Datasheet

Chapter 1: Developing Spectacular Android Applications

Internet

Thanks to the Internet capabilities of Android devices, real-time information

is easy to obtain. As a user, you can use the Internet to see what time the

next movie starts or when the next commuter train arrives. As a developer,

you can use the Internet in your apps to access real-time, up-to-date data

such as weather, news, and sports scores. You can also use the Web to store

some of your application’s assets, which is what Pandora and YouTube do.

Don’t stop there. Why not offload some of your application’s intense pro-

cesses to a Web server when appropriate? This can save a lot of processing

time in some cases and also helps keep your Android app streamlined. This

arrangement is called client–server computing — a well-established software

architecture in which the client makes a request to a server that is ready and

willing to do something. The built-in Maps app is an example of a client access-

ing map and GPS data from a Web server.

Audio and video support

The Android OS makes including audio and video in your apps a breeze.

Many standard audio and video formats are supported. Including multime-

dia content in your apps couldn’t be any easier. Sound effects, instructional

videos, background music, streaming video, and audio from the Internet can

all be added to your app with little to no pain. Be as creative as you want to

be. The sky is the limit.

Contacts

Your app can access user contacts that are stored on the phone. You can

use this feature to display the contacts in a new or different way. Maybe you

don’t like the built-in Contacts application. With the ability to access the con-

tacts stored on the phone, nothing is stopping you from writing your own.

Maybe you write an app that couples the contacts with the GPS system and

alerts the user when she is close to one of the contacts’ addresses.

Use your imagination, but be responsible. You don’t want to use contacts in a

malicious way (see the next section).

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