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I once heard 'Mr. Java' talk about how Oak was going to run on television remote controls and make them better.

Well, if it weren't for Android I'm pretty sure we still wouldn't have Java-based TV remotes...

Where else can you get a closed source compiler for $5.00? Apple does have a strict review policy to get something through.

In comparison, Microsoft wants $800 for their blessing to build on their platform. There are workarounds on the Express editions, but it's more trouble than it's worth.

Android development is free. Also, there isn't a review process to worry about.

Which platform is easiest?

mplayer for Android has been ported: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/mplayer-ported-for-android/

Android source is here: http://source.android.com/

Go ahead and make your own distribution, dozens of people already do. Cyanogenmod is probably the largest.

Other utilities you want that aren't there, but available in GNU? Port 'em. Source is there. Nothing is keeping it from happening.

Because some devices are certified by Google and some are not. The certification process costs exactly $0.

Android Apps *can* be coded for the virtual machine (which uses JIT compiling anyway) but it doesn't have to be that way, you can have native code in your Android Apps, and many do. http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/

Some of the UI's are not made for 10" screens but that does not make the applications difficult to use at all.

Sometimes it does. I haven't figured out exactly why yet, but some of my users were complaining mightily that my Android phone App was unusable on the Xoom (and indeed, some of the buttons were being chopped off, and things weren't fitting on the screen). I merely added the correct property to the AndroidManifest.xml, and the app filled the whole screen, and worked fine. I don't know how often this happens, but my app wasn't doing anything special, just using standard APIs, which also meant it looked a lot prettier on the Xoom when it switched to the updated versions of the UI widgets, instead of the older ones.

Since December 2010 you can do a Native Code Only Android application (revision 5 of the NDK). Basically, the only thing you are pointing towards as a show stopper for you hasn't existed on new/upgradable phones for 8 months now, and has never existed in Android's tablet OS, 3.x.

That is something that in a way surprises me. I mean not to say Google is the greatest ever, but I do expect better from them than putting out such a poor performing emulator. Android itself performs well, their Chrome browser is also known for being speedy, then why can they not get this emulator to work at a decent speed?!

From the SDK Tools v9 revision history:

Known issues with emulator performance: Because the Android emulator must simulate the ARM instruction set architecture on your computer, emulator performance is slow. We're working hard to resolve the performance issues and it will improve in future releases.

Not trolling here, honest; but isn't that also what the iOS emulator is doing?

Oh wait. It isn't. It just looks like Google took the stupid way out. Or Apple took the smart way.

Or both.

You can use C and C++ in Android apps for two years now. In fact, most Android games are 99% C++. And did you think all those file browsers with SMB support implemented it from scratch? They just link to libsamba.

Point taken. There is way to sort apps by popularity but it's not easy to understand what it means: it's not the number of downloads, it's not the rating. Is it what's been hot in the last N days? If it were, by which definition of hotness? Oddly (as we're speaking of Google) looking for something in the market is more a matter of discovery (browsing the "also viewed" and "also installed" lists) than one of search. I even enjoy that but it's a little time consuming.

If I may add a complaint, I'd like to see Google forcing developers to explain what's the purpose of every single permission the app needs. What we have now is a sometimes scary list of what an app can do to your phone and to your personal data but no clue about whether we should trust the developer or not (my default is NO). As a reference, check Pandora's permissions list and check what people are saying about it in the user reviews.

I would guess the majority of Android developers do not own a Honeycomb device. That would mean the emulator should be good. But on its default settings, the emulator is very, very slow. Google "honeycomb emulator" and the top results will mostly be about its slowness. Someone recommended I increase its memory, and that did help out a bit, it's still slow but at least usable.

One of my apps has less than 1% Honeycomb usage, so it is not big on my radar screen. I recently noticed another has over 7% - my app that lets people iterate and search Microsoft Access databases on an Android phone. It's the only reason I revisited the dog-slow emulator and tried the increased memory trick. I saw my app was displaying correctly with Android 3.0, and was displaying correctly on the larger tablet-sized screen. So the primary concern went away - everything worked. I then looked to see if I could improve things for the tablet, and I saw I could, but have not implemented it yet.

There are really two things here with Honeycomb and tablets. One is the OS version. The other is the screen size. With 2.3 and less you usually have smaller screens, Honeycomb often has larger screen sizes. My concerns tend more to be toward dealing with the larger screen sizes properly than implementing some of the neat whiz-bang 3.0 features.

