Google’s new and improved Developer Tools: Android SDK and Google TV

Of the complaints that are verbally issued to Google by developers through their computer screens are some of the issues being experienced with the Android Software Development kit. With the announcement that Google TV would support the Market and run Android 3.1, concerns were raised at Google I/O with the increasingly slow emulator, and a lack of clarity when it came to developing for Google TV. Fortunately, Google noticed this hesitation and offered up a few seminar classes on developing for Google TV as well as showing off many new visualization tools in the Android SDK.

Google TV

Although the next version of Google TV is to be based on Honeycomb, there’s very little that is similar when it comes to how you would interact with an app on a TV versus how you would interact with an app on the phone/tablet. Google’s seminar on this topic addressed ensuring that navigation functionality included what almost feels like a blast from our past now – the D Pad.

Since the remote control was invented to make it so we didn’t have to get up off the couch to change the channel, it doesn’t make much sense that we return to that model by making users go touch their screens. The next sentiment Google shared with the users is making sure it was understood that the more things you tell Android your app MUST have, the less likely it is to function on Google TV. If your Twitter app tells Android that there MUST be a camera present, then at this current point Google TV won’t show that app in the market as cameras are not currently supported.

Finally, Google helped developers understand what they considered the appropriate screen markers should be, in order to have the app display properly. Treating the screens as “screen size Large” and going above the 800×480 resolution is the best way to reach the most HDTV’s. This way, developers can start building their apps for those screen sizes now, since they are already part of the Android SDK.

New UI Visualization Tools

It seems like most other “modern” SDKs for mobile platforms have a sort of What You See Is What You Get editor for building user interfaces and testing them out before ever needing to compile the kernel. This has been something that, until now, Google has not really provided their developers with in the same capacity as competitors do.

With the preview that was shown at Google I/O, the app visualizer tools will make it extremely easy to take the elements you’ve already placed into your code and help you optimize its visual properties. In application, the app seemed to closely resemble an advanced version of Google App Inventor, and offered a handful of features built to make any developers like easier. For example, at any point in the visualizer if you would like to see Google’s reference material on the subject, you can go to developer.google.com in the section you’re looking for just by clicking the link. The final thing Google did here was recognize their own shortcomings with the Android emulator in the SDK, and did reassure us that in a short time, those improvements would be made available.