Questions about Android

**Guido** · 08-10-2008, 04:23 PM

Hello everyone,

As part of my graduation project I am looking into Android to see if it'd be interesting for the company I work for to develop a location-based application in Android.

I have read up on Android on some sites and already have a lot of information. But there are still a feel things I haven't found an answer to. I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone could help me with this.

I'd like to know if Android is capable of doing the following:

Is it possible to connect from your phone(Android) to a online server/website and send/recieve data (text, images, stream videos)?
Is it possible to build a interface in Android which could easily by customised by someone who can't program in Android? Like a template system in which one could specify which content blocks would appear where on the screen. And which we could easily 'style' in a seperate file. Much like a HTML and CSS file, if you understand what I mean.
If this is possible, could anyone give me a simple rundown on how this'd work?
Is it possible to 'lock' a Phone when a certain application is running? Meaning that the user cannot exit that program. I'm asking this because we're looking into renting out Android phones with our software on it. But we don't want users to exit the software and do other stuff with the phone (like calling, using the internet, et cetera).
Is it possible to play video and Adobe Flash files in Android?
Will a Android application work on all Android phones? Or do we have to make seperate versions of the application for some phone models?
Is it possible to use custom maps instead of Google Maps in the MapView? How would this work? I know Google Maps does support this, but I don't know how to implend it in Android, or if it is even possible?
Is it possible to rotate a map corresponding the way a user is walking? (like TomTom Navigator does)

That's it. Thanks in advance for your help!

Kind regards,

Guido Kessels

**ewdi** · 08-22-2008, 06:51 PM

Android itself is a software stack (or what you can call os platform). Those functions such as connecting to the internet is there dependping on your handset's capability and connection.

API is as close as it is to the easy way of developing android application, java language programming knowledge is required. And you should learn as you dive into the api, always take the chance to learn

and lastly RTFM

**ewdi** · 08-22-2008, 10:51 PM

RTFM = Read The Fine Manual

Open Source devs does fine code, but also manual

**ewdi** · 08-23-2008, 07:31 AM

those who are interested in learning. People gets lazy and open source project documentations are like bible to learning path

the docs are the to help you started, unlike gadget you can just dive in, development docs are VERY VERY important startup guide