So I think some assertions that are being made about Honeycomb are a bit off-base. If I saw my app displayed poorly on a tablet-sized Honeycomb device, I probably would have fixed it and sent an update out already. It may not be Honeycomb-optimized, but at least I made sure it is Honeycomb compatible. Also, even if I do make those changes that make use of the extra screen space on the typical larger Honeycomb tablet, I don't have an intention at this time of specially marking the app as Honeycomb-optimized. So it still wouldn't count in these surveys, even if I did optimize it for Honeycomb.

For my two existing apps, as well as others I am working on, most of what I think about with tablets is using all that screen space, which is not connected to Honeycomb (version 3 over version 2) per se. That is what most Android app developers will be thinking about more than whatever new features are in 3.1 over 2.3, in my opinion. Honestly, I am currently more engaged with limitations the Android OS has rather than cool new whiz-bang features. For example, there is a 16 bit (i.e. 65536) sized identifier for dex files which I have recently bumped up against. Which you wouldn't easily know about, since their error message for it is pretty vague once you bump into it. I'm more focused on banging my head against this wall right now than the new animation features in 3.0. But different people are focused on different things.

That is something that in a way surprises me. I mean not to say Google is the greatest ever, but I do expect better from them than putting out such a poor performing emulator. Android itself performs well, their Chrome browser is also known for being speedy, then why can they not get this emulator to work at a decent speed?!

From the SDK Tools v9 revision history:

Known issues with emulator performance: Because the Android emulator must simulate the ARM instruction set architecture on your computer, emulator performance is slow. We're working hard to resolve the performance issues and it will improve in future releases.

Apple made a case to developers that the UI should be re-thought for something the size of a tablet - a sentiment I agree with. The iPhone supports just as many auto-scaling abilities as does Android, but the simply truth is that something the size of an iPad cries out for a different UI layout, not just windows that grow larger. You hold a tablet differently than a phone for one thing, so control positions should be re-thought. Having a whole screen slide over ala a navigation controller on an iPhone makes no sense on something with a huge screen, or at least looks goofy.

From what I can tell, that's what the whole "fragments" thing that Google is trying to introduce into android is about. It seems to me like the ability to make separate sections and display more if the screen size allows. Like instead of getting a list of articles, selecting one, then viewing it, it could just have the list on the left and the viewing on the right if the screen was larger (a tablet) while still using separate ones for small screens (a phone).

(I worked on) Music: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evojazz
3D plants: http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/PlantStudio/

Ultimately, what kind of effect will this have on employment as robotics and AI get more and more creative? See:
    http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/enter_adam_the_robot_scientist.php

Here is a 12 minute YouTube video I recently made that talks about a balance between five interwoven economies that shifts with cultural change and technological change:
    "Five Interwoven Economies: Subsistence, Gift, Exchange, Planned, and Theft"
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY

So, I help provide evolutionary tools that will change the value of most paid human labor, but I also provide ideas about how to upgrade our society to accomodate that.

But so many people just make the tools and don't think about the human consequences yet. I hope more and more people start thinking about all this. My writings are just a place to start...

There is already an Android app for it https://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.plus&feature=search_result. Installing it doesn't get you a space in it yet, though.

A real geek would have done it from an HP 48g emulated on an Android phone.

There is already an app for that. An android app, that is.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pas.webcam&feature=search_result

Granted, you need an internet connection and you need to setup a computer to connect to your IP, but you already can stream video from your cell phone to an undisclosed computer somewhere in the internet.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.evojazz (my app where you breed new music).

There are 200,000 apps or so out there (about half free). Even when you write something you think is good, who will try it, especially if you charge for it? I tried a model of "three years paid and then that verison goes under the GPL", but who even cares about that (except me)?

The good news is, in three years people will replace their fancy Android SmartPhones, and those old ones can go to materially poor children around the planet so they can join in the global conversation as well as have fun and learn from all the free apps out there. That's overall got to be a good thing. Something I wrote about that on the p2presearch list:
    http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-November/006250.html

Anyone know of a foundation job I could get making more free educational software for the Android planning for that day?

2GB is plenty for me. The most mobile data I've ever used in a month is a gig, which included heavy 3rd party tethering use. I usually use 500-700MB. Maybe 4G LTE speeds will change my usage, but I doubt it will more than *double* my usage.

