Android SDK and Xpath and Builds

The magic of xpath in an Android Application ANT Build script:

<xpath input="AndroidManifest.xml"
expression="/manifest/@android:versionCode" output="android.version.code" />
<xpath input="AndroidManifest.xml"
expression="/manifest/@android:versionName" output="android.version.name" />
<xpath input="AndroidManifest.xml"
expression="/uses-sdk/@android:minSdkVersion" output="android.sdk.version.min" />

Now you can use those values to pass to your doc generate/report tasks, app versin number update task, etc.

An Android RIA

I have this question that has been a constant theme for me during the past several months. As you know the real reason why RIA hype caught on is that it is hard to collaborate via touch device to desktop and back in a more high-interactive way.  And quite frankly touch devices makes that concept even worse in the amount of challenges faced such as the application programming language to use across mobile  platforms etc.

Before the ChromeOS push it was use something like Eclipse OSGi eSWT on the mobile javaME CDC side and full rcp swt on the desktop side and no it did not catch on.

Android both handsets and MIDs will soon be at a minimum of 1 GHZ instead of the current only premium Android devices being at 1 GHZ which places them in the same performance range as ChromeOS devices. It will be interesting to see which plays out better a one RIA platform approach using say HTML5 on webkit or say a mixed platform approach where you might have Android ria app as native java, the ChromeOS app as HTML5 etc.

Evernote and ThisWeekInAndroid

Evernote looks interesting and it appears that they want android application development experience. will know soon.

The first podcast of ThisWeekInAndroid, one of Jason Calacanis stable of podcast shows, is up at here. it is different show than say the Motorola weekly radio shows. It certainly has broader appeal, which is good. You can follow the host of the show on twitter@markjeffrey.

The Google Partnership

This article should make your blood boil. Note to Chris DiBona smart phone devices shipped unlike other previous devices depend upon the growing variety of applications. That of course depends upon having access to the new SDKs. The OEMs cannot do it without the application developers!

either Google and OHA view us as partners or not, We want the Android SDK 2.1 and an enlightened answer! Not some BS because you got scared of what OEMs might do.