Try Google's Android and its applications without purchasing its Mobile Phone

No need to buy a Google Phone for Google to discover the phone, its user interface and its programs. Simply install the emulator for Windows comes with the SDK. Here's how to install and use.


Step 1: Preparation System

The Android emulator is included with the SDK for the platform. While the kit itself is fairly large and somewhat obscure for a neophyte, the emulator itself is a small application that displays a virtual phone on the screen and is able to run on this virtual phone Android applications submitted by that.

- Download the Android SDK.

- Once the file is downloaded, click the right mouse button and select Extract All from the menu. The archive was untar then. Once unpacked, the kit employs nearly 270 MB on the disk.

- Open the folder "Android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1". Locate the Tools folder and note the full path to this folder. Under Vista, right click on the Tools folder while holding [Shift] button, then select "Copy as path" to store the path.

- Right click on My Computer (XP) or Computer (Vista) and select Properties. Under Vista an additional request to click on Advanced System Settings.

- Open the System Settings tab click Advanced and then Environment Variables.

- In the System Variables section, locate the Path variable. Double-click it.

- The field value of the variable, place the cursor at the end of the line, enter ";" (without the quotes) and add the path to the Tools folder (or in Vista, press [CTRL] + [V] to paste the path stored above).

- Click OK three times.

- Restart the PC to take into account the change.

Step 2: Master the emulator

The emulator is an application that displays a virtual phone on the screen and simulates its operation from Windows.

Like all development kits for mobile devices, Android provides that of an emulator that allows programmers to quickly test their applications without the deployment on a real phone.

The emulator also allows any PC user to test Android, its user interface and its programs.

- Using Windows Explorer, go to the folder Android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1.
- Open the Tools folder. Locate the presence of an Emulator.
- Double-click it.
- The emulator starts. It must then wait at least 5 minutes before you see the virtual phone and the user interface for Android.
- Once it loaded, make sure that Internet access is operational (the phone uses the Internet from your PC to simulate a 3G or WiFi access). Click on the Menu of your phone to unlock it and click on Browser. Normally the Google home page should appear. Click on Menu and then click Go To URL. Enter the PC keyboard to a URL and find that the PC keyboard used to enter characters directly on the phone.

The emulator uses a number of keyboard shortcuts to know:

• The cursor arrows -> control pad/joystick of phone
• [ESC] -> equals the BACK button of phone
• [Home] -> equivalent to the HOME button of phone
• [F2] -> equals the MENU button of phone
• [F3] -> equivalent to the green Call button of phone
• [F4] -> equivalent to the red End key of phone
• [F5] -> equals the Search button of phone
• [F7] -> equals the Power button of phone
• [CTRL] + [F3] -> active camera
• [CTRL] + [F5] -> increases the volume
• [CTRL] + [F6] -> decreases the volume
• [F8] -> enable / disable the simulation of cellular network
• [Alt] + [Enter] -> switch to full screen.
• [CTRL] + [F11] -> switches from portrait to landscape and vice versa.

Step 3: Installing an application

Unfortunately the emulator does not come with the Android Market. This application, equivalent to the App Store for iPhone, is the owner and is not distributed via the Open Source SDK. Therefore no way to install an application.

We must go through a manual method:

- Start by finding and downloading to your PC files. "APK" features of Android application (do some research on Google they are easy to find).

- Check that the emulator is started.

- Open the command prompt (Windows Start Menu, All Programs, Accessories).

- Enter the command:
adb install theapplication.apk
(replace theapplication.apk by the name and path to the desired APK)

- Confirm the order by [Enter]

- After a few seconds, the application will appear in the main menu of the virtual phone.