Debugging in Android

The first thing I did after my first steps developing on Android was to change the SPL. The SPL is commonly known as the bootloader, that is, is intended to load the image of the Operative System to the flash memory of the device. I followed the instructions presented in my previous post and updated my HTC Magic (Saphire) with the Engineering SPL 1.33.2010. The original SPL was the one that is shipped on Vodafone Spain Magics, HBOOT-1.33.0004(SAPP10000).

After doing these change I was able even to load Boot images and thus run unsigned images of Android on my HTC. Superb!

Now, what I want to do is to start debugging applications on my HTC. First of all I had to enable App Debugging in the Android Device: On the device, go to the home screen, press MENU, select Applications > Development, then enable USB debugging.

Second, you have to make the application debuggable. To do that, you will have to add the following property to the application element of the manifest.xml:

android:debuggable="true"

Next, just connect the Device to the computer, check with adb that the device is detected, and run the application. It will immediately run the application on your device, it is indeed that easy!

Next step, is to build applications with a custom Image of Android... will come soon!