Tag Archives: android

How to install stbemu pro on Fire TV 4k?

It was tough piecing together all the instructions to install stbemu pro on Fire TV 4k. Here’s my current working process:

  1. Install stbemu pro apk. Several ways:
    1. Easiest: Download from Aptoide.
      1. NOTE for 4k Firestick (or maybe never devices): You must use 1.1.7 (which is not on the above Aptoide link). Download from modapkdown or dlandroid.com.
    2. Download from random sites using google. Good luck!
    3. Extract it yourself. 
  2. Enable Settings > Device > Developer options > Unknown sources > ON.
  3. Enable Settings > Device > Developer options > ADB > ON.
  4. Find IP of Fire TV. It will look like 192.168.X.X. Two ways:
    1. Check the router for amazon-HASH device’s IP address.
    2. Open Fire TV’s About > Network to look for IP address field.
  5. Install ADBlink for PC or MAC.
  6. Open ADBlink, put your IP address in the field, and hit Connect.
    1. NOTE: You will need to accept this connection on the Fire TV. You should see a popup there.
  7. Once connected, choose “Install APK” from buttons. Select the APK downloaded in step #1.
  8. Finally, your app icon may not show on the home screen. Follow this tutorial. Steps outlined below:
    1. Choose Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications > App Store > Force stop, Clear data, Clear cache one after another.
    2. Choose Settings > My Account > Sync Amazon Content.
  9. You should have an icon under “Your apps and games” section for stbemu.
    1. It may be at the end. Here’s how to bring it front:
      1. Highlight stbemu icon. Choose options button on remote and “Move to front”.
  10. Protip: Make stbemu run on Fire 4k boot.

iPhone vs Android

I’ve used Android phones most of my smartphone life. I started with Google’s G1, then came Google Nexus 5, Google Nexus 5X, Samsung Galaxy, LG G6. I’m very familiar with the Android ecosystem. I’ve dabbled with plenty of ROMs, like CyanogenMod, Cataclysm, etc. Along with my regular smartphone usage, I’ve developed apps for both Android and iOS. My only exposure to iOS has been an iPod Touch before smartphone days and my development experience with the emulators

Recently, I was given the opportunity to use an iOS device, iPhone SE, since MetroPCS offered free ones on no-contract signup. I figured I should give it a shot for a few months. I want to detail some pros and cons for both ecosystems.

Android:

  • + More customizable: the home screen, widgets, launcher, unknown source apps, etc.
  • + Better notifications system. Ability to dismiss things easily enough compared to iOS. Notification groupings! Reply within notifications. Etc!
  • + Awesome integrations with lots of password managers. Personally I prefer LastPass to keep them synchronized with all my devices.
  • + Change default apps for anything.
  • + Consolidated Google Now to keep up with appointments, shipments, NBA/NFL scores, news. Automatically pieced together from my emails.
  • + Google Assistant able to pick up any accent you can throw at it. My family has thick Punjabi/Indian accents.
  • – Slow and inconsistent apps. Seem like second citizens compared to iOS apps from the same brands/app-makers.

iOS

  • + Faster apps loads with better graphics
  • + Smooth camera operation
  • – Annoying notifications seem to never go away. Tough to dismiss all of them.
  • – No integration with password managers like LastPass. Each app has to subscribe to specific password managers. In other words, no app ever happens.
  • – Limited browsers. Every browser runs the Webkit backend, so if a website is broken in your browser, you’re out of luck.
  • – Default iOS keyboard has no swiping. And it will keep coming up for apps that don’t want to use custom keyboards (i.e. Contacts, almost all the iOS apps, any financial app, logins/passwords). Inconsistent and NO thanks!!!

TLDR: I can’t wait to go back to my “slow yet complete” smartphone that is Android.

Releasing DholCutz Bhangra Radio version 2 for Android

After many bad reviews, I finally decided to update DholCutz Bhangra Radio for Android, so version 2 is here. It has the following updates:

  1. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
  2. AAC+ Higher sound quality!!!
  3. Background vi hojanda mitra!
  4. Instant song title updates
  5. Links to Requests and Chat
  6. Ganeya Di Agg!

Android Play Store App link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inderpreetsingh.dcr&hl=en

Screenshot:
Main Screen

Titanium Mobile integrating Admob/Smaato with Android on Mac OSX

Titanium doesn’t have Admob/Smaato support, so it is really hard to monetize free applications without using Webview Onclick Trickery (even then you’re not utilizing the full potential of Admob’s seamless integration). Thankfully, David Ashwood has released source code for Admob and Smaato Integration on his (branch). Unfortunately, the instructions in his posts are clear but not working (some only work on Linux), however I’m using Mac OSX for development, so it doesn’t help me much. Although I had learned java jar files are platform independent, but they didn’t work in my project (but that’s topic for another day). So I figured I’ll give a broad overview of how to get it working:

Note: I’m not sure if each of these steps are necessary, but this is the way I went on doing it, so you’re welcome to ignore any step that you feel is redundant. But please do leave a comment specifying it, so in the future other developers may not face the same problems.

  1. Follow Titanium Documention to get Titanium built from source (for practice and setting up paths/classpaths that you need later)
  2. Install Android SDK and Google APIs (if you haven’t already)
  3. Clone dasher’s fork
  4. Checkout the branch
  5. If using scons, edit the android/build.xml file to fix the two paths: android.platform and google.apis. They point to the older way If using Eclipse, you can specify these two CLASSPATH variables: ANDROID_PLATFORM and GOOGLE_APIS (as the Titanium Documentation to build from Source (Step 1) suggests).
  6. Run scons or Eclipse to generate jars. I got a zip archive at the end of the process in distribution folder. (I don’t know if Eclipse does it, because I did it through scons. I would argue the regular eclipse build does it as well.)
  7. Unzip this archive in your Titanium application directory, where the following directory structure exists: mobilesdk/{platform}/{version}. Be careful if replacing files/folders. I created a new directory for the {version}, because if this build doesn’t work for whatever reason, you’ll have an option to fallback on the original Titanium version.

And amazingly, you have Admob support in 1.4.1.1 (the latest version for Mac OSX).

Last tidbit: I noticed that moving these jars are very easy, just be sure to carry the other jars along with you, like the admob-sdk-android.jar and SOMAAndroidSDK.jar. I’m not sure if you need these, but I got rid of some crashes that were happening earlier.

DholCutz Bhangra Radio Android App v1

DholCutz Bhangra Radio Android App is out now! Get it from the Android Market.

The Story: I had planned to do a DholCutz Bhangra Radio app about 4-5 months ago, but I never got the time to do it because my initial plans were to do one big app. Apparently, the demand of the app was too much that I just let it go and programmed a quick version for now. The Android Market approval process (1 day) is the best, light years better than iPhone App Store (3 weeks).

The App: I decided to price this app for $1 USD, which might change when I release a much much better version of this app that allows requesting songs from inside the app. Until now, this will do for the punjabi music fans. The app plays music from the radio and shows the current playing song.

The Screenshots:

Thank you.