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I have an app in Android Market which is a standalone app that's essentially a full conduit to an SQLite Database(add, change, delete, inquiry). Some of my potential clients have asked to see a sample of my work, but they don't have an Android device.

Other than just showing them screenshots etc., is there a way I could have them go to a website where they can actually run it & check it out.

I'm thinking there would be a programming element involved (convert app to a mobile website essentially?), hence posted this question here.

Not quite sure where to get started. Any help would be appreciated.

Bill the Lizard
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OceanBlue
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    I havent tried this so I wont post it as an answer, but check this out: http://developer.motorola.com/fasttrack/deviceanywhere/ – blindstuff Oct 25 '10 at 20:41
  • I checked this out. It seems promising. I'm not sure if I'm ready to buy the package yet, but its something I'd definitely explore down the line. Thanks for sharing. – OceanBlue Oct 26 '10 at 16:21

2 Answers2

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You can use one of the patterns like MVC/MVP/MVVM to create your core library and then develop additional UI variants for different clients: Android, java applet etc.

Alternatively you can develop a mobile web site as you suggested and use simple android app to navigate built-in browser to it. This might be somewhat transparent to most users. I think Android MSN client uses such an approach.

Den
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  • Den, Thanks for taking the time to answer. This is exactly the path I think will work. Do you have a reference to get started with, for developing Mobile Website? I couldn't find anything in developer.android.com – OceanBlue Oct 26 '10 at 16:27
  • @OceanBlue Mobile websites are basically websites designed with mobile devices in mind - small screen, weak CPU/GPU (e.g. mobile.live.com vs hotmail.com). I've only used ASP.NET for web dev. Since you are a Java developer you might want to use something like these frameworks: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/796219/whats-the-most-minimal-java-web-mvc-framework. – Den Oct 26 '10 at 20:10
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I see 2 relatively easy options.

  1. Give them an .apk designed to only run on the emulator (you can check the ID, the emulator ID is 00000...) and they can boot up an emulator and run it. If you're worried about them reverse engineering your .apk you probably shouldn't go down this route. Or if you don't want them to have to install the emulator
  2. Set up a virtual machine and let your clients remote desktop into it. Give them permissions to only run the emulator or however you want to set it up
Falmarri
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  • Thanks for the answer. Most of these people are business-users, so they are not familiar with emulators etc. They would want a path-of-least-bother like clicking on a website & checking out whatever's there! Else, they'll just skip me as a candidate & go to the next one ;-) – OceanBlue Oct 26 '10 at 16:25
  • Well if the emulator is already running and all they have to do is play with it, it shouldn't be a big deal. The only issue is remote desktop, which should also be trivial unless these people are REALLY inept – Falmarri Oct 26 '10 at 17:34