Part of the work of doing this release was putting game controller support into X-Plane mobile – you’ll be able to use a game controller on your Android or iOS phone or tablet too.

And part of the work was making the entire user interface accessible from a game controller, e.g. only button presses, no touch screen input. That code is going back to X-Plane 10 Global for keyboard navigation in our next generation user interface.

The 747 is out for X-Plane 10 Mobile too (iOS and Android):

The 747 started on X-Plane 10 Global and has been moved over to X-Plane 10 Mobile. We’ve tried to keep the two versions synchronized, so we can move some of the improvements from mobile back to the desktop version of X-Plane.

The post X-Plane Mobile on TV (Literally) appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Seriously, if you have not yet heard, we’ve finally released X-Plane 10 for Android. It was a long, arduous process. Maybe I’ll write about the experience in a separate blog post if anyone’s interested. Anyway, back to the product…It has the same features and pricing model as X-Plane 10 for iPhone/iPad and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. I don’t expect Android to lag behind like it has in the past. If anything, it will probably be the first to get updates since there’s no painfully slow Apple approval process to sit through.

Where’s the iOS Update?

This initial release on Android is identical to the current release 10.1.0 on iOS except for the additional of liveries! This update will be available for iOS as soon as Apple approves it. It’s currently sitting in their queue.

What’s the Android Plan?

Currently I’m in firefighting mode! As of today, there are 7,654 supported devices so needless to say, there are some device-specific crash bugs…most on devices that I was not able to acquire myself during testing. I’ll admit however, there are fewer than I expected. We’re currently seeing 90.4% crash-free users. This is low compared to our iOS stability of 99.5% however the industry metric for games is supposedly 97%. I can’t remember where I read that, but that’s been my pseudo-goal so I plan on releasing frequent patches until we get there.

Aside from hardware-specific OpenGL issues, the biggest source of instability seems to be with Google’s In-App Billing service. I’ve found and fixed some issues in their sample code which will help, but many users cannot even link up with the service! I have not gotten enough data to fully understand that yet.

An update to 10.1.4 has been pushed this morning. It should go live in a couple of hours. That should fix stability issues for some people but I don’t expect it to move the needle significantly until the In-App Billing issues have been resolved. Until then,  I’ll keep at it!

What’s next for Mobile?

Android is a top priority at the moment. Until we reach stability there, almost all of my efforts will be focused on doing so. Once Android has settled down a bit, the work that we do will be for both platforms.

I know the map is a source of annoyance for a lot of people. It appears, unsolicited, when trying to operate the throttle. I can look into that.

We do of course have more aircraft and missions coming. I can’t talk about the specifics of those yet but our artists are very busy at work making more stunning planes.

But where’s the “meat and potatoes” features? Unfortunately, a lot of the feedback that I get is not specific enough for us to use. I see things like “I like Infinite Flight/Aerofly better!” which is fine…that’s a matter of preference. But WHY do you like it better? What features are you missing most?

So here’s your chance to chime in. What’s important to you? What will make the app fit your needs better? Please feel free to comment below. Get your friends to comment too. The more feedback that I get, the more I can make sure our customer’s needs are being met.

The post X-Plane 10 for Android and Mobile Roadmap appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

We’ve put in a lot of effort and we’re at a point now where we’re going to begin testing the product. More on that in a minute…

First, I’m excited to say that for the first time, our iOS and our Android products will be the same! In the past, Android came around much later than iOS did and the Android operating system and the devices running it were quite a bit behind Apple’s so we had to make our Android product different. This is no longer the case. Google offers all of the same amenities that we’re currently using on iOS. We will have leaderboards, achievements and multiplayer. The product itself will be effectively identical. It’s the same X-Plane Engine, flight model, scenery packages, aircraft etc. There will be no teaser screenshots because…well….it looks exactly the same as all of the iOS screenshots that we’ve already been posting.

Our goal, once the Android version is released, is to keep the iOS and Android products simultaneously up to date. If a new feature is added to one platform, it will be available on the other platform almost immediately (store approval times permitting).

Testing, testing…1,2,3

We’re going to begin testing relatively soon. I have a few odds and ends to tie up before we’ll be ready to go but i’d say in the next week or so we’ll begin our first round. If you want to be considered to be a tester, you can click on the link and submit a request. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get in. We can’t play favorites.

