Programming Mobile Apps with

Python

Andreas Schreiber <andreas.schreiber@medando.de>

EuroPython 2012, Florence, Italy (July 3, 2012)

www.medando.de
 Medando – Mobile Health Apps

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 My Blood Pressure

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 Overview

• Apps and Statistics

• Apps, Hardware, Markets

• Early Mobile Development with Python

• Nokia, Windows Mobile / CE

• Current Mobile Development with Python

• Android, iOS, Windows Phone

• Everything else…
• Other systems, summary, conclusions

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 Mobile Apps

What is a mobile app?

• A software designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers, and other

mobile devices
• Limited memory, small screens, touch UI, battery efficient

• Runs on mobile operating systems

• Available through application distribution platforms

• Apps are either free or paid

• “App” was Word of the Year in 2010 (USA)

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 Smartphones

What is a smartphone?

• Mobile phone based on a mobile

operating platform

• Combination of
• PDA functions, camera, media player, Web browser, …

• Equipped with
• Touch screen, high-speed networking (Wi-Fi, mobile
broadband), GPS, NFC, acceleration sensors, …

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 Tablet Computers

What is a Tablet?

• A mobile computer that is

larger than a smartphone

• Built as touch screen device

• Virtual keyboard, sometimes

stylus or digital pen

• Mostly based on x86 or ARM

architectures

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 Mobile Operating Systems

Popular mobile operating systems

• Android

• Apple iOS

• Windows Phone / Mobile / CE

• RIM BlackBerry

• Nokia OS / Symbian

• Samsung Bada

• …

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 Market Share: Smartphone Sales

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

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 App Distribution

• Application Distribution Platforms

• Google Play

• Apple App Store

• Windows Phone Marketplace

(and Windows Marketplace for Mobile)

• BlackBerry App World

• Nokia Ovi Store

• Many more
• Cross-platform, manufacturer-specific,
carrier-specific, …

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 Apps in the iOS App Store

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Store_(iOS)

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 Apps in the Android Market / Google Play
Google Play Apps
700.000

600.000

500.000

400.000

300.000

200.000

100.000

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 Apps in Google Play
Google Play Downloads
25.000.000.000

20.000.000.000

15.000.000.000

10.000.000.000

5.000.000.000

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 Apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace

Source: http://www.windowsphoneapplist.com

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 So Many Apps…

… but almost none of them

are developed in Python!

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 Early Mobile Development with Python

• Symbian

• Window Mobile / CE

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 Symbian

Symbian OS

• Operating system for smartphones and PDAs

• Micro kernel, 32bit, single user

• GUI-centric application framework

S60
A schematic diagram of the S60 platform architecture.

• User interface for smartphones

Programming for Symbian

• C++, Java, Web Widgets

• (Flash Lite), (Python)

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 Python for S60 (PyS60)

• Python port for S60 platform

• Developed by Nokia, but development has stopped

• Open-Source-License (Apache Version 2)

• Stable Release

• Last release: 1.4.5 (27.01.2009)

• Available on SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pys60

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 “Hello World”

import appuifw
appuifw.app.title = u„Hello World"
appuifw.note(u"Hello World!", 'info')

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 Starting a Python Interpreter

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 Running Scripts

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 Interactive Console

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 Source Code Template

import appuifw
1. Importing modules import e32

2. Setting screen size appuifw.app.screen = 'normal'

3. Applications menu def item1():

print "item1 was selected.”
4. Set. exit key handler appuifw.app.menu = [(u"item 1", item1)]

(Callback function) def quit():

appuifw.app.set_exit()
5. Setting app title
app.exit_key_handler=quit
6. Application body
appuifw.app.title = u'Simple Application'
7. Active Objects
app_lock = e32.Ao_lock()
8. Main Loop # starts scheduler -> event processing
app_lock.wait()

Complete template: http://www.mobilenin.com/pys60/resources/app_skeleton_with_mainloop.py

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 Example „Location Based Service“

Send SMS to someone if certain cell is near (using GSM Cell ID)
import location

HOME_CELL_ID = u"98521779" # my home in Cologne, Germany

WIFE = u"+49173247****“ # cell phone number of my wife

entries = [u"can’t wait to see you!",

u"I’m hungry.",
u"I’m in a bad mood."]
listbox = appuifw.Listbox(entries, shout)

home = 0
while home == 0:
country, provider, lac, cell = location.gsm_location()
if (cell== HOME_CELL_ID):
home = 1
message = u"Will be at home in a moment and %s" % mood
messaging.sms_send(WIFE, message)

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 Example „OpenGL“

http://tinyurl.com/pys60cube

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 Windows Mobile / CE

Windows Mobile

• Operating system for smartphones

• Based on Windows CE kernel

• Implemented in C

Programming for Windows Mobile

• Visual C++ (native code)

• .NET framework

• Tcl-Tk (with eTcl)

• Python with PythonCE

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 Python CE

• Python port for Windows CE

• Python CE: http://pythonce.sourceforge.net/

• Outdated since 2007

# Send a quick popup message to the user

import win32sys
win32sys.MessageBox(0, "My Message", "My Title", 1)
win32sys.MessageBeep()

