MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Computer Engineering
6th Semester
Introduction to Mobile Computing
• The rapidly expanding technology of cellular
communication, wireless LANs, and satellite services will
make information accessible anywhere and at any time.
Regardless of size, most mobile computers will be
equipped with a wireless connection to the fixed part of
the network, and, perhaps, to other mobile computers.
The resulting computing environment, which is often
referred to as mobile computing
• Mobile Computing is an umbrella term used to describe
technologies that enable people to access network
services anyplace, anytime, and anywhere.
Introduction to Mobile Computing
A communication device can exhibit any one of the following
characteristics:
• Fixed and wired: This configuration describes the typical
desktop compute rin an office. Neither weight nor power
consumption of the devices allow for mobile usage.
• Mobile and wired: Many of today’s laptops fall into this
category; users carry the laptop from one hotel to the next,
reconnecting to the company’s network via the telephone
network and a modem.
• Fixed and wireless: This mode is used for installing networks,
e.g., in historical buildings to avoid damage by installing wires,
or at trade shows to ensure fast network setup.
• Mobile and wireless: This is the most interesting case. No
cable restricts the user, who can roam between different
wireless networks.
 Main principles
Main principles
• Portability: Facilitates movement of device(s) within the
mobile computing environment.
• Connectivity: Ability to continuously stay connected with minimal
amount of lag/downtime, without being affected by movements of
the connected nodes
• Social Interactivity: Maintaining the connectivity to collaborate
with other users, at least within the same environment.
• Individuality: Adapting the technology to suit individual needs. Or
• Portability: Devices/nodes connected within the mobile computing
system should facilitate mobility.
• Connectivity: This defines the quality of service (QoS) of the
network connectivity.
• Interactivity: The nodes belonging to a mobile computing system
are connected with one another to communicate and collaborate
through active transactions of data.
Mobile Computing Architecture
 Mobile Computing Architecture
• Presentation Layer (UI):
– This layer presents data to the user and optionally
permits data manipulation and data entry, also
this layer requests the data form Business layer.
– This layer accomplished through use of Dynamic
HTML and client-side data sources and data
cursors.
 Mobile Computing Architecture
• Application Layer (AL):
– The business logic acts as the server for client
requests from workstations. It acts according Business
rules fetch or insert data through the Data Layer.
– In turn, it determines what data is needed (and where
it is located) and acts as a client in relation to a third
tier of programming that might be located on a local
or mainframe computer.
– Because these middle-tier components are not tied to
a specific client, they can be used by all applications
and can be moved to different locations, as response
time and other rules require.
 Mobile Computing Architecture
• Data Access Layer (DA):
– The third tier of the 3-tier system is made up of
the DBMS that provides all the data for the above
two layers.
– This is the actual DBMS access layer.
– Avoiding dependencies on the storage
mechanisms allows for updates or changes
without the application tier clients being affected
by or even aware of the change.
 Mobile computing security issues
• Confidentiality: Preventing unauthorized users from gaining
access to critical information of any particular user.
• Integrity: Ensures unauthorized modification, destruction or
creation of information cannot take place.
• Availability: Ensuring authorized users getting the access they
require.
• Legitimate: Ensuring that only authorized users have access to
services.
• Accountability: Ensuring that the users are held responsible
for their security related activities by arranging the user and
his/her activities are linked if and when necessary.
 Mobile computing security issues
• Denial of Service (DOS) attacks: It's one of common attacks which mean
the prevent of users from using network services by sending large
amounts of unneeded data or connection requests to the communication
server by an attacker.
• Traffic Analysis: It's identifying and monitoring the communicating
between users through listening to traffic flowing in the wireless channel,
in order to access to private information of users that can be badly used
by attacker.
• Eavesdropping: The attacker can be log on to the wireless network and get
access to sensitive data, this happens if the wireless a network was not
enough secure and also the information was not encrypted.
• Spoofing: The attacker is impersonating an authorized account of another
user to access sensitive data and unauthorized services.
• Captured and Re transmitted Messages: Its can get some of network
services to attacker by get unauthorized access through capture a total
message and replay it with some modifications to the same destination or
another
 Mobile computing Devices
• Laptop Computers
• Tablets
• Smartphones
• E-Readers
• LCD Display
• Handheld Gaming Devices
 Types of Wireless Communication
Technologies
• Satellite communication is one of the wireless
technologies, which is widely spread all over the
world allowing users to stay connected virtually
anywhere on the Earth
• Wireless Networking Wireless Networking
technologies connect multiple computers,
systems and devices together without
requiring wires or cables: a wireless local area
network or WLAN comes under Wi-Fi.
