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But first, time for course evals

I’m planning to make Android a regularly-offered course.

I know it still has some rough edges, particularly in Endpoints authentication

One idea is to give students a choice of self-directed labs for week 9.

Here’s what will help me most:

What about the course or instructor helped your learning?

What about the course or instructor hindered your learning?

(Please be specific on each)

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Why post your app to Google Play?

Exposure!

1.5 B downloads per month
25 B downloads total
400 M devices in 130 countries

Money?

Paid apps
Advertising
"Pro" versions
Maybe ... but don't quit your day job

http://developer.android.com/distribute/googleplay/about/visibility.html

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What do you need to register as a developer?

How do you get to see this screen?

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What do you need to register as a developer?

$25 one-time fee

Compare to iOS fees
I paid this over 2 years ago in hopes that I'd someday publish
I logged back in a year ago seamlessly (I was worried!)

Google account

A merchant account if you want to charge money

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One other thing you need is time...

The publishing checklist is very long

It took forever to make icons and images

When you consider it going live, the bar is raised

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My new friend: the Android Asset Studio

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One other thing you need is time...

You also need to sign and zipalign your app

I eventually gave up on a few things:

Testing for tablets (I'm betting this will bite me even though I think that people won't use their tablets in the grocery store)
StrictMode testing (but my app is pretty responsive)

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This cost me a night's sleep

Actually, 14 hours work spread over 3 days

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Why all night?

The ActionBarSherlock compatibility library crashed on ICS whenever I launched a certain dialog, which
...required an upgrade
...which didn't go so well
...the upgraded version didn't force menus to overflow
...so I needed to make more icons for items that didn't need them before
... it didn't look good in ICS using the holo theme, so I switched to holo light
... which required all new icons
... and even some minor tweaks to layouts to get dividers

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The moral of the story?

Test on different platforms. Really. Even on small programs.

Mine is only:

15 XML layouts

4 XML menus

18 controller + 5 database + 2 model = 25 Java classes

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Let's browse the distribution area...

http://developer.android.com/distribute/index.html

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Good news: my average rating can only go up!

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Next steps for me

Update to later versions - use native ActionBar
Build a web backend and client and sync across devices

SQLite is moderately hard
Endpoints with authentication is moderately hard
Putting them together is exponentially harder

Of course, there are many app ideas competing for my time …

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Next steps for you

Finish the term project

Finish and submit your app (required)

Present your app (required)

Document your novel stuff in a tutorial (required)

Polish your app (optional)

Publish your app (optional)

Study for the final exam

Paper part: concepts from the entire course

Computer part:

SQLite?

Adapters?

Endpoints client? (no authentication)