Development… Or Something Like it

Tagged: Android RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Faisal Abid 6:54 pm on January 29, 2012 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, AndSpot ( 6 ), best games, design patterns, game center, immersive experience, MatchFuel, Startup   

  Android apps don’t have to look the same 

  For the past few months I’ve been extremely busy in giving life to MatchFuel, Android’s Game Center.

  When we started MatchFuel, we laid down some ground rules that spawned from the experiences we had with AndSpot.

  1. It must not look like a traditional Android app.

  2. It must follow (if possible) all of the Android design patterns, and change a pattern only where absolutely needed.

  3. It must be easy to use; fast, stable and lastly, an immersive experience.

  As you can tell, 2 of the 3 main rules we followed were design-based. Users expect a great UX today, gone are the times where you can have a “crap” ui and yet leave a good impression (there are however exceptions such as news readers and other apps which are very content focused rather then being app focused).

  With that in mind, we gave birth to MatchFuel, which in my opinion (putting aside my biases for developing the entire thing single handedly) is Androids most slickest application to date. The app is available as a beta on the Android Market ( http://market.android.com/details/id?=com.matchfuel.platform ) and is a very easy way to find the best games on the Android Market.

  One thing that I feel that we have proven, is that Android Apps can look as good or even better than their iPhone competitor.

  

  

  

  
  

  

  
  
   

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  Faisal Abid 12:13 am on August 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, AndSpot ( 6 ), FITC ( 2 )   

  Meet AndSpot at FITC Mobile 2010. Discount Code For FITC Mobile 

  AndSpot Co-Founders, myself and Ash will be at FITC Mobile 2010. You can meet up with us and share the AndSpot and Android Love.

  I will be talking about Advanced Android Development so be sure to catch that talk.

  FITC Mobile 2010 Discount Code: thiswillbegood SAVE $50
   
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  Faisal Abid 12:44 am on July 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, AndSpot ( 6 ), FITC ( 2 ), Uncategorized ( 7 )   

  Advanced Android at FITC Mobile 2010 

  I will be speaking at FITC 2010 on AndSpot and Advanced Android development. Learn about the coolest android tricks!

  http://www.fitc.ca/events/presentations/presentation.cfm?event=109&presentation_id=1315

  
   
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  Faisal Abid 4:42 pm on June 16, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, Deacon, Meteor   

  Deacon Project, Push Notifications for Android 

  I’ve been privileged to be one of the first contributors to the Deacon project (http://deacon.daverea.com/), a project started by my friend Dave Rea. Essentially Deacon in a nutshell is a way to do push notifications on the Android with ease. Its free and open source and works on all versions of Android.

  On the server side , Deacon needs the wicked fast Meteor web server to do its realtime processing. This web server is truly phenomenal, i think its the smallest web server in the world and its just amazing. (http://meteorserver.org/).

  What are you waiting for? Go try out Deacon and Meteor and let me know what you thought!
   
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  Faisal Abid 2:28 am on June 14, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, AndSpot ( 6 ), Jobs   

  AndSpot Is Hiring 

  AndSpot is looking for talented developers who are willing to take on the crazy challenges Andspot offers. If you are a Web,ColdFusion, Flex, or Android Developer or your a cool graphic designer then you can email the resume to me at faisal@andspot.com.
   
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  Faisal Abid 9:05 pm on June 11, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, AndSpot ( 6 )   

  AndSpot featured on wired.com

  http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/independent-app-stores-take-on-googles-android-market/
   
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  Faisal Abid 6:40 pm on March 2, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Android, Tips, Tutorials   

  quick android tip: Working with ListView headers 

  You might have seen apps such as Youtube have a gallery just before their listview component starts and you quickly realize that once you start to scroll this listview the gallery component in fact is a row from the list.

  To achieve this functionality all you have to do is first create the header view layout under res/layout . This layout can have whatever you want to put in it, from buttons to galleries, anything your application requires. Now here is where it gets tricky, you simply cannot do

  View header = findViewById(R.layout.headerView);
  lst.addHeaderView(header);

  this will NOT work because the view which is being passed in has to be inflated. In a nutshell when you do setContentView at the beginning of your activity the android framework automatically inflates the view and puts it to use. In order to inflate your header view, all you have to do is

  View header = (View)getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.headerView,null);
  ls.addHeaderView(header);

  lastly, add your adapter after you’ve set the header view and run the application. You should see your header view with the content you put into your adapter.

  Gus is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Gus 7:32 pm on March 8, 2011 Permalink | Reply

    Excelent!!! thanks!!!