I understand that won't be enough for some people, but with apps like Llama https://market.android.com/details?id=com.kebab.Llama it's really easy to set up location profiles that turn wi-fi on and off at places you trust. If that still doesn't sate your usage needs, get your workplace to pay for it or *gasp* put your damn phone away and interact with the real world.

One key advantage is that you can use your phone with a free Android app to read and write onto cheap (read+write-many or read+write-once or read-only) HF based HFID tags that cost a few cents and are field powered:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nxp.nfc.tagwriter&feature=related_apps

Imagine the possibilities... Product tags, WiFi setup including WPA2 keys for guests, bulletin messaging in areas with poor signals, etc. In addition, the NFC chips being used on these phones have a security crypto chip that is isolated from the main device and can act as a hardware security token capable of full PKI (RSA, ECC, X509v3, CMS, ...), in addition to being used for electronic payment, transit fares, etc. Google Wallet is just one example. But since NFC is compatible with ISO14443, you can also use it with Paypass, Clipper, Suica, Octopus, etc.

How much do you think it costs to embed microphones and audio processing electronics? Not to mention the resources needed to support this including external power, and potential problems in noisy environments.

Some of the app developers like this one recognize the mess and have started explaining the perms.

Yeah, I've noticed that, and that was my inspiration behind my suggestion of making it a mandatory policy, because I appreciate it when app devs do that. Yeah, they could be lying, but I'd prefer to at least get the explanation that "full internet access" is required for the ads rather than it just be sitting there for no apparent reason on an app that is not exactly network-centric.

Some of the app developers like this one recognize the mess and have started explaining the perms. Granted, they could be lying, but when compared to this supposed 'security app' not only requires every privacy-threatening permission, but, according to privacy inspector (the free version of the above app), also does things[0] like reading your phone number etc.

Android's a platform of adware, we've all known that from day 1, but somewhere along the line BonzaiBuddy-esque abuse-in-exchange-for-free crap became acceptable again.

[0] As opposed to just requesting the ability to do things: I think it reads function calls or something, I'm still waiting to hear back from xeudoxus.

The Congress app for Android is very useful for this.
It puts both the Senate and house on speed dial.

Why just have one Senator when you can have em all?

Here's one. It currently works with "testnet", the parallel Bitcoin network where the coins are theoretically worthless. https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet

so that your Android device phones us to deliver vitally handy information that we can use to make educated guesses about your lifestyle habits

If only there were some way to look at the source code for this Android operating system, so we could know for certain what information is being sent back to Google...

Okay I pulled those numbers out of my ass. On the App Store we got 174 "mortgage interest" , and on the Android Market we have 234. OTOH, on the Android Market about 50 or so of these apps are just branded "$reatlor Mortgage Calculator" apps like this one and another 50 that are just RSS feed readers of some guy's blog on the financial crisis. All of the Apple store apps were legit, destinguishable calculators from a variety of vendors.

Okay I pulled those numbers out of my ass. On the App Store we got 174 "mortgage interest" , and on the Android Market we have 234. OTOH, on the Android Market about 50 or so of these apps are just branded "$reatlor Mortgage Calculator" apps like this one and another 50 that are just RSS feed readers of some guy's blog on the financial crisis. All of the Apple store apps were legit, destinguishable calculators from a variety of vendors.

Google seems to recognize this. I have not attempted to use these APIs but:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/InputDevice.html#SOURCE_GAMEPAD

I would expect to see android based consoles soon after this goes mainstream.

You can get a tiny open source violin on the Android market

Who is stopping tom/dick/harry/corporate coders from coding every thing as a service.

A service that has been foregrounded has an icon in the notification area at the top of the display, thus appearing to the user to be "still open".

The regular UNIX os does swapout sleeping processes if needed.

Conventional wisdom is that the access patterns of a swap file are more suited to the wear patterns of spinning disks than to those of NAND flash memory.

That is pretty freaking amazing!

http://source.android.com/source/downloading.html This page provides you with instructions to download the android source, also instructions on building etc.

Pretty much. You can download the source code for Android here.

The problem with lookout is that is has every red flag permission under the sun. How many viruses do you think are in your contacts list?

Extremely caution should be used when any application requires read contacts and internet access. How sure are you, you didn't just give away the bank? You can see for yourself. Lookout requires the following list of permissions.

