great, all alone :)

hi mark

happy new year

howdy, Steff!

how can I help you today?

2 things:

1st: how's your experience with C2DM?

I found it hard to implement and not really reliable

limited to what research and work I did for the chapter in the Advanced Android book

I didn't find it especially hard to implement, though there are plenty of reliability concerns

yeah, that's why I considered it hard to implement

that limits its use cases to places where you can engineer around the reliability concerns

so, people trying to use C2DM for chat are in trouble

Do you have come across any more reliable solution?

Like Urban Airship e.g.

to some extent, there can't be a more reliable solution

first, those solutions are really more for pushing ads and other marketing messages directly to users

the research I did last fall on those did not turn up a general-purpose C2DM replacement

haven't really looked into iOS, but is it as unreliable?

hm, okay

I have no idea how well Push Notifications work for iOS

the problem with any replacement is that it would require an everlasting service, to listen on the open socket

do you have a clue how e.g. Whatsapp does it?

and that is problematic (e.g., user might nuke it from orbit)

I don't even know what Whatsapp is

right, that's why I am trying to replace any running service

at the risk of sounding meta, what's Whatsapp?

i mean get rid off any service

Whatsapp is an IM tool

meant to replace text messages

cross platform

they would appear to use C2DM

for the Android sie

er, side

okay

quoting their FAQ: "It looks like you are not receiving new message notifications from Google Android push service"

(for a question of "My incoming messages are delayed. How come?")

okay, thanks. Should have looked into this in some more detail before bothering you

enough with C2DM

2nd question: have you fumbled around with the new notifications of ICS?

"new notifications of ICS"?

I kindda like the new option to put actual buttons in there

they made some changes in Honeycomb

ah, yes

take, let's say, the new Music player

no, I have not tried it yet

it has a pause and a next song button

my guess is that "it just works", in terms of you still use RemoteViews

ok

buttons used to work on some devices, but not others

ICS now ensures they will work across the board

guess so too but didn't find documentation on the new API

that's why I'm assuming "it just works" :-)

are we just mixing app widgets up with notifications?

RemoteViews also work on Notifications?

yes

alright

see contentView on Notification

I am afraid I am out of questions now....

I will, thx

also, my most recent update to the Advanced Android book should have some samples of custom RemoteViews (in that case, showing a progress bar)

Btw., great work with commonsware/warescription

thanks, glad you like it

downloaded it today

another update to the Advanced Android book due out later this week

my 2nd subscription is about to expire but I will definetely go for 3rd period

thanks!

since there is noone else waiting: what's your general impression on ICS?

not sure where the dividing line between hardware and software is, but the Galaxy Nexus originally felt rushed

lots of glitches

and here comes another question to my mind

the recent firmware update helped a lot

not talking about hardware. SGN is nice, but it's just a phone

are you running 4.0.2?

4.0.1 on the Galaxy Nexus

Found the SGN a little underwhelming

I wasn't expecting whelming, so hence I wasn't shocked from that standpoint

720p display is kinda nice

yeah, it is. As long as the screen is pretty bright

once it gets darker grey looks horrible on my screen

from my point of view the display of the Samsung Galaxy S (i9000) handled that way better

I never got a Galaxy S for my fleet

but anyways, i guess you have a lot better things to do than just chitchatting

lots of better things. Please excuse all my mistaked

-d +s

and have a good day

you too!

thx and keep up the great work. hope you can make a living off of that

i'm out

hello, again!

hi there

sorry for coming by again

no worries

just ran into something

looked into the new ActionBar, yet?

I peeked at it

The example was made for compatibility

Personally, I plan to focus more on ActionBarSherlock

to have something similiar on older devices

the code Google posts as samples is not as ready for prime time

hm, interesting

got it working except for one small thing

there are plenty of third-party action bar implementations, with ActionBarSherlock seeming to have the most momentum

on ICS (and 3.X assumably) I can't click the home icon

on 2.X onOptionsItemSelected() gets called, on 4.X it doesn't

using ActionBarCompat?

yepp

I am surprised there is a difference in behavior

so am I

I don't see where they are using android.R.id.home in the code, except in the activity

been searching but I just don't find the error

oh, no, there it is

should not have relied on that example

you might run it through hierarchyview and confirm that the home button is a SimpleMenuItem

same behavior on Galaxy Nexus as well as Emulator

but, this is one of the reasons why I steer people to ActionBarSherlock, over ActionBarCompat

sounds like a plan. should start using HierarchyViewer

not that ActionBarSherlock is perfect

but at least there's a clear path to getting problems fixed

some of these samples haven't been touched since 2008, and the rust shows

and that's a wrap for today's chat

next one is 4pm Eastern on Thursday

okay, thanks for your help

have a pleasant day!

you too