Direct Link To HoneyGram In The Android Market

I’ve been meaning to learn all of the new Android 3.0(Honeycomb) APIs but due to the emulator being excrutiatingly slow(understandable as it is emulating an actual system image, unlike the iPad simulator that is basically just running an OS X app in an iPad shaped window), and not wanting to shell out money for a data plan, I have had to wait to get my hands on a Xoom Wifi.

For my first Honeycomb application I wanted to create an app that took advantage of the form factor, processing power, and faster network connection of the device. I also wanted something that could exercise all of the new APIs and UI widgets that are included in Honeycomb. I had been dabbling with the Instagram API and figured an image browser would take advantage of all of these features.

Popular images

The application allows everyone to view the popular feed on instagram, as well as query images nearby your location, and search through tagged images. If you have an Instagram account the fun really begins. Authenticated users can view their friend feed, their own pictures, favorite images, comment on images, and follow/unfollow other users.

The Instagram API uses OAuth 2.0 which was a snap to implement compared to OAuth 1.x! It also has a rate limit on how many queries can be made per key(users that are not logged in all share the same key, which can cause problems if the app gets popular). I created a simple app using App Engine that uses the memcache API to cache query results for a period of time.

Nearby Images

As for building the app itself, Honeycomb provides a nice default theme and widget set up that makes building your app quick and good looking right out of the box. Setting up a tabbed application with menu actions and subsections is a snap using the ActionBar. I decided to use fragments as much as possible as it seemed like the most difficult new API to grasp. After some trouble with Activity/Fragment lifecycles I got the hang of things and found it to be an incredibly powerful new set of tools. I found Fragments to be a mixture of an activities, views, and services. The activity portion is because of the various lifecycle methods and considerations. Views because much of the fragment lifecycle involves view creation/modification. Services because you have to go through the FragmentManager to manipulate fragments. You should never try to interact with a fragment through something like an instance/class variable.

Image Detail

One of my favorite features is the Image AppWidget. It uses the new StackView widget that provides a really nice looking and animated “stack” of views that automatically scroll and also let the user interact with through touching and dragging. HoneyGram lets you add an Image widget for popular, friend, self, and tag feeds. I also found that you could use the StackView in normal application layouts, although I plan on developing some other ways to visualize images.

AppWidget Dashboard Overkill!

Another feature I am proud of is the “interactive” surface view. This view uses OpenGL ES to present any set of images in a randomly generated “pile.” The user can then use multitouch to move, rotate, bring to top, and hide any of the images. Users can then save their work in the Gallery as well as share the image through any app on Android that allows image sharing.

Interactive Surface

Instructions

Uptake?

Overall I had a really positive experience developing this application, but there are some issues with the Android Market that are preventing this app from reaching its target audience(people that own Android tablets).

The biggest issue is that there is no way to filter applications that are designed specifically for Honeycomb from within the Android Market application. The only Tablet specific applications are in the “Featured Tablet Applications” list and that only contains 30 or so applications(most of which are just games that have been tweaked to work on the larger screen). When you view other application categories it gives you a list of all the available Android applications in that category. Anyone who has released an application on the Android Market knows that the “Just In” section of any category cycles so quickly it is practically impossible for anyone to see your application in that list.

Now I can understand that there simply aren’t enough Honeycomb specific applications to warrant a “Recent Tablet Applications” section but it is still difficult to find any outside of the featured apps. Tablet applications will also never be able to be in the Top Paid/Free Applications sections because they will never get enough sales/downloads as their phone counterparts.

Another big issue is that users cannot directly rate or review applications through the Honeycomb version of the Android Market. I admit I spent a good amount of time mindlessly tapping each part of my application description trying to find the right widget to rate and review. It turns out you can leave a review and rating(but not just a rating) through the web interface for the Android Market

 

I am still really excited about Honeycomb and designing and developing applications for Android tablets, but I am going to hold off on releasing any new applications until a) there are more devices in circulation and b) the Android Market improves its tablet sections

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