Just leaving a quick update.

I'm hoping to release a significant update for my AndroidPhidget app. This will give access to ALL its digital inputs,outputs and sensors. Currently working on how to best layout the user interface to accommodate all the controls! Then I'll be working on an up-to-date Phidget library...

Just a heads-up:

We are working on a official Phidgets Android library internally. We have it working perfectly for network-attached Phidgets. This will be released as a native library which you just need to stick into a libs folder in your project. You then just use the same phidget21.jar that we already use for Java support. Eclipse handles dealing with the native library automatically, so it's actually very easy to work with.

We're also working on USB host support. We have a Asus eee tab transformer, which has two USB ports on the keyboard dock, and we have directly-connected Phidgets working. We just need to formalize the host support. Host support will be available for Tablets running 3.1 or higher. Most tablets seem to either have a USB port, or the option of one via an adapter, so this should work out quite well.

Once we have documentation and examples ready, we'll be releasing the library.

-Patrick

Patrick,

Will you also be releasing the source code for users to build with the Android NDK? And any hint of time-until-release?

Rob

I suppose we could release the source - but I'm not sure what the point would be, as it will just produce the exact same library as we'll be distributing - libphidget21.so.

Releasing the library compiled rather then as source means that our users don't need to download and configure the ndk - a task which is easy on Mac/Linux, and more challenging on Windows because it requires Cygwin.

At any rate - what do you think the advantage would be for including the source?

-Patrick

Patrick,

The only thing that crossed my mind (and I'm not 100% sure it needs to be considered) is the major difference between Android 2.X and 3.X and that is (limited) usb support in 3.x whereas there is none in earlier versions. Because of this I just wondered if there might be compatibility issues if you release one library for all versions. If there were (and I stress 'if') issues then releasing source would allow users to build for their version of Android.

As I have only worked with Android 2.x and also no need for USB connection I haven't had to worry about this, and of course even if this is an issue i.e. I might be thinking of a problem that doesn't actually exist...

The USB host support will need to be written in Java and accesses by the native library via JNI, as the NDK is only at API level 9 and USB support is at level 12.

I'll probably implement this as an extra .jar for users that want to use USB host, or maybe an alternate phidget21.jar.

The native library itself will work on any android device > 1.5.

-Patrick

I've Just published version 1.0.5 of my app to the Android Market. It now provides access to all the digital inputs, outputs and sensors of the 8/8/8 Interface Kit with (I hope) a much better user interface.

There is still some room for improvement on the sensor UI as I have some difficulty in laying out the sensor indicators in a neat way, hence the used of 'Galleries' to flip between dials. I'm not particularly 'overwhelmed' by this solution having initially thought the use of 'Galleries' would provide an excellent way of presenting sensor data so work on this area continues...

Many thanks to those of you who have submitted crash reports. This is an excellent mechanism to provide valuable bug information to developers though only available on Android >= 2.2. So far I've only had a handful (is that good or bad?) but do submit them if you are given the opportunity.

As there seems to be an official Phidgets library for Android release imminent I do not now intend to compile the latest version myself. I think you can all appreciate that would be pointless now. With my own humble efforts I like to think I highlighted just what an excellent platform Android is and it brought forward the release of the official Android library. I don't think Phidgets as a company will regret diverting resources to Android. It is as we all 'droid users know far superior to Apple iPhone OS..

Yes, I would definitely say that you pushed us into going towards an official library. It's been on our list for a while, but we are always so busy doing things.

I'd imagine that you could just drop our library into your codebase - it's probably exactly the same as your anyways - but Phidgets is probably better equipped for releasing updates synchronously with our other libraries/platforms.

-Patrick

So, When are we expecting Android library release ?

Hi Patrick,
Can you please tell when you are planning to release android library for Phidgets 1056 sensors ? I am looking forward for this.

-Gang

I'm not sure when the release will be ready. It depends if we decide to release a webservice-only version before USB Host support is ready.

-Patrick

So if I build an AIR app that uses phidgets, will I be able to deploy this to an Android device i.e. iconia a500, with honeycomb 3.2 and just be able to plug in my phidget into my tablet? If so. AMAZING. and when can I get my hands on a beta?

thank you.

Joshua

Probably not a AIR app - that's based on Flash right? The Android API will be for Java apps - and on 3.2+ we'll support USB Host.

I'm working on the API right now, hope to have something out by the end of the month.

-Patrick

I'm looking forward to the official Android library release. I will literally be able to drop it into my Java programs!

Official Android support is live.

-Patrick