If you want to check out Android OS, you can download and run a pre-configured Android OS Virtual Appliance installation within VirtualBox. You’ll need a torrent client to download the virtual machine itself, and of course Virtualbox to run it.

You can download Android OS VM here and get VirtualBox here, both are free downloads.

The Android VM was configured for an Eee-PC but runs fine inside of the VirtualBox environment. Running Android OS in a virtual machine is really helpful for anyone who wants to get their feet wet with Android development but doesn’t have an Android capable phone handy (and I’m not about to install Android on my iPhone), and it’s also nice to just play around with if you don’t have much experience with Android software.

Alright iPhone developers, no more beta versions; version 4 of the iPhone/iPad SDK has been released on Apple’s Developer Center. The iPhone 4 SDK has been available in various iterations to those who are registered iPhone developers, but now anyone with an Apple dev login can download the Xcode & iPhone SDK 4 package for free. iPhone 4 SDK includes over 1500 new API’s for developers to tap into and create amazing experiences for touch devices that run iOS 4. Other highlights of iPhone 4 SDK include:

• Multitasking – seven new multitasking services to allow apps to perform tasks in the background while other apps run
• iAd – embed full-screen interactive ads directly within your applications, so users never have to leave the app
• Game Center – developer preview of the GameKit API’s that will allow for multiplayer gameplay on Apple’s new social gaming network
• Video Playback & Capture – full control over playback and capturing of videos and audio
• Calendar Access – apps will now be able to create and edit events within the Calendar app
• SMS within Apps – you can now embed the ability to compose and SMS messages within an app, just like Mail
• Quick Look – just like Mac OS X Quick Look, apps can quickly see previews of documents with Quick Look API
• Map Kit Improvements – developers can now draw overlays directly onto maps
• Full Photo & Media Library Access – apps now can directly access user photo and video

You can head on over to the iPhone Developer Downloads page on Apple.com to get version 4 of iPhone SDK, or read more about iPhone 4 SDK on Apple’s What’s New page.
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Did you know that anyone can build an extension for Safari? It is no problem, anyone can do it and it’s actually easier than you might think.
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If you have installed the iPhone SDK, you will find the iPhone Simulator located at the following destination within your Xcode install:

/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/

The app is named iPhone Simulator.app. Why Apple buried the iPhone Simulator app that deep into a directory, I don’t really know. If you can’t find the iPhone Simulator you may have a different version of the iPhone SDK, or you might only have Xcode installed without the iPhone SDK.

So you just downloaded the awesome Xcode code completion plugin (or any other) and you need to get it working… easy. You can install any Xcode plugin by dropping the .pbplugin file into the following directory:

~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins
If you haven’t used plugins yet, the Plug-ins directory does not exist. In this case, all you need to do is create the directory. After you have dropped the plugin file into the folder, relaunch Xcode and the plugin will be loaded automatically. Uninstalling a plugin is just a matter of removing it from the Plug-ins folder.

Whether you are a new Apple developer or an experienced Cocoa engineer with roots in NeXTStep, you will understand the need to back up your hard work. Integrating Xcode with subversion not only allows you to back up your code, but it also enables you to keep a history of changes that you can revert back to or compare your code against. This is called version control. This article assumes that you already have your own subversion repository that you have read and write access to. If you want to setup a subversion server of your own, I suggest consulting the almighty google for a wide range of articles on how to accomplish this task. Read on for screenshots, details and lots of fun.
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Code completion is one of the more useful features when you’re developing since it allows you to write code faster. While Code completion should be activated by default in newer versions of Xcode, it’s easy to enable and use if it isn’t. You can also improve the usability of Xcode’s code completion with a great third party plugin, skip to the bottom of the article for that.

Enable code completion in Xcode

* Within Xcode, go to Preferences
* Click on the “Code Sense” icon
* Look for the “Code Completion” section and select ‘Immediate’ from the “Automatically Suggest” drop down menu
* Click “OK”

Using Code completion in Xcode

Once enabled, Xcode will now offer code completion based on what you have typed and offer suggestions for completing the syntax.
* You accept the code suggestion by pressing the Tab key or Return
* You can see a full list of completion suggestions by hitting the Escape key

It’s interesting to note that Apple says Code completion is disabled by default, but in newer versions of Xcode it seems to be enabled by default instead.

