Finally Google Released the NDK, which allows developers to use native code/libraries in their code (programmed in C or C++) which can be used for intense CPU operations such as encoding/decoding or physics.

You can download it here.

For most Developers this isn’t much interesting, but if you need advanced stuff as implementing your own audio and video codec, you may want to try it out.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Market researcher at Informa Telecoms & Media predicted in a new report that Android sales will outstrip iPhone by the year 2012.

While the first iPhone devices hit the market in June 2007, Apples latest iPhone 3G hit the stores last July, only a few months before Google released the new Android open source OS platform and the first device supporting it the T-Mobile G1.

CNet also reports

However, London-based Informa believes Symbian’s switch to open source will help the Symbian Foundation maintain its leadership over Android, Linux, and Microsoft over the next few years.

Nearly 162 million smartphones were sold last year, surpassing laptop sales for the first time, according to Informa. The market researcher forecasts that smartphone penetration will reach 13.5 percent of new handsets sold this year and that the figure will reach 38 percent by 2013.

It’s quite a bit old of a news, but maybe some haven’t heard it yet. The android market DRM (Digital-Right-Management) isn’t save anymore. With a simple hack, it’s possible to copy protected software as well as paid applications.

This is an very serious issue, as it’s possible to buy an application, “backup” it and then request a refund, basically getting the application for free.

It’s said, that this is one of the reasons why the Android 1.1 Framework is not available yet outside of the USA.

It’s really scary how easy the system can be circumvented! There is basically no protection at all. All “protected” applications are simply stored in an hidden folder which can’t be normally accessed (only be the OS), but if you have an hacked/jailbreaked firmware on your G1 or an Dev G1, you have root access which allows you to access this hidden directory and copy/move the applications inside there.

All protected applications are stored inside the /data/app-private folder (which is normally invisible, unless you have root access).

Thanks to Tim over there at strazzere.com for finding this out and making people aware of it! Check out his Android Market DRM busted < 12 hours! post for more details about the very weak DRM protection of the Android Market!

If you’re an developer who offers paid applications, my suggestion would be to pull of your application from the Android Market, until the issues were address by Google, as this could seriously hurt your business!

A while ago, Android Market opened for paid sales. While this finally opens opportunities for Android developer to get some money for their efforts, there are some serious problems currently.

One reason for this is bad performance and downloading problems, as well as problems with the copy protection features as you can read in the official Android Developers Google Groups. There are actually reports, that the copy protection feature can corrupt the APK files which will cause Exception when the application is launched. You can find this and other concerns of developers in the “Think twice before turning on the Copy Protection" option!” discussion on the Android Developers group.

It seems, that this is especially the case if users are installing a copy protected version of your application over an old non-protected application.

The another reasons developers worry, is about the slow/low sales of their paid applications. One of such worried developers is “Ed Burnette”, author of of “Hello, Android”.

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Android Market: Developers worried about bad sales