Your accounts
manage the accounts list
Allows an application to perform operations like adding, and removing accounts and deleting their password.
Hardware controls
change your audio settings
Allows application to modify global audio settings such as volume and routing.
Your location
coarse (network-based) location
Access coarse location sources such as the cellular network database to determine an approximate device location, where available. Malicious applications can use this to determine approximately where you are.
fine (GPS) location
Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the device, where available. Malicious applications can use this to determine where you are, and may consume additional battery power.
Your messages
read SMS or MMS
Allows application to read SMS messages stored on your device or SIM card. Malicious applications may read your confidential messages.
receive SMS
Allows application to receive and process SMS messages. Malicious applications may monitor your messages or delete them without showing them to you.
edit SMS or MMS
Allows application to write to SMS messages stored on your device or SIM card. Malicious applications may delete your messages.
Network communication
full Internet access
Allows an application to create network sockets.
Your personal information
read contact data
Allows an application to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to send your data to other people.
read sensitive log data
Allows an application to read from the system's various log files. This allows it to discover general information about what you are doing with the device, potentially including personal or private information.
add or modify calendar events and send email to guests
Allows an application to add or change the events on your calendar, which may send email to guests. Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your calendar events or to send email to guests.
write contact data
Allows an application to modify the contact (address) data stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your contact data.
read Browser's history and bookmarks
Allows the application to read all the URLs that the Browser has visited, and all of the Browser's bookmarks.
write Browser's history and bookmarks
Allows an application to modify the Browser's history or bookmarks stored on your device. Malicious applications can use this to erase or modify your Browser's data.

You seem to mistake the business world as a happy-go-lucky place where anyone gives a fuck what nerds think makes a "solid product."

Given the choice, I'd rather just do business with someone else. Especially someone else with the superior platform Not to mention the fact that in the "business world", the market agrees with me that Microsoft just plain sucks.

Sorry that Windows is still eating the lunch of your preferred platform.

Not really.

How them grapes taste?

However, *devices* is where I see the battle going on. But, ironically, iOS and Android have made more inroads into public awareness in a single year than Linux has in all its existence. Linux will have to watch out for Android, in a way. I think the sudden profusion of OS's is going to make Linux look like a non-starter in comparison. Different products I know, but the public don't know that. And so Linux will stay a specialised OS for servers and serious geeks only, with Apple and Google OS's taking over where Windows can't cut it.

You realize that Android == Linux, right?

http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.html

Requirements
**NEEDS ROOT**
Works on Android 2.0 and above.
Tested on various devices and firmwares, but not tested on Android 3.0 and 3.1 devices.

Current Features
1. Block unwanted send SMS / call phone operation
2. Block unwanted access to phone location, contacts, SMS/MMS conversation database, IMEI/IMSI/ICCID/phone number.
3. Integrated low-level firewall, no netfilter/iptables required, works on pre-froyo devices

Market Link
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lbe.security

I went looking for a better battery display then I had on my CM7'd nook. Every one I looked at requested at least full network access and many had that and local storage access. There is a difference between paranoid and realizing that to do a job a battery widget does not need to talk to the outside world.

Although this widget requires access to Wi-Fi (to turn it on and off), it does not need any network or storage access.

It's on the market, too:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient

They are? Last I checked, you're free to use any third-party video store with Android. For that matter, you could run one of the half dozen BitTorrent clients directly on the phone/tablet in question and get your media that way, if you're so inclined - they're not blocked from the Market (and even if they were, you can always install an .apk).

The way this is different from Apple is that there any third-party video store app would have to do transactions through Apple, and pay the 30% cut.

Really? Funny, when last I checked, I can write software using whatever programming language I want, and whatever technology is feasible, on my laptop. Nobody tells me what languages I am allowed to use or requires me to use their method of processing purchases. I can even run a different operating system with a completely different design in a virtual machine, if I feel that a different operating system would be better for developing my software.

So where is that dictation you were talking about?

For Android, it's right here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/terms.html

Ultimately, no matter what mobile platform you're developing for, you do have play by some rules, so if you don't like the strictures that Apple imposes on development for their platform, then just stick to developing for a different platform who's rules you can live with!

Personally though, speaking both as a consumer and an IT person, I have to say I prefer iOS because it may cause some extra work for the developers (and I'm speaking from personal experience there too ;), but I've found the end result of that extra work is far more stability than is present on the majority of applications for other platforms, who rely on other development methods!

