Android: The development SDK

If you have an Android phone such as the HTC Dream and you have not rooted the phone AND installed the development SDK (just for super-cool geek factor and some tweaking), then stop reading.

The usage of the Android SDK will work on any Android phone without the need of rooting. Get yourself the SDK, then enable development mode on your phone (via Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging). You can leave USB debugging on, it does not negatively affect performance of the phone.

After connecting via USB, switch into the “tools”-folder of the SDK and you can do the following:

• ./adb devices – will show you if an Android phone is connected
• ./adb shell – will open a remote/telnet shell on the phone where you can do your normal Unix stuff
• fastboot (downloaded separately) allows you to flash/reboot the phone (your phone needs to be in Fastboot USB-mode via CAMERA+POWER)

One of the cool features DDM – Dalvik Debug Monitor, which you invoke via ./ddms:

You will be able to debug processes as well as display device information remotely. But once you hit CTRL-S, you will be able to take remote screenshots from your device – like so: