Category Archives: Android Development Tutorial

Android Development Tutorial

The Final Four

April 12, 2014 Derek Banas 48 Comments

It was very hard for me to make a decision on who should win the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear smart watch. I have narrowed my decision down to the four below. The decision was based on the votes here, the quality of the work and the complexity of the work. The winner will be contacted tomorrow.

Thank you very much for all of the amazing art that was submitted! There is still an opportunity to win 4 Samsung Note 3s though in the up coming contests. The next part of the contest will be based on video submissions. Continue reading The Final Four →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 20

April 7, 2014 Derek Banas 14 Comments

In this video I will finish the Android Contact App I started in the last video. The goal of this tutorial is to keep everything simple, but to teach numerous things.

I’ll show you how to create lists of contacts, which will contain a list of information on each contact. Will save these contacts to a database online. We’ll also be able to edit it from multiple screens. After this video you’ll be able to create lists of contacts, edit contacts and delete them, with everything stored online. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 20 →

Android Development Tutorial

Who Should Win?

April 6, 2014 Derek Banas 85 Comments

I am holding an art contest in which the winner gets a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and a Galaxy Gear smart watch. The contest is still open until April 11th, 2014 if anyone still wants to enter.

Below I have all of the entries so far. I’m very interested in who you guys think should win. Please leave your vote below. I’d love for the community to participate in deciding the winner. Continue reading Who Should Win? →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 19

April 5, 2014 Derek Banas 6 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor tutorial I will answer a bunch of questions. I’ll cover how to plan an application so that you can cut down on errors and have no problem with the blocks.

I will also show how to make a Android contacts app that store lists of people. You’ll also store that information in a TinyWebDB. We will then be able to update lists of lists on other screens. All the blocks are after the video below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 19 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 18

April 1, 2014 Derek Banas 14 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor video tutorial I will provide an App Inventor Texting Example. I have been asked for the easiest way to make a texting app and this is it.

The app will allow you to send texts, receive texts, and also send out an alert to the sender if you are busy. I decided to make this app right out of my head to help those people that have questions about the thought process during programming. All of the blocks used can be found below after the video. Here is the finished app if you want it. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 18 →

Android Development Tutorial

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Giveaway 1

March 29, 2014 Derek Banas 178 Comments

The first winner has been announced, but the competition is far from being over. I still have 5 more Samsung Galaxy Note 3s to give away with a few Galaxy Gear smart watches.

To get an opportunity to win the next, you have between now and April the 11th to enter. What I’m looking for is for you to submit artwork that in some way incorporates either a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 or a Galaxy Gear smart watch. The full rules can be found below. Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Giveaway 1 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 17

March 25, 2014 Derek Banas 8 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor tutorial, I will provide an App Inventor TinyWebDB Example. This one should be fun. We’ll be making a chat application that I call IncognitoEx. It will allow you to chat with anyone who also has the app. Here is the APK if you want to try it out.

It allows you to send and receive messages. You can find the messages here You can even make your own TinyWebDB web service by following the directions here Creating a Custom TinyWebDB Service. All of the blocks can be found after the video below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 17 →

Android Development Tutorial

Samsung Giveaway

March 25, 2014 Derek Banas 195 Comments

It is time to start the first Samsung giveaway! Over the next few weeks I will be giving away both a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and a Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch. I’m going to structure these contests so that who ever puts in the most effort has the best chance to win $898 worth of prizes.

The first part of the contest will be based around you properly answering questions from an interview I recently had. You must submit your answers by March 27, 2014. I want to thank the Samsung Developers Network and the Samsung Smart App Challenge for donating these wonderful devices. Continue reading Samsung Giveaway →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 16

March 23, 2014 Derek Banas 16 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor tutorial I show how to do something that has been requested many times. I’ll show how to share a database between multiple screens with App Inventor.

One of you asked me to keep this very simple and so I will. I’ll show how to add, update and remove data from a database from multiple screens. All of the blocks used follow the video below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 16 →

Android Development Tutorial

Ask an App Developer Anything

March 20, 2014 Derek Banas 10 Comments

In this video I had the privilege of allowing my community to ask an app developer anything. I spoke with Eugeny Krouglov of MaxNick.com. They won the Samsung Smart App Challenge. They have developed 9 apps that are on both the Google Play and Apple App Store. Their apps have been downloaded millions of times.