While I can't speak for others, I tend to value the stability and ease of use of my applications as a consumer over you as you as a developer having to work a little more at doing your job, which I can't help but wonder if that might be the real reason behind a lot of the outcry I hear about lack of choices! ;)

Use the online market link and you can see all applications, and whether they're compatible with your phone or not (if you log in with your Google ID).

It should be noted that one of the reccommended ways for devs to employ LVL DRM is to offload the returned response to the dev's own trusted server. This would require internet access. This is done because LVL is trivial to break alone and trusting the client is always insecure.

Anyways, not to sound too spammy or promotional, but for beginners to Android I've written a guide and app that they can use as a pocket reference for the permissions and something they can give to family/friends who might be less than tech savy.

The guide is posted here: How to be safe, avoid viruses, and find trusted apps -- A guide for those new to Android

And the app is here: PocketPermissions

*Please excuse some of the typos as I'm not the best writer/editor and am in the process of cleaning up the guides now. However it should be a good beginner's guide -- somewhere to start understanding permissions and security before jumping into rooting and ROMs

I never said it forces anything. Follow their tutorial:

http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/hello-world.html

In the end, you'll have an app that requires Storage and Phone Calls permissions.

Obviously the default manifest is not empty.

- Your SD card

Putatively for storage of application data, settings etc.

There are other options for storing application settings and data that does not require access to SD cards. Internal Storage is one. Unless the app needs to save a lot of data, there is no reason to require access to the SD card.

I use Lookout Security (virus scanner + location tracker) for my personal security, and for the paid version it also allows you to see in a compact view what personal information and permissions your apps are using. There are plenty of other free antivirus, firewall and security apps for Android. If you want to root your device (like jailbreaking an iPhone) you may also install firmware which encrypts the entire device automatically (MIUI etc) and allows infinite self modification of the system. When you install an app from the market it will tell you which permissions it needs, and android will stick to that. The only downside is (to my knowledge) you cannot install an app without giving it all the permissions it requires.
As a general rule of thumb, only use trusted sources to install apps from (Android Market) as almost all malicious apps are found in 3rd party markets

Check out the android market and do a few searches for what you need. Google hosts the whole market at http://market.android.com/

FTFY, don't project your inadequacies onto everyone else.

Are you slow? Do I need to draw you a picture? Here, I'll quote myself. Read it out loud if you need to.

I quite clearly refuted that point by point already. Re-quoting yourself just shows that you weren't able to comprehend what I wrote and therefore were unable to rebut it.

Monodroid is not as advanced as the Java kit for android development. That is a monodroid inadequacy.

'advanced' depends on what you're doing with it, and the fact that you can use both together means having mono is advantageous.

You imply that you have mobile development experience. Now, I doubt it. The mere fact of knowing the language does not make you an Android developer, be it C# or Java.

And i never said it did - don't make up rubbish like that - your inability to read and comprehend what was actually written leads you to that conclusion. I said you don't need to bother with those specific aspects if you've already learned them in a compatible framework, and that is absolutely correct. Or do you not understand the concept of code-reuse?

You have to be familiar with the apis, the app lifecycle, the idiosyncracies of the platform. Best practices. All of that and more is documented in excruciating detail at http://www.developer.android.com/ and it assumes java. You don't get that for mono.

Obviously using Mono doesn't mean you don't have to learn some platform-specific aspects, and no-one ever claimed that it did.

Really? And here's more. None of that is available with monodroid.

Those aren't tablet-specific, tablet is a form-factor, just as the 7" Galaxy tab is a tablet and doesn't need those APIs. Moreover if there is something unavailable in mono you can use the existing native implementation, but then that would be clear to you if you'd actually used mono.

Welcome to software development, since you're new here

What's that you were saying about projection?

your willingness to evaluate a platform you've never used and complain about the constraints of modern mobile devices shows what i wrote is correct.

FTFY, don't project your inadequacies onto everyone else.

Are you slow? Do I need to draw you a picture? Here, I'll quote myself. Read it out loud if you need to.

I quite clearly refuted that point by point already. Re-quoting yourself just shows that you weren't able to comprehend what I wrote and therefore were unable to rebut it.

Monodroid is not as advanced as the Java kit for android development. That is a monodroid inadequacy.