This testing will be slightly different from the norm. Typically we let users Beta test our products to find some bugs early and help us stabilize. With Android however, our goal is to release an early Alpha version to a small number of users and then slowly increase the size of the test group until we’re confident that it’s running properly on a wide range of devices. Then we will expand the group even more and begin Beta testing per usual.

Why are we doing things differently? With iOS, we had one operating system version to worry about (iOS 8) and twelve different devices (every supported iPhone and iPad) running one brand of GPU to test against. Between Ben, Tyler and myself, we essentially own one of everything. On Android, we have three (4.1.X, 4.4.X and 5.X) operating system versions, four major GPU manufacturers and (wait for it….) over six thousand different devices. Needless to say, we do not own one of everything! We need to ease into the testing to find driver issues and other device-specific problems early which is why we’re doing the Alpha test.

We’re mainly focused on testing the Android-specific pieces because 90% of the code is the same as what’s running on iOS which has already been thoroughly tested.

When will it be released?!

As soon as it’s ready! Awwww (sad face), I know you hate that answer…but it’s true. Our goal is to release it as soon as testing shows that it’s stable! This will probably be in a number of weeks, not days but also not likely months.

The post Android Status Update – Testers Wanted! appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

We recently released X-Plane 10 Mobile for iPhone/iPad and while the Apple users were ecstatic, some Android users were puzzled while others were frustrated.

“Will there be an android version?”

“When’s it coming to Android?”

“Where’s the Android version? 60% of all smartphones run on Android but I guess that Apple-Fan-Boys are more important in your company”

“Why do you guys constantly focus on iPhone first when most users are on Android?”

Before I get into the real point of the blog post, allow me to answer some of those questions. YES we are planning on shipping X-Plane 10 Mobile for Android. YES we have already begun development. We do not have a release date. We do not have any hints. The only thing that I can say, is that we want it out just as soon as you do. NO we do not view Android as a lesser/inferior platform…We value Android customers just as much as we value our iOS customers. A customer is a customer. I think we’ve demonstrated by supporting Windows, Mac and Linux all these years that we’re not trying to play favorites. We want everyone to be able to enjoy our products. BUT, that doesn’t mean that the costs of development and the speed and efficiency of development is equal on all platforms.

Historically, we’ve always developed for iOS first and then Android second. I’d like to be open an honest about our reasons and hope that even if you disagree with them, you’ll at least understand why we have historically developed for Apple first. I will warn you, everything I have to say is completely my opinion, my impression, my feeling based on my experiences. I’m going to sound a lot like an Apple “fanboy”. I will admit, I do have a high level of respect for Apple’s commitment to polish and detail, but I also own a dozen android devices and respect them for their cutting edge features, their openness and their friendliness to customization.

At the end of the day however, I’m paid to be efficient and thorough and my thoughts below explain why that means Apple has historically come first.

I will also warn you…I don’t want this blog post to turn into a flame war between Apple and Android users. We’re talking about phones here people, not religion. At the end of the day, they’re just small piles of plastic and silicon that let us surf the web, make phone calls and play games.

We Can’t Develop Apple and Android In Parallel

Sure, we do this on desktop by releasing Windows, Mac and Linux versions in unison 100% of the time. Developing for desktop is pretty different than developing for mobile. We use very few 3rd party frameworks on desktop and it’s an open environment. On a mobile phone, it’s a very closed environment. What this means is that developing Apple and Android in parallel requires a lot more effort than developing for Windows and Mac in parallel.

Can it be done? Absolutely! Plenty of companies are doing it. But they also have large teams with large expenses. We’re still a pretty small group of individuals and we like it that way. The tradeoff however is that we can only focus on one platform at a time.

One alternative that we could consider is delaying shipment of an Apple product until the Android version is done as well. That’s a loss for everyone. Apple customers lose out on having the latest software and Android customers may lose because…we don’t have the revenue coming in to support the Android development costs. That’s right…Apple sales get reinvested into the company to fund Android development!

As Ben mentioned earlier…Apple and Android mobile sales fund desktop development…and desktop development funds mobile development! This is a very important fact to remember. I’ll admit, we laugh and roll our eyes when desktop users complain about the company working on mobile products, and mobile users complain about the company working on desktop products….and android users complaining about us working on apple products and vice versa.

