Sadly, the Dolphin browser is not really optimized for Honeycomb, and its interface can look a little small on large tablets. So I have found myself using the native browser more and more. But the native browser suffers from the “Android” user agent string – but it doesn’t have to. There is a hidden (and I mean really hidden) gem that allows you to change the user agent string, among other things (like a Javascript console)!

To change the user agent string, start by opening a tab in the browser and typing “about:debug”. Be sure that the tablet’s “intelligence” doesn’t put a space between the colon and “debug”. Hit the Return key to “load” the page.

You won’t see anything load in the page, but if you go to the options menu in the upper right hand corner, you will see some new entries at the bottom of the list.

Choose Settings and you will see an option for Debug. Tap the UAString item and choose Desktop.

Viola! Your tablet will no longer identify itself as a “mobile device”, but rather as a “desktop”.

The Dreamweaver team has released instructions which you can find here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/904/cpsid_90408.html

Basically, you’ll need to replace the NativeAppCommon.js file located at [Dreamweaver Install Location]/Configuration/NativeAppFramework/. The entire process takes less than a minute to complete.

If you have already installed the Android Framework, you don’t “have” to do this, however you might want to go ahead and grab the updated file just in case you ever want to reinstall the framework with Dreamweaver’s Easy Install.

Before proceeding, you’ll obviously want to go grab the updated libraries themselves. For the core jQuery library, I suggest using the minified version. Because images are also part of jQuery Mobile, I recommend grabbing the zipped version of the framework. After you download and unzip the folder, you’ll find a full version of the css and js files. I recommend using the minified versions, so go ahead and delete the full versions of the files (ie, they don’t have “.min” in their names).

Arguably one of the most powerful features of Dreamweaver is its extensibility. In fact, the application itself is built around the very technologies that it itself writes, namely HTML, CSS and Javascript. All of these pieces are located in the Configuration folder that you can find where Dreamweaver is installed on your computer. For me, since I’m a Mac user, it’s at Applications>Adobe Dreamweaver CS5.5>Configuration. There are tons of other folders in the Configuration folder, but the one that holds the files that we are interested in is the Third Party Source Code folder.

Inside this folder, you’ll find the jquery-mobile folder. If you want to backup the folder, feel free. None of the sites that you have worked on previously are reliant on these files, as Dreamweaver makes a local copy in each site you create (if you are not using the CDN versions of the Mobile Starter Pages – which we will talk about later). Replace the two jquery-mobile files (css and js) with your newly downloaded files. Replace the entire images folder as well. Finally, replace the jquery-1.5.min.js file with your jquery-1.6.1.min.js file (or whatever you named it).

One last step and your update is complete. When you choose to create a new file from the New Document dialog, Dreamweaver makes a copy of the selected file from the Configuration folder and places it in your site file. The Mobile Starter layouts (New Document > Page from Sample > Mobile Starters) are located in Configuration > BuiltIn > Mobile Starters. There are 3 pages – two of which reference the files that you have now deleted, jQueryMobileLocalMultiPage.htm and jQueryMobilePhoneGapMultiPage.htm.

Open each of these files in Dreamweaver. You’ll see in the head of the document links to the two old jQuery Javascript files and the old CSS file. Simply update these links to point to your new files and save the document. Test that everything worked properly by closing the file, then creating a new page from the Sample that you just changed. Make sure to save the file into a site to make sure that Dreamweaver copies the proper files into the site.

Finally, if you want to change the CDN version, it points to the jquery repository online, simply update jQueryMobileMultiPage.htm to point to the location of the CDN versions of the files.

Happy mobile coding!

But moving an app to your device means plugging it in, turning on USB storage mode (and thereby dumping access to your SD card from the phone while it is in that mode), copying the file over and then installing it – and potentially then, turning off USB storage, etc. It’s such a painful process that I started even dreading doing it — crossing my fingers that everything was working properly and continuing to code until absolutely, positively the last minute, and only then connecting my phone.

Then it hit me – there is a MUCH simpler way… in fact, it was a firm face-palm! Dropbox! Doh! That’s right, simply sign up for a free account, and then use the Dropbox application to add easy access to Dropbox right from your OS. Download the free app from the Marketplace on your Android devices and sign in. Now, I just compile and copy the apk file into my designated Dropbox folder. On the device, a single tap and the app is downloaded and installed! You gotta love it when the simplest solution was staring you in the face all along.