Improve Xcode code completion with Auto Assistant plugin

Code completion isn’t perfect in Xcode, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions from third parties. A very helpful Xcode plugin for developers is called Xcode Auto Assistant, and it offers the ability to popup the completion list automatically, all the time, when a character it recognizes is entered. The behavior then becomes closer to how things like Coda, BBedit, Espresso, etc handle code completion. The plugin is a lot more consistent than what Apple offers by default, although I wouldn’t be surprised if this is changed soon with an update to Xcode. Until Apple adjusts the behavior, you can download the plugin from Google Code here.

After you download the Auto Assistant plugin, you’ll need to drop the plugin into the following directory:
~/Library/Application Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Plug-ins If /Plug-ins/ does not exist, just create the directory. Relaunch Xcode and the plugin is installed and works immediately.

Whether you’re an active or aspiring iPhone or iPad developer, you’ll really appreciate these nice PSD files from design agency Teehan+Lax. They contain well organized layered images of essential GUI elements of the iPhone OS, sized accordingly to the iPad and iPhone (depending on which PSD file you get, of course). Using these documents with Photoshop you can just open one of the PSD’s and arrange elements around to make a quick GUI mockup for your app idea. There’s also an Adobe Illustrator sketch file for iPhone elements if Photoshop isn’t your thing.

I’d highly recommend downloading all three of these files, they really help to quickly create layouts and mockups for iPhone and iPad app GUI’s. The SDK’s Interface Builder app may be foreign to you or your GUI designer, but these files will be a lot closer to the typical Adobe comfort zone.

Download iPad GUI PSD now

Download iPhone GUI PSD now

Download iPhone Sketch Elements AI now

And if you’re a iPhone OS developer, don’t forget to check out Apple’s official Human Interface Guidelines and Teehan+Lax’s blog either.

If you want to start developing for the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, the first thing you’ll need to do is download and install the iPhone SDK. Yes, the iPhone SDK is what you will want to download even if you have no intention on developing for the iPhone itself and only the iPad, they both run the same iPhone OS operating system.

You will need your Apple user ID, this is the same login you use when you access iTunes, register an Apple product, use the Apple forums, and for other communication with Apple.

Downloading the iPhone SDK

* Go to http://developer.apple.com/iphone
* Enter your Apple login ID information and login
* Once you are logged into the iPhone Development Center, look for the ‘Downloads’ link for iPhone SDK, it is usually bundled with Xcode and will be labeled something like “Xcode 3.2.2 and iPhone SDK 3.2″, the combined download size of the iPhone SDK and Xcode is about 2.3 GB, and takes about 6.5GB of hard drive space to install.

Installing the iPhone SDK

* Once the file is finished downloading, launch the installer and follow the onscreen installation instructions. Remember that a sizable amount of disk space will be used to install Xcode and iPhone SDK.
* After the installation is complete, you will have a new directory located at the root of your Mac called ‘Developer’, inside this directory will be developer apps, tools, resources, the iPhone simulator, and more.

What’s next? Books? Sample code?

If you’re new to iPhone and iPad development, picking up a good book on the topic is a pretty good idea. Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK is a popular choice on Amazon and is a good starting point.

Another good resource is the iPhone OS reference library on Apple.com, there’s plenty of code samples and other helpful information. Apple’s iPhone Human Interface Guidelines is a helpful read too when working on an interface for your app.

If you’re a developer and you haven’t found out about FileMerge yet, you are missing out on one of the more useful apps included within Apple’s XCode installation. FileMerge lets you select any two files and it will compare the two, pointing out any differences between the files. If you’re a developer you already know why this is wildly useful, as it makes tracking down major and minor code changes remarkably easy. Apparently FileMerge is a survivor from the days of NeXTStep, and once you see how useful it is, you’ll see why it was saved and bundled with XCode.

XCode can be installed from the CD/DVD’s included with your Mac, or downloaded for free from the Apple Developer site. Once XCode has been installed, FileMerge will be located at /Developer/Applications/Utilities/FileMerge

[ FileMerge screenshot from Schwehr.org ]