 Types of Wireless Communication
Technologies
• WiMAX - There are wireless broadband systems that offer fast
Web surfing without being getting connected through cable or
DSL (Example of wireless broadband is WiMAX)
• Wi-Fi - Wi-Fi is a form of low-power wireless communication
used by many electronic devices such as laptops, systems,
smart phones, etc. In a Wi-Fi setup, a wireless router serves as
the communication hub. These networks are extremely
limited in range due to low power of transmissions allowing
users to connect only within close proximity to a router or
signal repeater.
 Types of Wireless Communication
Technologies
• Bluetooth technology - allows you to connect a variety of
different electronic devices wirelessly to a system for the
transfer and sharing of data and this is the main function of
Bluetooth. Cell phones are connected to hands-free
earpieces, wireless keyboard, mouse and mike to laptops with
the help of Bluetooth as it transmits information from one
device to other device.
• ZigBee is a wireless communication standard designed to
address the unique needs of low-power, low-cost wireless
sensor, and control networks. ZigBee can be used almost
anywhere, as it is easy to implement and requires little power
to operate.
 Bluetooth
• Bluetooth is a network technology that connects mobile
devices wirelessly over a short-range to form a personal area
network (PAN). They use short-wavelength, ultra-high
frequency (UHF) radio waves within the range 2.400 to 2.485
GHz, instead of RS-232 data cables of wired PANs.
 Bluetooth
Features of Bluetooth
• Bluetooth technology was released in 1999 as Bluetooth 1.0, by
Special Interest Group (SIG) who continues to manage it.
• It was initially standardized as IEEE 802.15.1.
• Mobile computing devices and accessories are connected wirelessly
by Bluetooth using short-range, low-power, inexpensive radios.
• A PAN or a piconet can be created by Bluetooth within a 10 m
radius.
• Presently, 2 to 8 devices may be connected.
• Bluetooth protocols allow devices within the range to find
Bluetooth devices and connect with them. This is called pairing.
Once, the devices are paired, they can transfer data securely.
• Bluetooth has lower power consumption and lower implementation
costs than Wi-Fi. However, the range and transmission speeds are
typically lower than Wi-Fi.
 WiMAX
• WiMAX is a short name for Worldwide Interoperability of
Microwave Access. WiMAX is described in IEEE 802.16 Wireless
Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) standard. It is expected that
WiMAX compliant systems will provide fixed wireless alternative to
conventional DSL and Cable Internet. Typically, a WiMAX system
consists of two parts:
• A WiMAX Base Station: Base station consists of indoor electronics
and a WiMAX tower. Typically, a base station can cover up to 10 km
radius (Theoretically, a base station can cover up to 50 kilo meter
radius or 30 miles, however practical considerations limit it to about
10 km or 6 miles). Any wireless node within the coverage area
would be able to access the Internet.
• A WiMAX Receiver - The receiver and antenna could be a stand-
alone box or a PCMCIA card that sits in your laptop or computer.
Access to WiMAX base station is similar to accessing a Wireless
Access Point in a WiFi network, but the coverage is more.
 INTRODUCTION TO ANDROID
ANDROID
• Android is a mobile operating system that is
based on a modified version of Linux.
• It was originally developed by a start-up of the
same name, Android, Inc.
• In 2005, as part of its strategy to enter the
mobile space, Google purchased Android and
took over its development work.
 Features of Android
• Storage — Uses SQLite, a lightweight relational
database, for data storage.
• Connectivity — Supports GSM/EDGE, IDEN, CDMA,
EV-DO, UMTS, Bluetooth (includes A2DP and AVRCP),
Wi-Fi, LTE, and WiMAX.
• Messaging — Supports both SMS and MMS. Chapter
8 discusses messaging in more detail.
• Web browser — Based on the open source WebKit,
together with Chrome’s V8 JavaScript
 Features of Android
• Hardware support — Accelerometer Sensor, Camera,
Digital Compass, Proximity Sensor, and GPS
• Multi-touch — Supports multi-touch screens
• Multi-tasking — Supports multi-tasking applications
• Tethering — Supports sharing of Internet
connections as a wired/wireless hotspot
 Architecture of Android
• The Android OS is roughly divided into five
sections in four main layers:
➤ Linux kernel — This is the kernel on which
Android is based. This layer contains all the low
level device drivers for the various hardware
components of an Android device.
➤ Libraries — These contain all the code that
provides the main features of an Android OS. For
example, the SQLite library provides database
support so that an application
 Architecture of Android
➢ Android runtime At the same layer as the libraries, the
Android runtime provides a set of core libraries that enable
developers to write Android apps using the Java
programming language.
➢ Application framework — Exposes the various capabilities
of the Android OS to application developers so that they
can make use of them in their applications.