As for UI, I’m a big jQuery fan, so the choice of using jQuery Mobile is a natural — and it’s even more attractive because Adobe is one of the sponsors of the project.

I’ve got several ideas for additional blog posts surrounding my early learnings in this space (Android development, in particular) – especially due to the fact that the Phonegap and jQuery Mobile documentation is not very detailed, but I thought I’d start with one that had me completely perplexed — an application splash screen. The need for a splash screen started almost immediately. Even with the simplest of “Hello World” applications, once I got it onto my Android phone, I would notice a blank white screen for several seconds before the main “page” showed up. I tried modifying the HTML, CSS and JS of my pages – all to no avail.

It turns out, the white screen is the embedded browser starting up, and until it is loaded, nothing is going to be shown onscreen. Enter the need for a splash screen. After spending the better half of a day wandering the rabbit holes of the intertubes, it seemed that the solution was easy on iOS. Just add a Default.png file to the resource structure of your app and you are done. On Android… not so much. And yes, I did attempt that “simple solution” however, when attempting to compile the app, it would error out with “res/drawable-hdpi/Default.png:0: error: invalid symbol: ‘Default’“.

Back to Google, I finally discovered that splash screen support on Android was added in version 0.9.3. A single thread in a forum, seemed to solve the issue, but there was lots of confusion (as I would find) surrounding the implementation of the solution. The thread indicated that a line super.setIntegerProperty( “splashscreen”, R.drawable.splash ); needed to be added to DefaultActivity.java file in the onCreate method. A second argument to the loadURL method defines the length of time the splash screen should be displayed. The value is given in milliseconds: super.loadUrl(“file:///android/www/index.html”, 1000);

After upgrading to 0.9.3 the error changed to “res/drawable-hdpi/Default.png: Invalid file name: must contain only [a-z0-9_.]“, which really puzzled me until I realized that the file name started with a capital letter. Changing it to a lowercase “d”, brought the original error back. After some head scratching, I decided to change the file name to “splash” to match the line “R.drawable.splash” that I had added to the java file — and surprise, it worked!

The moral of the story?

• Make sure you’re testing using version 0.9.3 or later
• Add

  super.setIntegerProperty("splashscreen", R.drawable.splash);

  to DefaultActivity.java file in the onCreate method before the loadURL method

• Add a second argument to the loadURL method for the timing
• Be sure to use splash as your file name – which can be either a JPG or PNG file

I love my Galaxy Tab, but I am also eagerly awaiting some of the other new tablets. This is going to be a slugfest for sure. Thanks to Endgadget, here is a complete list of all of the tablets that were announced at CES.

The best announcement for me personally though, was the prospect of moving on from my Nexus One phone. While I’ve definitely loved the phone, it’s now 1 year old — and no self respecting geek could carry such a “brick”. The phone that sparked my imagination the most? The Motorola Atrix 4G. Shortly before the Motorola announcement, I was sure that I would be snapping up the HTC Inspire 4G, which is the North American version of the HTC Desire HD. I (sadly) purchased the amazing Desire HD last fall during a business trip to Europe — only to land back in the US to discover that it doesn’t support the US 3G bands. Doh! The HTC phone is absolutely incredible, and if it worked in the US, it would be my favorite all time phone – so I’m sure that the HTC Inspire will be a huge hit.

But, Motorola has lapped the competition with the Atrix. The phone itself is nothing spectacular to look at in terms of design, and were it simply a matter of choosing between it and the Inspire, I would probably choose the Inspire. But with the Atrix, there are two things that completely set it apart and on top of my list. The first is the NVidia Tegra dual core processor. This looks like it will be a game changer in terms of performance. But the second thing is the one that continues to have me daydreaming – a laptop dock. Yes, you read that right, but no, we’re not talking about putting your phone in a dock attached to a laptop. Instead the “laptop” is simply a shell. The phone is what powers it! For me, this is mind blowing. Imagine managing your email, social updates and casual surfing all on your phone, er…, laptop. When you plug the phone into the shell, it spawns a program called WebTop, which is an “operating system” overlay that gives you the feel of an actual computer – even though it’s your phone. Hard to imagine, I know, and even harder to describe. So, maybe you should just have a look at Motorola’s promotional site.

Don’t worry, I’ve signed up to be notified the moment this bad boy is available for sale, and I will definitely be first in line at my local AT&T store.