So I bought an Android phone earlier this year. It is the first smartphone I've owned. Previously I had one through work and so did my wife. I think we've both become hooked on continuous connection to the hive-mind (i.e. internet). It will probably be a facet of our lives for the foreseeable future.
I picked an Android phone because I believe capitalism fails when companies try to control too large of a vertical slice of a market. It is big a turn off when hardware makers and phone carriers write, modify, or limit my software choices. Android helps, but does not solve this problem for me completely. Therefore I've had a strong desire to root my phone and put this issue to bed.
But I haven't. The shady characters, suspicious downloads, and arcane instructions required to get to true freedom just haven't been worth the time. That may be finally changing.
I spent the last weekend at CodeStock, a fantastic developers conference with a very ugly mascot. I got a chance to meet and listen to Jason Farrel speak about Android development, in Eclipse and IntelliJ no less. Having watched everyone at work get their own pet mobile app running and feeling armed with some knowledge of my own, I felt inspired. The only measurable success so far is a compilable example project in Eclipse, but I figured I'd share some of my notes from setup all the same.
1) Eclipse might not know where your Android SDK is located. You'll need to set this up in the "Preferences" menu.
2) There's a lot of stuff to download. Luckily I already had Eclipse (for normal Java development), Java (see Eclipse), and the Android SDK (abandoned rooting attempt). In addition you'll need to install the Eclipse plugin which took a bit of time. Pack a meal if you plan to make a day of it.
That's all for now. Hopefully I'll have more info soon!