➢ Applications — At this top layer, you will find applications
that ship with the Android device (such as Phone, Contacts,
Browser, etc.), as well as applications that you download
and install from the Android Market. Any applications that
you write are located at this layer.
Architecture of Android
 Activity, Fragments
• An application can have zero or more activities.
Typically, applications have one or more activities; and
the main purpose of an activity is to interact with the
user.
• From the moment an activity appears on the screen to
the moment it is hidden, it goes through a number of
stages, known as an activity’s life cycle.
• Understanding the life cycle of an activity is vital to
ensuring that your application works correctly.
• Fragments as “miniature” activities that can be
grouped to form an activity.
Activity Lifecycle
 COMPONENTS OF A SCREEN

• An activity displays the user interface of your

application, which may contain widgets such as
buttons, labels, textboxes, and so on.
• Typically, you define your UI using an XML file
Views and ViewGroups
• An activity contains views and ViewGroups. A view is a
widget that has an appearance on screen.
• Examples of views are buttons, labels, and textboxes. A
view derives from the base class android
• .view.View.
 Layouts
Android supports the following layouts:
• LinearLayout
• AbsoluteLayout
• TableLayout
• RelativeLayout
• FrameLayout
• ScrollView
ADAPTING TO DISPLAY ORIENTATION
• One of the key features of modern smartphones
is their ability to switch screen orientation, and
• Android is no exception. Android supports two
screen orientations: portrait and landscape.
• By default, when you change the display
orientation of your Android device, the current
activity that is displayed automatically redraws its
content in the new orientation.
• This is because the onCreate() method of the
activity is fi red whenever there is a change in
display orientation.
 UTILIZING THE ACTION BAR
• Besides fragments, another newer feature
introduced in Android 3 and 4 is the Action Bar.
• In place of the traditional title bar located at the
top of the device’s screen, the Action Bar displays
the application icon together with the activity
title.
• Optionally, on the right side of the Action Bar are
action items.
LISTENING FOR UI NOTIFICATIONS
• Users interact with your UI at two levels: the activity level
and the view level. At the activity level, the Activity class
exposes methods that you can override.
• Some common methods that you can override in your
activities include the following:
• onKeyDown — Called when a key was pressed and not
handled by any of the views contained within the activity
• onKeyUp — Called when a key was released and not
handled by any of the views contained within the activitY
• onMenuItemSelected — Called when a panel’s menu item
has been selected by the user
• onMenuOpened — Called when a panel’s menu is opened
by the user
 VIEWS
USING BASIC VIEWS
• some of the basic views that you can use to design the UI of
your Android applications:
– TextView
– EditText
– Button
– ImageButton
– CheckBox
– ToggleButton
– RadioButton
– RadioGroup
• These basic views enable you to display text information, as
well as perform some basic selection.
 USING PICKER VIEWS
• Selecting the date and time is one of the common tasks
you need to perform in a mobile application.
• Android supports this functionality through the
TimePicker and DatePicker views
TimePicker View
• The TimePicker view enables users to select a time of
the day, in either 24-hour mode or AM/PM mode.
DatePicker View
• Using the DatePicker, you can enable users to select a
particular date on the activity.
 LIST VIEWS
• List views are views that enable you to display a long list of items.
• there are two types of list views:
• ListView and SpinnerView.
• Both are useful for displaying long lists of items.
ListView View
• The ListView displays a list of items in a vertically scrolling list.
Using the Spinner View
• The ListView displays a long list of items in an activity, but
sometimes you may want your user interface to display other
views, and hence you do not have the additional space for a full-
screen view like the ListView. In such cases, you should use the
SpinnerView.
• The SpinnerView displays one item at a time from a list and enables
users to choose among them.
 IMAGE VIEWS

USING IMAGE VIEWS TO DISPLAY PICTURES

• So far, all the views you have seen until this
point are used to display text information.
• For displaying images, you can use the
ImageView, Gallery, ImageSwitcher, and
GridView views.
 IMAGE VIEWS
Gallery and ImageView Views
• The Gallery is a view that shows items (such as images) in a center-
locked, horizontal scrolling list.
ImageSwitcher
• The previous section demonstrated how to use the Gallery view
together with an ImageView to display a series of thumbnail images
so that when one is selected, it is displayed in the ImageView.
• However, sometimes you don’t want an image to appear abruptly
when the user selects it in the Gallery view — you might, for
example, want to apply some animation to the image when it
transitions from one image to another.
• In this case, you need to use the ImageSwitcher together with the
Gallery view.
 GridView
• The GridView shows items in a two-
dimensional scrolling grid.