The company has found equilibrium creating both desktop and mobile products. There’s adequate revenue to fund adequate staffing to continue to develop both.

We Develop On Mac Hardware

This is no secret. It’s been this way since the company started. We just find Apple products allow us to be more productive and don’t get in our way.

Historically, Apple’s Mobile Platform Has Been More Mature

Apple had both a technological advantage as well as a time advantage over Android when they began.

Apple already had an Operating System, supporting frameworks and a development environment to leverage. Making mobile versions of those things required them to port existing, time-tested code to a new platform. From a stability standpoint, Apple had the advantage in that they already had the code, the engineers and the process in place to do this.

On the other hand, Google had to start from scratch. They had to put together a new team to create a new operating system to run new frameworks…and they had to create a set of tools for developers to use.

In addition to all of the technological advantages Apple had, they also had a head-start of well over a year. We were already selling X-Plane V9 for mobile before Android was even announced publicly.

That meant we were already established and familiar with the iOS platform as developers.

When I began the Android port for X-Plane V9, I had to pretty quickly put it down…and wait. Android at the time only supported Java apps. X-Plane is NOT a Java app. 99% of it is written in C/C++ and Android had absolutely no support at the time…and so we waited….and waited….and waited.

Finally, many months later, Android added their NDK which allowed us to have C/C++ support. But it was completely minimal. None of the standard libraries that we were used to using were available. This meant a lot of effort on our part to get anything done. If you’re not a developer, a reasonable metaphor might be a carpenter that’s trying to build a house, but he first has to build his own hammer, nails, square and saw because the tools he’s used to using don’t exist on this job.

Finally it came time to release V9 for Android. For iPhone/iPad, we uploaded our 400+mb app to their store and we were done. On Android however, the store had a limit of 25MB. So that meant we had to buy servers and write code to download the resources from a farm of servers. Again, this added more time and more complexity.

Apple Has Fewer Devices

For this latest release of X-Plane Mobile, we support iPhone 4S/5/5S/6/6+ as well as iPad 2/3/4/Air/Air2/Mini/Mini2 and iPod Touch 5. That’s 13 devices to my recollection. But it’s even simpler than that…because they all have the same GPU manufacturer, they all support the same PVR texture compression,  and they all pretty much just work interchangeably from a development standpoint. The only major differences between them are the processor speeds and the screen resolutions. We can literally test on every single device and be sure that the app runs the way we expect it to.

As of the time of this writing, our X-Plane V9 is running on 7,072 devices. You read that right….SEVEN…..THOUSAND…..DIFFERENT……DEVICES. Each device has a different combination of CPU, GPU, screen size, screen density and drivers. We cannot possibly test them all. Admittedly, many of them “just work” and there are of course only a handful of CPU and GPU manufacturers to worry about…but at the very least, it means at least three different texture compression formats. PVR is proprietary and unless the mobile device has a PowerVR chipset, they’re not going to get PVR. So we have to support various formats. That requires three different versions of our app to be created and tested and distributed. That requires three different resource packages to be created and tested.

There’s just no way to have the same level of stability as we can have with the iPhone/iPad platform.

Apple Has Higher OS Upgrade Adoption

Without carriers and other manufacturers getting in the way, Apple can release a new OS with features and bug fixes, and we can be sure that they exist on the majority of the devices that we care about in no time. This means that if there’s a driver issue that needs fixing, it will make it out to the masses and eventually the problem is gone.

Android’s fragmentation has really hurt them in this area. We encountered several devices over the years that violated some OpenGL spec. We worked with the manufacturer to isolate the issue. They release a patch to fix the issue…and most users never had a way to get the patch because their phone carrier dropped support for that phone model.

Now the user’s stuck with an App that they paid for that doesn’t work and there’s nothing that we can do about it.

We like Apple’s Developer Tools Better

As I mentioned earlier, Apple’s developer IDE has been around for ages. We have access to various performance analyzers and can now even analyze an entire OpenGL frame, one draw call at a time. This means we can really tune the crap out of the app before we make it public. In addition, all of the tools come in a single package that just works out of the box. Apple has also always had a simulator that’s hardware accelerated. This means for a lot of things, i don’t need a device plugged into the computer to debug something.

Android’s solution was for less “out of the box” in that they were using various open-source pieces that all had to be installed and fit together just right. Android had an emulator that was not hardware accelerated. It took longer just to boot than it took me to find a phone in my house, get it, plug it in and push an app to it.

