The “Break it Down” Blog

For the developers out there, Ars takes some time with the Android (gPhone) APIs to develop a quick Twitter application. Ryan points out that while was impressed with his app only requiring 130 lines of code to get off the ground, he found the tools available to make a nice looking UI were severely lacking. Ryan mentioned that the Eclipse Android plugins are helpful for doing straight dev and debugging, but no visual design tools yet.

Another gripe he had, one that drives “code is art” programmers crazy, are inconsistencies in the API itself; especially around naming conventions. Others have echoed the sentiment as well, saying essentially it’s a great start, but needs more time in the oven.

I think this article has made me want to wait for generation 2 or 3 of Android devices and not necessarily hope on revision 1.0 for not only new hardware, but a new platform. By that time Apple will have it’s 2.0 revision of iPhone out and most importantly, BlackBerry will be back on the blocks with possibly their rumored BlackBerry 9000, we’ll see.