Hello, Android

I finally found the time and the will to play with the Android SDK (software development kit) tonight and, oh my, this is fun!  First of all, I thought my firewall (nasty but free Comodo) was acting up and I keep seeing messages like this in the Eclipse DDMS console, that seem to be scanning various network ports:

[ some_time_stamp - ddms ] Can't bind to local 8600 for debugger 

I included almost all the executable files in the Android SDK tools folder in my firewall's list of allowed applications, to no avail.  Time to search the net.  Soon enough I learned that one has to include the following line in the one's hosts file:

127.0.0.1        localhost

Apparently, the Linux-based Android OS still uses IPv4, and failed to understand this existing line in my hosts file, in IPv6 fashion:

::1        localhost

By the way, on Vista the hosts file is in the folder C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc.

So having fixed that initial problem, I was able to focus on how the Android emulator looks, from phone startup to actually running the application.  Android's Eclipse plugin automatically creates a "Hello World" implementation right after you have created an Android project.  It doesn't do anything, except show a "Hello World" text on the phone.  So anyway, here are some screen shots.

The emulator starts up after running the project in Eclipse.  It shows the text ANDROID with a blinking cursor.

The Android logo comes up.

Then you see a phone with locked display, which you can unlock by pressing the Menu key.

Naturally, some built-in Android applications will try to contact the telephone provider, but since we're not connected to the phone network, the Android OS will try to reclaim their system resources.  Android is rather aggressive in this aspect, in order to ensure a smooth user experience.

After I clicked on "Force Close", I then see the Hello World app.

Of course, it's just a boring application for now.  So let's have a look at the Home view, which we can see by pressing on the phone key with the house icon.

Cool, isn't it?  Clicking on the grey tab, we can see a popup with various applications.

Clicking on the Browser, I get connected to the Google website's mobile version.

Of course, we have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg here.  I'll post later about more exciting things with Android!