Honestly, I think both sets of IDEs are sorely lagging behind features that Microsoft’s Visual Studio has had since 2000, but I digress.

TL;DR

We develop for Apple first because it’s easier and faster for us. It allows us to get the product out the door, running as efficiently and as reliably as possible. When we port the app for Android development, we can be sure that most bugs that come up are specific to Android and are therefore much easier to resolve in a timely fashion.

We are not playing favorites. We have no personal issues with Android and have no personal ties to Apple. The day that Android becomes the faster and easier platform to develop for, it will be the one that we develop for first. It’s just a business decision!

In the meantime, Android users should remember that the way things are currently being done means that they sometimes have to wait longer for new updates, but the updates that they receive will likely be more stable as they’ve been tested harder.

I will also note that we are closing the time gap between iPhone and Android releases. In the past, we were over a year behind on the Android release…because Android didn’t exist. Now that it’s becoming more established, the gap should be shrinking more and more.

The post Why Apple before Android? appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

This is of course a complete false-positive on the part of the Anti-virus software. I’m doing my best to get ahold of Webroot’s developers to aid them in correcting their software. In the meantime, rest assured we’re not doing anything dirty to your android device.

The post X-Plane for Android is NOT Infected! appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

The post X-Plane 9 for Android Updated – More Planes/Scenery appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Here are the links to our stuff. Please share them with your friends. You can even tweet about it right from the market listing.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.laminarresearch.xplane_default
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.laminarresearch.giant_robots

The post Android Web Market is live! appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

EDIT: the update server is back up – our host not only swapped out the drive, but the whole box. We’ll have to take it down one more time in the future, but for the most part I think we’re out of the woods.

Another note on servers: Chris has restructured X-Plane for Android to separately download the art assets from our servers, rather than contain all art assets in the actual download. What he found after several painful weeks was that the Android store is not yet reliable for large apps. While the official app size limit is 50 MB, many phones have problems with their configuration that cause downloads to fail. When the user buys our app and the download fails, they get angry at us. (X-Plane may have been, until it was restructured, one of the largest Android game APKs. The other games with large amounts of 3-d content were already doing separate downloads.)

We originally wanted to build a monolithic app (everything in the APK) because we thought that this would provide the simplest, easiest configuration to maintain, and thus hassle-free installation for our users. You get the APK, you install it, you fly! Unfortunately, the Android Market isn’t reliable for such a large download, so we had to re-evaluate.

The new system downloads only the core app from the Android Market and then pulls the art assets from one of our servers. So far this appears to be an improvement. If/when Google provides an integrated solution, we will probably switch back to it to simplify the process again (right now we have two points of failure: the Android Market and our server farm, which, per the above notes, sometimes does fail). But for now, we’ll host the apps and try to give people the best download experience we can.

Finally, I will try to roll out at least a beta of new installers some time this week. The new installer simultaneously downloads from multiple servers, with a more efficient HTTP implementation; this should hopefully result in better download times and also lower server load per demo.

* Chris pointed out: most normal humans don’t know what this ^H^H^H^H is about…it’s nerd-speak for the delete key, e.g. to undo a text. ^H is control-H, which you may find works just like the delete key. Yes, I’m a huge nerd.

The post Fun With Servers appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Edit: Chris sent me this QR Code – scan it to go to the store listing.

Edit: if you either cannot see X-Plane in the Android market or you cannot download it, please first look here for trouble-shooting tips, then contact customer support (info at x-plane dot com). Please do not use the comments section of this blog for customer support; if you need help we will need to contact you one-to-one.

The post X-Plane 9 is here for Android appeared first on X-Plane Developer.

Chris, the third and most recent addition to the X-Plane programming team, began a port of X-Plane Mobile to Android a while ago; this was the second port of X-Plane Mobile after our port to Palm WebOS. He was able to accomplish most of the port fairly quickly; hence the video floating around the web of X-Plane on a Nexus One back in May.

Unfortunately we ran into some issues that stopped ship; it looks like Google may have them fixed shortly, hence our hope of finally shipping the app. So while Chris has spent a little bit of time recently working on the last few Android issues, our hope is to release a product that we already put development time into a while ago.

The post X-Plane for Android appeared first on X-Plane Developer.