Android topic requests?

After all that, how about a project that would kinda recreate a smaller version of something like instagram ?

Creating a simple chat application.

Just something that would contain creating a useraccount, and interacting with another device in some way.. (push notification on message recived e.e)

It could be a little far out there. But with the content you are going to provide here - your basicly aiming your users to get ready for some more advanced stuff ! :)

In order of preference:

GCM (@Christer's chat request) and SQLLite would be nice refreshers. Can't wait to do the JSON topic that recently was released. Photo/Video sounds pretty cool (images are a pretty difficult concept to understand in Android IMO). Advanced layouts sounds interesting enough. Don't care too much about GPS/Location services.

Can you expand more on what "Services" and "Content Providers" would actually teach?

I would vote for testing and layout.

• Testing because it's an accelerator (once it's in place you dev faster).
• Layout because it's one of the harder things in android.

I think Services and Content Providers would be good areas to cover.

I'd like to add Optimizations/Best Practices to the list. As I'm working on my own projects I'm getting messages from DDMS saying that it's dropping frames. I'm obviously doing too much on my main thread. I'm wondering what the middle ground is between spawning a thread for each task and fragmenting my code, or doing everything in the main thread and suffering performance issues.

I'd be interested in hearing how to play media, specifically mp3s. I'm trying to learn Android to create an app for a podcast show. So learning how to grab the latest mp3 file and playing that in the app would be great.

I second SQLite, Services and Location. TDD sounds good too, and I would be interested in pairing it with problem-solving techniques for when we branch into our own advanced apps!

Thanks everyone for these awesome ideas. Some of these would make good blog posts, too. Thanks for chiming in, and thanks for learning!

@Ernest,

Services are basically long-running processes that can run in the background. Think of playing music or downloading a large file from the Internet. If you do that stuff within the context of an Activity, then it will only process while your app is in the foreground. To continue processing when you go to another app or your phone locks, you need to run them in a service.

Content Providers are basically wrappers around data. They allow you to access data in a standard format in different places or even different apps. For example, your app could allow creation or manipulation of images, and you could create a Content Provider to allow those images to be used in other image processing apps, like Instagram or Pixlr.

@Mark,

The basics of playing a simple mp3 are covered in this Adding Sounds video. But more advanced audio programming is definitely on the idea list. You can also see how to get data from the web in the "Build a Blog Reader App". The ideas there apply to downloading mp3 files just like HTML files.

OK first things first! I can't believe there is only 7 responses here in a whole year, that's just not cool.

Now that's out of the way I want to express how much i love all these ideas. Personally though I would benefit from the SQLLITE because I want to work from home and have an app I can sell.

At the time of this post we are working on making the SnapChat app and that is awesome. I plan on redesigning my own and selling it on the app store. Maybe I can generate some cash.

Location/GPS....since it is already covered in iOS foundations...I think it is a high priority for android