The
metal design adds significantly to the premium look of a smartphone and
strengthens the signal receiving capabilities of the device. But the
drool worthy looks apparently come at a price that is sometimes too hot
to handle, according to an expert.
"The use of metal in
smartphone designs ensures that heat generated by the phone's internals
is dispersed quickly. Though metal dispels heat faster, it also means
that the user may experience the metal body to be hotter than a plastic
or polycarbonate body," said Satwik Rath, product expert at Chinese
smartphone maker LeEco.
He added that a little heat from an
all-metal smartphone is normal. "The perceived temperature of a metal is
higher than plastic at the same surface temperatures. Though the
device's body might feel warmer to the touch during heavy usage, it's
important to note that this is normal and the device is functioning as
it is designed to perform," Rath noted.
So, what steps you need to take to keep your device cool and ensure long life for the battery.
According to the LeEco expert, given the complex design of smartphones
with processors, memory, battery, etc, and the fact that people use them
for multi-tasking, each of these components is often utilized to the
near maximum capacity.
But unlike laptops or personal computers
which have dedicated fans or cooling systems, there is not much room
left for ventilation in smartphones and this might lead to some amount
of additional heat being generated in the process.
Excessive
gaming and apps usage may also lead to the heating problem. "While
constantly playing games with heavy graphics, we put too much stress on
the 'mother board' of the smartphone and it pushes electronic inputs at a
much faster rate. Playing a game requires a lot of resources from the
phone and it represents the most obvious cause for overheating," Rath
said.
Also apps that use the phones processor and battery quite
a lot can cause it to heat up fast - GPS for mapping, high screen
brightness, and fast browsing can increase the temperature very quickly.
Video streaming and internet browsing use lots of data
processing power, which equates to more work for a smartphone's
processor. While these functions are staples of smartphone usage,
abusing them can also lead to overheating.
Metal body is good
in a way that it aids in dispersing heat generated by the processor and
internals which it's plastic counterparts fail to do to some extent. But
for a metallic device it can prove to be both a boon and a bane, as the
device itself may get too hot to handle due to overheating processors.
"If you feel your phone is overheating, you can try taking the back
case off. Taking the case off will allow the phone cool down quicker,"
Rath said.
Do
you feel embarrassed at your foul-smelling body odour? Hold on as skin
care products company Nivea Men has developed a smartphone app called
"NOSE" that quickly senses and tells you about the body odour so you can
avoid meeting your girlfriend.
"Basically, men usually have no
idea when they smell awful. The other part of the problem is that our
nose is so used to our own body odour that we cannot smell our own
sweat," adweek.com tech website cited Nivea Men's explanation.
NOSE, developed with the support of creative connectivity agency
Happiness FCB, works in conjunction with special sensors on a custom
phone cover, to determine if you smell okay, bad, or have a body odour
emergency on your hands, the report said.
The beta-version of NOSE was just demonstrated in Belgium recently and it would be further tested throughout the year.
The app would then be launched during the next phase on Apple's iOS and Android platforms. A consumer version would be released later.
I have some
background in coding, but I've never touched Android development
before. I'd like to get started, but I'm not entirely sure what I need. I
don't need to "learn to code" per se, but I could use some guidance on
where to start with Android. Can you help?
As you're probably aware, writing apps for
Android is more than just learning code syntax. If you've never learned
to code, you can check out plenty of resources here.
However, there are still a whole host of tools and resources you might
not be familiar with that you may need to make Android apps.
Note: this is not meant to be a comprehensive guide on every detail
of these applications and resources. In fact, such a guide could more
accurately be described as a book. However, we will give you an overview
of the different tools you can use and where to find more information. These tools require varying levels of experience
and if you've never touched code before, you might want to check out
our guides linked above. first However if you're ready to move from
theory and syntax to actual development, here's what you'll need.
The Android Software Development Kit (or SDK)
The Android Software Development Kit (SDK) is actually a collection
of tools that will help you make Android apps. There's more outside the
SDK that we'll discuss, but here are some of the most helpful tools in
the SDK:
Eclipse/Android Studio
There are two primary integrated development environments (IDE) for
Android. An IDE is the main program where you'll write code and put your
app together. It can help you organize and edit the various files in
your app, manage the packages and supporting libraries you app will
need, and test it out on real devices or emulators.
The default IDE for Android is Eclipse. Eclipse allows you to modify
Java and XML files and organize the various pieces of your application,
among many other tasks. The version you get from Google also includes a
package manager that allows you to update to the latest version of
Android tools as soon as Google releases them.
The main alternative is Android Studio, which is currently being made
directly by Google. Like many Google projects, Android Studio is part
of a prolonged beta. The long-term intention is for Android Studio to
replace Eclipse as the primary IDE for Android development. That doesn't
necessarily mean it's for everyone. For example, if you need to make
use of the Native Development Kit for apps like games (hint: if you need
it, you probably already know you need it), Eclipse is mandatory.
However, Android Studio is a good option if you want to get a jump start
on the future, and you're willing to tolerate some possible bugs.