'advanced' depends on what you're doing with it, and the fact that you can use both together means having mono is advantageous.

You imply that you have mobile development experience. Now, I doubt it. The mere fact of knowing the language does not make you an Android developer, be it C# or Java.

And i never said it did - don't make up rubbish like that - your inability to read and comprehend what was actually written leads you to that conclusion. I said you don't need to bother with those specific aspects if you've already learned them in a compatible framework, and that is absolutely correct. Or do you not understand the concept of code-reuse?

You have to be familiar with the apis, the app lifecycle, the idiosyncracies of the platform. Best practices. All of that and more is documented in excruciating detail at http://www.developer.android.com/ and it assumes java. You don't get that for mono.

Obviously using Mono doesn't mean you don't have to learn some platform-specific aspects, and no-one ever claimed that it did.

Really? And here's more. None of that is available with monodroid.

Those aren't tablet-specific, tablet is a form-factor, just as the 7" Galaxy tab is a tablet and doesn't need those APIs. Moreover if there is something unavailable in mono you can use the existing native implementation, but then that would be clear to you if you'd actually used mono.

Welcome to software development, since you're new here

What's that you were saying about projection?

your willingness to evaluate a platform you've never used and complain about the constraints of modern mobile devices shows what i wrote is correct.

FTFY, don't project your inadequacies onto everyone else.

Are you slow? Do I need to draw you a picture? Here, I'll quote myself. Read it out loud if you need to.

I quite clearly refuted that point by point already. Re-quoting yourself just shows that you weren't able to comprehend what I wrote and therefore were unable to rebut it.

Monodroid is not as advanced as the Java kit for android development. That is a monodroid inadequacy.

'advanced' depends on what you're doing with it, and the fact that you can use both together means having mono is advantageous.

You imply that you have mobile development experience. Now, I doubt it. The mere fact of knowing the language does not make you an Android developer, be it C# or Java.

And i never said it did - don't make up rubbish like that - your inability to read and comprehend what was actually written leads you to that conclusion. I said you don't need to bother with those specific aspects if you've already learned them in a compatible framework, and that is absolutely correct. Or do you not understand the concept of code-reuse?

You have to be familiar with the apis, the app lifecycle, the idiosyncracies of the platform. Best practices. All of that and more is documented in excruciating detail at http://www.developer.android.com/ and it assumes java. You don't get that for mono.

Obviously using Mono doesn't mean you don't have to learn some platform-specific aspects, and no-one ever claimed that it did.

Really? And here's more. None of that is available with monodroid.

Those aren't tablet-specific, tablet is a form-factor, just as the 7" Galaxy tab is a tablet and doesn't need those APIs. Moreover if there is something unavailable in mono you can use the existing native implementation, but then that would be clear to you if you'd actually used mono.

Welcome to software development, since you're new here

What's that you were saying about projection?

your willingness to evaluate a platform you've never used and complain about the constraints of modern mobile devices shows what i wrote is correct.

FTFY, don't project your inadequacies onto everyone else.

Are you slow? Do I need to draw you a picture? Here, I'll quote myself. Read it out loud if you need to.

First of all, all of the developer documentation is written assuming java and Eclipse so you are hamstrung out of the gate using anything else. Secondly, for RAD, there is no drag and drop gui designer for monodroid, There are no tablet specific api's on monodroid so you are always going to be a step behind other developers. Worst of all, there is a performance penalty so by definition, there are some applications that can be written using java that will be too slow to deploy to users on monodroid.

Monodroid is not as advanced as the Java kit for android development. That is a monodroid inadequacy.

First of all, all of the developer documentation is written assuming java and Eclipse so you are hamstrung out of the gate using anything else.

So if you know C# and have developed functionality already you don't need to learn those java/eclipse aspects, you can leverage existing knowledge.

You imply that you have mobile development experience. Now, I doubt it. The mere fact of knowing the language does not make you an Android developer, be it C# or Java. You have to be familiar with the apis, the app lifecycle, the idiosyncracies of the platform. Best practices. All of that and more is documented in excruciating detail at http://www.developer.android.com/ and it assumes java. You don't get that for mono.

Tablet-specific APIs? What is it you need that you seem incapable of doing with scalable code? or is it that you aren't/can't do scalable code?

Really? And here's more. None of that is available with monodroid.

Welcome to software development, since you're new here

What's that you were saying about projection?