Their list of games include Sword Vs. Sword, Spider Jack, Dots Out, Curling 3D and many more. Continue reading Ask an App Developer Anything →

Android Development Tutorial

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Giveaway

March 17, 2014 Derek Banas 21 Comments

I’m happy to announce that I will be giving away 6 Samsung Galaxy Note 3s with 6 Samsung Galaxy Gear watches! Each are valued at a retail price of $898 for a total of $5,388 in prizes.

On top of offering great prizes I’ll also be doing a live interview with the app developer that won the Samsung Smart App Challenge for 2013. I’ll be interviewing the head of marketing at MaxNick.com LLC this Thursday at 11 AM (EST) Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Giveaway →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 15

March 16, 2014 Derek Banas 2 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor tutorial I will create an Android contact app. Through making this app I will cover most everything about using Lists, List Pickers, TinyDB, TinyWebDB, Fusion Tables, and Texting. I start off simply here by focusing on creating Lists through an interface.

The design used as well as all the blocks can be found below the video. Feel free to leave requests for anything else you’d like to see. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 15 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 14

March 9, 2014 Derek Banas 6 Comments

In this video I completely finish the Android weather app. I show how to make App Inventor wait for an operation to complete before proceeding. We also will allow the user to pull up latitude and longitude data when they enter their city and state. We use that data to pull current weather data. We teach are app to speak the weather to us. We look at many ways to manipulate text.

I have the finished app here. All the blocks are available below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 14 →

Android Development Tutorial

Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013 Winners

March 6, 2014 Derek Banas 2 Comments

A few days ago I did a video on the winner of the Samsung Smart App Challenge. Since everyone seemed to like it I decided to cover the other 9 winners in just one 9 minute video.

The winning apps are available for download here. I also did a tutorial on the Samsung Mobile SDK if you want to learn about that. Continue reading Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013 Winners →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 13

March 4, 2014 Derek Banas 4 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor video tutorial I pretty much finish the Android Weather app. I cover how to create a dynamic interface, pull data from a web service, work with colors and cover logic in App Inventor. This is basically a large review of everything I have covered while making my Android Weather app in App Inventor here.

All of the settings for the Design View and all the blocks used follow the video below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 13 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 12

February 27, 2014 Derek Banas 8 Comments

In this video I’ll focus on creating App Inventor interfaces. I’ll take the vector art I made in the last tutorial and convert it into a App Inventor interface.

I create regular non-App Inventor interfaces in pretty much exactly the same way. Here is the original vector art I created. Here is the finished transparent PNGs I made in this video. The component information follows the video. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 12 →

Android Development Tutorial

Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013

February 25, 2014 Derek Banas Leave a comment

Last year I did a big promotion for the Samsung Smart App challenge, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at who won and why they won. The main goal of those developers that participated was to develop apps specifically for the S4 device, but also to incorporate the Samsung Chord capabilities into those apps.

I am going to get the opportunity to ask one of the developers questions. Leave the questions you want me to ask below. Continue reading Samsung Smart App Challenge 2013 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 11

February 22, 2014 Derek Banas 12 Comments

In this part of my App Inventor tutorial I will start covering Android interface design. I want the weather app we have been creating in parts 9 and 10 of this series to look very nice.

Here I’ll show you how I created the layout and I’ll also walk you through the techniques needed to draw all of your icons in Inkscape. The vector art is available here. Here is an Inkscape video tutorial if you’d like to learn more. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 11 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 10

February 17, 2014 Derek Banas 10 Comments

In this tutorial I’ll walk you step-by-step through the process of using App Inventor to Parse JSON data. You have to watch the last tutorial to understand this one.

I’ll pull JSON weather data from Weather.gov and show how App Inventor organizes that data. I’ll then pull in specific data that we will use to create our Android weather app. I’ll also show you how to add padding to components in App Inventor. All of the blocks used can be found after the video below. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 10 →

Android Development Tutorial

Android Development for Beginners 9

February 15, 2014 Derek Banas 23 Comments

This is the first video in a series in which we will make a professional weather app for Android. In this video I will show how to parse JSON Data with App Inventor. I also cover the App Inventor Web component, using Location Sensor, converting JSON data into an App Inventor List and much more.

I pull all the weather data from weather.gov. If you want international weather data I’d use the JSON feed from the Weather Underground. All of the blocks follow the video. Continue reading Android Development for Beginners 9 →