No matter which IDE you choose, using it is a bit like Photoshop: it
can do a ton of cool things, but you'll probably only learn the
individual tools as you need them. However, this is also a good place to
get started on some of the basics of Android development. Here are some
great tutorials and resources to get you started:
Udacity - Developing Android Apps:
This 8-week online class has a good amount of free elements, taught
directly by Google engineers. The course won't just copy-paste code, but
it will help you learn some of the core concepts and features you'll
need.
Android Developer Training: Part
of Google's documentation includes training tutorials on how to use its
tools. These documents will walk you through basic features of the IDE.
If you don't have much experience developing applications, this might
not turn you into a master dev, but it will help you learn the tools.
Vogella:
It's worth mentioning Vogella tutorials in just about every section
here. This massive set of tutorials covers just about everything you
could cover. If you have a basic question not covered above, check
Vogella.
ADB
We've talked about ADB before from a regular user perspective,
but the tool's primary purpose is actually to aid in mobile App development. As
such, it's included in the Android SDK. You can use this to load
software or make changes to your devices when it's plugged into your
computer. Here are some of the basic tools you can use with ADB, but if you want to learn more as a developer, check these out:
ADB Documentation: This is the primary resource from Google on what ADB is and how it works. You can find most of what ADB is capable of here.
Vogella - Using the Android Debug Bridge: Another
Vogella tutorial, this one covers the basics of how ADB works and some
of the common things you can do with it. If you don't want to dig
through Google's documentation for the one command you need, this might
be a good place to start.
Android Developer Guidelines
We've already linked to a couple of resources from the official Android Developer Guidelines
so far, which only proves how useful they are. Google maintains a vast,
extensive collection of documentation and resources for how to program
your apps that you can reference or search through.
If you're brand new to Android development, it can't hurt to browse
through some of the tutorials and guides here. They're laid out in such a
way that one lends into another (see the Android Developer Training
above). Here are some sections that are worth brushing up on if you're
getting started:
Google Services: We've talked about Google Play Services
before, but here's where you get to see what's going on under the hood.
Google offers a wide variety of features that you might otherwise have
to build out yourself like map and location features, cloud backups,
sign-in services and more. You can check them all out here.
API Guides:
Google services are set apart from the regular APIs, which you can also
read about here. These range from code to create basic animations, to
reading sensors and connecting to the internet. There's tons of info
here to add functionality to your app.
Sample Code: Sometimes
it helps to see how someone else did it before you. This section shows
you samples of code for various functions. This can help you see how
something works, or just use it in your app so you don't have to
reinvent the wheel.
Android Design Guidelines
The counterpart to the developer guidelines is the Design Guidelines.
Google is focusing increasingly on teaching its developers how to make
apps that not only work well but look good. As such, that means a lot of
the work has been done for you to cover the basics like buttons, simple
animations, and whatnot.
The place to go to get more info on this is the Android Design Guidelines,
which are a second major subsection of Google's official documentation.
Keep in mind that these are here for people who may not have a great
grasp on visual design as it relates to creating application interfaces.
In other words, if you already know what your app is going to look
like, you might not need this. If you already know what you're app looks
like but you're not good at making apps look good, check this out.
Here are a list of some the helpful areas to start:
Devices: Android
targets more than just phones. This section will help you learn how
phones, tablets, TVs, and watches all relate and how you can design an
interface that adapts to all of them.
Patterns: Android
is built on structured interfaces. This section teaches the building
blocks of how apps work so you can design the framework that you'll be
building your design on top of.
Material Design Documentation: This
is technically a separate section for now, but Google's newest version
of Android will introduce a new type of design language called Material
Design. Here you can peruse what that means and how to think about
designing apps that fit these guidelines. It's also helpful if you're
not experienced with thinking about how users interact with apps, even
if you don't follow the specific recommendations.
GitHub/BitBucket
While you're developing an app, there are a lot of files to manage
and you'll need a way to track changes. Git is one of the most commonly
used protocols to manage new versions or changes to existing software.
Necessarily, it's a little more complicated than a basic backup tool.
It's flexible enough to allow you to manage multiple different branches
of your app as well as pull from older versions if something goes wrong.
Two of the most common services for managing projects with Git are
Github and Bitbucket. Both use the same underlying protocol and can be
integrated directly into either Eclipse or Android Studio. BitBucket
allows you to have some private repositories (read: storage for
projects) without paying money, while GitHub's free offerings require
them to be publicly listed unless you pay a little extra. Here are some
resources that can help you get started with Git:
BitBucket Tutorials:
Atlassian, the maker of BitBucket, have a series of guides on how to
get started with BitBucket and import your projects here. In my personal
experience setting up both BitBucket and GitHub, this service and these
guides were much easier for the uninitiated to get started with.
GitHub Guides: GitHub
similarly has some tutorials on how to set up its service that you can
find here. Some of the guides refer to older versions of the software in
some cases, but generally you should be able to get up and running with
these.
Vogella Git Tutorial:
Vogella has yet another great tutorial here explaining what Git itself
is and how it can help you manage your entire project. While version
management is Git's primary function, there's a lot more here that
Vogella can walk you through.
Developing for Android is far more than just putting Java in a text
editor. If you have a little bit of experience with writing code but
haven't dived head first into actual app development yet, there's a lot
you may not be aware you need to know just yet. The good news is, you're
not the first person to go down this road. These are just some of the
tools you need and hopefully these guides will put you on the right
path.
