app is non commercial at the minute and your just learning them maybe continue with it limited to 4.0 and then if there is a demand for it then look into developing for pre 4.0

On the mapping question I don't seen any reason not to use the native MapActivity to do what you want, it was capable of doing this from the very first releases of Android.

What he said, targetting 4 is going to lose you a lot of possible users.

MapActivity will take care of all your mapping needs.

shanefitz360

Use Sherlock. It isn't very difficult to change a 4.0 app for all versions with Sherlock, even if the app is already completed. Will benefit you more in the long term not just on this app (more potential users), but you will definitely integrate Sherlock in every app after that.

Source: I use Sherlock in all my apps.

As for the maps, here is a nice tutorial to get you started. It's a little dated but most of the APIs haven't changed. tutorial. I also like this project.

Bluefrog

Thanks folks, that's all good to know. I'll take a closer look at sherlock so I can scoop in the 3.0 users. Good to have some sense of numbers on that Draffodx, cheers.

On the mapping front, I ran through some examples using v2 of the Android Mapping API yesterday and its light years ahead of the webvew experience for sure in terms of performance, specially with the Open GL rendering so I'm heading down that path. Google themselves seem to be pushing for devs to use MapFragment rather than a MapView - not a huge amount of documentation but the API isn't a million miles from the Javascript one so I think I should be able to get what I need to done with it. Already have it zooming in and placing a marker at my location.

Bluefrog

Just to let you all know, the app is now in the Play Store - would welcome any feedback.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.lostandfoundpetsireland.lafp

ChRoMe

Bluefrog wrote: »

Just to let you all know, the app is now in the Play Store - would welcome any feedback.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.lostandfoundpetsireland.lafp

Congratulations, just curious is it region locked by you? Can't download it as I'm in the UK.

Atomic Pineapple

Nice app!

Bluefrog

Yeah, its region locked to Ireland, at least until I feel confident enough to know what I'm at

smcelhinney

Lovely app, great idea. Top notch for a first Android app.

80s Child

Great idea! Best of luck with it.

Tar.Aldarion

Where do you get the data from, we found a cat the other day, found the owner online, it had been missing for a month. Wasn't in your app though.

Cool idea