# Launch another CE application

import win32sh
win32sh.ShellExecuteEx(0, 0, "", "\\Windows\\calc.exe",
"", "\\Windows", 1)

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 Current Mobile Development with Python

• Android

• iOS

• Windows Phone

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 Android

Android

• Linux-based operating system for mobile devices

• Developed by the Open Handset Alliance, led by Google

• Open Source, Apache License

• Kernel based on Linux-kernel

• Libraries and APIs written in C

• Application Framework in Java

• Java VM Dalvik with JIT

• Hardware platform: ARM

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 Programming Android

• Apps are usually developed in Java

• Software development tools

• Android Software Development Kit

• Native Development Kit

• App Inventor for Android

• Simple project and Basic4android

• some others

• Python!?

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 Python for Android

Several options

• Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A)

• Python for Android (Py4A)

• Kivy

• PySide for Android

• PyGame

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 Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A)

• Executes scripts and interactive interpreters on Android

• Access to many APIs

• Support for
• Python
• Perl
• Ruby
• Lua
• BeanShell
• JavaScript Source: Practical Android Projects by Lucas Jordan and Pieter Greyling

• Tcl
• Available on Google Code:
http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting

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 Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A)

• Support for some UI elements: Dialogs, Toasts, Progressbar, …

• Interactive console

Source: Practical Android Projects by Lucas Jordan and Pieter Greyling

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 Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A)

• Scripts
• Sharing via barcodes or APKs

• Hello Word:

import android
droid = android.Android()
droid.makeToast('Hello, Android!')

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 Python for Android (Py4A)

• Python interpreter for Android

• CPython, cross-compiled for Android

• Used in SL4A

• Access to many Android APIs

• Native UI support not complete

• Website: http://code.google.com/p/python-for-android/

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 Building an App

• To build a stand-alone app, the Python for Android interpreter must be

included in an APK
• Project: http://code.google.com/p/android-python27/
• Template files

• Build files

• Basically requires to change Java code to add your own script

public static final String

PYTHON_MAIN_SCRIPT_NAME = "hello.py";
public static final String
PYTHON_PROJECT_ZIP_NAME = "my_python_project.zip";
File: GlobalConstants.java

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 Kivy

• Cross platform framework for innovative user interfaces

• Multi-touch

• Runs on Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OSX

• Graphics engines uses OpenGL ES2

• Open Source
• Website: http://kivy.org

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 Kivy Hello World
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.uix.button import Button

class TestApp(App):
def build(self):
return Button(text='Hello World')

TestApp().run()

Source: Kivy Website kivy.org

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 See Kivy Poster Outside…

Poster by Mathieu Virbel

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 PySide for Android

• For writing GUI applications for Android using Python

• Based on
• Python for Android (Py4A)

• Qt for Android (Necessitas)

• Python bindings for Qt (PySide)

• Website: http://thp.io/2011/pyside-android/

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 PySide for Android Example
import sys
import traceback

def main():
from PySide.QtCore import *
from PySide.QtGui import *

app = QApplication(sys.argv)

w = QLabel('Hello World!')
w.show()

app.exec_()

if __name__=="__main__":
main()

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 Pygame Subset for Android

• Subset of Pygame for the Android platform

• Good for developing simple games

• Website: http://pygame.renpy.org/

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 iOS

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 Apple iOS

iOS

• Mobile operating system by Apple

• Multi-touch user interface

• OS layer: Core OS layer, Core Services,

Media layer, Cocoa Touch layer

Programming iOS
• Apps are written in Objective-C

• Software Development Kit and IDE Xcode

• Python on iOS almost not possible

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 Python for iOS – A Python IDE for the iOS

http://pythonforios.com/
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 Python for iOS – On iPhone

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 Python for iOS – On iPad

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 Python for iOS – On iPad

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 Python for iOS – On iPad

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 Kivy

• You can publish Kivy Apps

in the Apple App Store

• No dynamic linking

• First App: Deflectouch

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 Windows Phone

Windows Phone

• Mobile operating system by Microsoft

• Successor to Windows Mobile

Programming for Windows Phone

• Apps must be based on XNA or Silverlight

• Windows Phone Developer Tools

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 IronPython

IronPython

• Python implementation for the .NET platform

• Since version 2.7.2 (March 2012):

• Preliminary support for Windows Phone 7.5

• No documentation yet
• http://blog.ironpython.net/2012/03/whats-new-in-ironpython-272.html

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 Everything else…

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 Other Mobile Devices

Many other devices with Apps

• Livescribe

• Amazon Kindle

• No Python support

• Maybe support via Jython

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 Summary

Symbian Android iOS Windows

Phone
Python Yes Yes, with Via Kivy Not now
support restrictions

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 Comparison Matrix by Thomas Perl (@thp4)

Source: http://thp.io/2012/mobile-matrix/
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 Questions?
@onyame
Conclusions

• Python on mobile phone not ready for production

development of apps

• Some solutions for scripting and interactive interpretation

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