• You can use the GridView together with an
ImageView to display a series of images.
 Creating the Helper Methods
• Before creating options and context menus,
you need to create two helper methods.
• One creates a list of items to show inside a
menu
• The other handles the event that is fired when
the user selects an item inside the menu.
 Context Menu
• The previous section showed how the options menu is
displayed when the user presses the MENU button.
• Besides the options menu, you can also display a
context menu.
• A context menu is usually associated with a view on an
activity, and it is displayed when the user taps and
holds an item.
• For
• example, if the user taps on a Button view and holds it
for a few seconds, a context menu can be displayed.
 AnalogClock and DigitalClock Views
• AnalogClock view displays an analog clock with
two hands — one for minutes and one for hours.
• DigitalClock view, displays the time digitally.
• Both views display the system time only, and do
not allow you to display a particular time (such as
the current time in another time zone).
• Hence, if you want to display the time for a
particular region, you have to build your own
custom views.
 USING MENUS WITH VIEWS
• Menus are useful for displaying additional
options that are not directly visible on the main
UI of an application.
There are two main types of menus in Android:
• Options menu — Displays information related to
the current activity. In Android, you activate the
options menu by pressing the MENU button.
• Context menu — Displays information related to
a particular view on an activity. In Android, to
activate a context menu you tap and hold on to it.
 SHARING DATA IN ANDROID
• In Android, using a content provider is the
recommended way to share data across packages.
• Think of a content provider as a data store. How it
stores its data is not relevant to the application using it;
what is important is how packages can access the data
stored in it using a consistent programming interface.
• A content provider behaves very much like a database -
you can query it, edit its content, as well as add or
delete content.
• However, unlike a database, a content provider can use
different ways to store its data. The data can be stored
in a database, in fi les, or even over a network.
 SHARING DATA IN ANDROID
• Android ships with many useful content
providers, including the following:
• Browser — Stores data such as browser
bookmarks, browser history
• CallLog — Stores data such as missed calls, call
details, and so on
Contacts — Stores contact details
• MediaStore — Stores media fi les such as audio,
video, and images
• Settings — Stores the device’s settings and
preference
 SMS MESSAGING
• SMS messaging is one of the main Applications on
a mobile phone today for some users as
Necessary as the phone itself.
• Any mobile phone you buy today should have at
least SMS messaging capabilities, and nearly all
users of any age know how to send and receive
such messages.
• Android comes with a built-in SMS application
that enables you to send and receive SMS
messages.
 Location-Based Services
• DISPLAYING MAPS
• Google Maps is one of the many applications bundled with
the Android platform. In addition to simply using the Maps
application, you can also embed it into your own applications
and make it do some very cool things.
• This section describes how to use Google Maps in your
Android applications and programmatically perform the
following:
• Change the views of Google Maps.
• Obtain the latitude and longitude of locations in Google Maps.
• Perform geocoding and reverse geocoding (translating an
address to latitude and longitude and vice versa).
• Add markers to Google Maps.
 Obtaining the Maps API Key
• Beginning with the Android SDK release v1.0,
you need to apply for a free Google Maps API
key before you can integrate Google Maps into
your Android application. When you apply for
the key
• you must also agree to Google’s terms of use,
so be sure to read them carefully.
 GETTING LOCATION DATA
• Nowadays, mobile devices are commonly
equipped with GPS receivers. Because of the
many satellites orbiting the earth, you can use
a GPS receiver to find your location easily.
• However, GPS requires a clear sky to work and
hence does not always work indoors or where
satellites can’t penetrate (such as a tunnel
through a mountain).
 MONITORING A LOCATION
• Main feature of the LocationManager class is
its ability to monitor a specific location.
• This is achieved using the addProximityAlert()
method.
 CONSUMING WEB SERVICES USING
HTTP
• One common way to communicate with the
outside world is through HTTP.
• HTTP is no stranger to most people; it is the
protocol that drives much of the web’s success.
• Using the HTTP protocol, you can perform a wide
variety of tasks, such as downloading web pages
from a web server, downloading binary data, and
more.
 Downloading Binary Data

• A common task you need to perform is

downloading binary data from the web.
• For example, you may want to download an
image from a server so that you can display it
in your application.
 Downloading Text Content
• Besides downloading binary data, you can also
download plain-text content.
• For example, you might want to access a web
service that returns a string of random quotes.
 Accessing Web Services
• The previous section showed how to download
some plain text from a server. Very often, you
need to download XML fi les and parse the
contents (a good example of this is consuming
web services).
• In this section you learn how to connect to a web
service using the HTTP GET method.
• Once the web service returns a result in XML, you
extract the relevant parts and display its content
using the Toast class.