• http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/emulator.html
• http://www.opera.com/mini/demo/
• https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/entry.do?code=060AD92489947D410D897474079C1477
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsmobile/default.aspx
• http://developer.palm.com/

With this in mind, this last week or so I have been dipping my toes into the wonderful world of native Android development.I have gone for the setup advised in the SDK documentation, Eclipse with the ADT plugin. Quickly passing over the Hello World app, as a developer its a task  I must complete before doing anything else, I started on my first application. I decided that for my first attempt I would stick to something I know and rebuild a web based tool I help develop for a well known Manchester server hosting company.

Its been a long time since I last did anything in Java so was a little rusty, but after a few lunchtimes and couple of late nights I have managed to cobble together something that resembles and could just about pass for an Android Application.

So what is it you ask, this wonderful app you have been building up (wont shut up about if you follow me on twitter)? Well I can now tell you, its a speedtest. Not for how fast your mobile connects to the internet, I’ll leave that to the guys at speedtest.net, but to test the speed your website can deliver files to your visitors, now I cant provide you with a link to download and install it as its not really finished and as its not an officially sanctioned app, but I can show a couple of screen-shots from the current alpha version.

This is probably as far as this application goes, unless the boss asks me to continue with it, as although its quite basic and there isn’t all that much to it, it has served its purpose and helped me to figure out how an application should work, its activity life-cycle and how to correctly put one together.

The next step is to think of that award winning, must have,  how did we live without it  idea that will make me millionaire… any suggestions?

Opera Mobile 9.7

Last week saw the release of an Opera 10 beta, this week Opera have released a beta of mobile 9.7 (available for win mobile 6.1 only at the minute, a blackberry and android versions are in the works).
What surprised me a little was that we were in the middle of a beta for version 9.5, which has now disappeared with no update off Opera to the beta mailing list. The 9.5 beta hadn’t been updated since early February so it does make a little sense that the updates to the mobile version of Opera would result in a jump in version numbers. I download the update yesterday and i have to agree with Opera, the browsing speed has greatly improved even with their new turbo browsing feature turned off. Apart from the browsing speed I couldn’t tell much difference between 9.5 and 9.7 and the feature list is pretty much identical. One interesting addition in 9.7 is the inclusion of dragonfly (operas answer to firebug) Bug fixing via mobile hasn’t really been on my development check list, more of an after thought, but as more and more people use their mobiles for browsing I think Opera have pulled one out of the bag by including dragonfly with the browser.

Firefox 3.5:developer

Mozilla yesterday released a developer version (post-beta but pre-rc) of Firefox 3.5 to enable us to do some final testing before they push out the release candidate of 3.5.  As mentioned several time in the past, 3.5 brings a whole host of new features: html 5 entities, improved css, and not forgetting the almost mythical @font-face rule. All developers should digest the feature list soon as possible. The RC is expected to be released within the next week or two and a push to general release couple of weeks later. Download the latest release from the beta channel.

Safari 4

Apple also stuck their finger in the browser release pie by announcing an end of the Safari 4 beta at their Worldwide Developers Conference. Safari 4 also includes more  support for html5 and css3 entities and its own version of PORN private browsing mode.  You can download Safari 4 direct from the safari homepage or read more about “whats in” safari on the new features page, although not much it seems…

Google Chrome

It wouldnt be fair to not  mention  an update for Google Chrome while Im talking about browser updates. While their hasnt been all that much pumping out of the developer channel for chrome recently there has been some good news for linux and mac fans. Early developer builds of chrome are now available for both platforms but developers have urged your to NOT download them, unless of course you enjoy potential crashes and an incomplete browser. Might be worth a dabble tho…