Droidcon 2013

I went to Droidcon UK last week and my brain is still catching up… So many new ideas (and good ones too!).

I’ve put together several posts from Droidcon 2013 — this one gathers all the short notes that I took that didn’t deserve a full post of their own. They’re still worth checking out though!

A big thank you to the organisers and the contributors who made it all possible, especially Thibaut Rouffineau for whom this is his last Droidcon as organiser.

Cupboard SQLite access

https://bitbucket.org/qbusict/cupboard/wiki/GettingStarted

• easier design than ORMlite
• works better with Android framework
• doesn’t require a custom activity

testfairy

http://www.testfairy.com/

• send your APK to them, they instrument it and return it to you
• or you can ask them to sign it themselves and manage the testers for you
• results include one frame per second video of app UI, synced to logs and any exceptions

would you code blindfolded?

Gonçalo Silva, Novoda @gnorsilva

• Pretotype — most cost effective prototype
  • e.g. using wooden blocks wrapped with paper to test mobile device ideas — use in real world situations — as used by Jeff Hawkins to test the PalmPilot
• Light Table IDE — animate your code with live test results
• estimations have a very limited lifetime
  • valid up to a month, maybe two
  • more of a gut feeling rather than a specific time
  • just to help you and guide you, doesn’t tell you when you’ll be complete
  • don’t adjust your estimates — look at the performance in retrospectives
  • make estimates based on difficulty, not time
  • anything bigger than a 4 should be broken down into smaller pieces

android script

http://androidscript.org/

• Free app on google play
• or £0.65 version available with SmartWatch, IOIO and LEGO Mindstorms integration

productising a modern Android Device

Craig Arnush, Vertu

Vertu sell hand-made Android phones for £7,000+…

• made a changes to Android to allow secret alert + new vertu key
  • secret alert makes the phone pretend to be dead (including the home button)
  • modified phone window manager
• added own analytics (couldn’t rely on Google etc, as wanted security)
• have an internal Vertu API
  • if interested, get in touch
• tools: use OpenGrok

Tesco hudl

Novoda were showing off the hudl — a cheap Android tablet sold by Tesco.

Apparently Novoda were involved at a fairly deep level in the project, which explains why it’s actually pretty good!

demo camp

Each presenter had a couple of minutes to show off their app or service — the entries were judges by a panel of venture capitalists offering investment.

amateur football management

• http://football-tracker.com
• manage leagues & players

5-tiles keyboard

http://etaoisystems.com/

Download on Google Play

• normal users reaching 40wpm — almost twice as a normal keyboard
• speed freaks reaching 100wpm
• works on small devices — ported to I’m Watch smartwatch: immediately useable

apiomat

http://www.apiomat.com/

• easy to create APIs
• graphical UI to create basic database w/relations
• also does push notifications
• auto-generates code for iOS, Android, PHP, Python, etc

scoopt

http://scoopt.com/

• fashion facebook
• retailer with fashion leads

indoo.rs

http://indoo.rs/

• got 2-5m just using wi-fi in business design centre (on Android)
• iOS can’t use wi-fi positioning as Apple don’t provide wi-fi signal strength
• 6 patents
• support crowd-sourced mapping
• €100/mth for access to SDK

apponsor

http://apponsor.com/

• in-app sponsorship by signing up to newsletter
• automatically fetches user name and (verified) email address from device
• requires read context, read local account + internet permissions

pogo from Activ8rlives

http://www.activ8rlives.com/

• import healthcare data from devices that require USB
• patients no longer have PCs to upload their data and don’t have the latest Android or iPhone devices to pick up Bluetooth LE or
• instead have created a hardware box that converts USB into audio jack so can be picked up by an app on even legacy devices
• indiegogo campaign

genymotion

http://www.genymotion.com/

• native Android emulation for app testing & presentation
• integrates with laptop camera & fake location services
• introducing pro version next month

CapturaTalk

http://www.capturatalk.com/

• assistive services for students, esp. disabled & dyslexic
  • also useful for those with English as a second language
• OCR text into an editable format
• can get word definitions, including easily confusable words
• being sold to schools

NOBU BYOD

• remote android workspace for any device
• provides easily securable data for enterprise
• uses multi-user android servers
• have iOS client + HTML5 client
• can be run inside a data centre

NOBU won the demo camp top prize.

Droidcon 2013: App to App — design & surface local APIs

Ty Smith, Twitter (ex-Evernote) @tsmith

• e.g. Samsung Note S Note app — locally synced with S Note grouping in built-in Evernote
• tapping on a note in Evernote, opens it in S Note; then back button goes back to Evernote

intents

• when sharing content to another activity, need to provide URI permission
• when offering edit, you shouldn’t send your original file
  • the third party might crash, corrupt, etc
• also can’t rely on setResult
• user might hit back and think their changes will be saved
• set last modified — when activity returns can check to see if changed — then offer user to save if they want

content providers

• can provide temporary permissions to access provider in an intent
• can pass through file handles

account manager

• see an example in the open source github app
• can request an authenticated token
• makes accounts visible to user in a standard place
• can do OAuth1 or 2
• has method to refresh OAuth2 token automatically

sync adapter

• does a lot of management for you automatically (network, battery)
• again, can expose to third parties
• can be scheduled & started with cloud messaging
• requires content provider & account manager
• but watch out for all the syncs coming at once
  • especially as networks often send out heartbeats on the hour every hour
  • devices wake up and think: I might as well sync now…
  • Evernote received DDoS load spikes…
• so add a jitter to the sync period (random 1hr -> 1hr5min)
• also add a “wait until” in the sync adapter — do your own checking

bound service

• much stronger contract than others
• other apps need to include your AIDL source code
• example: plugins for DashClock

tips

• testing is hard
  • use mock integrations
  • hard to debug integrations
• add analytics to the lower level components so you know what’s going on
  • might want to consider rate limiting
• use crash reporting (plug for crashlytics, now owned by twitter)

Droidcon 2013: Awesomeness Checklist

Taylor Ling, http://AndroidUIUX.com

• attention to detail

animations

• find balance between subtle & noticeable
• should provide information
• make sure to use standard animations
• e.g. don’t change root screen exit — otherwise users don’t know what’s happened (why was that different?)

feedback

• microinteractions: dan saffer
• visual feedback — show highlighted touch area when pressed down (and ensure that the areas are big enough)
• watch out for dialogs — and make sure there’s no ambiguous buttons
• e.g. preventing screenshots — at least the user why you have done so
• need to make the rules of the app visible
• for side menus, it’s important to push the current view into the background when the menu appears
  • make it darker / blurred

help

• quick tutorial: introduction of the value of the app
• not how to use the app
• have a help section (offline if possible)

Droidcon 2013: Responsive Design for Android

Juhani Lehtimäki, Smashing Android UI

Presentation available online

• alternative to master/detail — grid view
  • works the same way with adapters
  • can adjust number of columns in values to adjust on screen size
  • use it as an easy way to extend the UI without a huge redesign
  • also useful for inspiring designers to take the design further
• need to figure out where the relayout/break points are?
  • need to talk about what is the screen size for this layout to work
  • don’t need to talk about tablets or phones
• juhani likes to do the large screen first
  • makes you think about whole picture if there would be enough space
• android design in action from google
  • different layers of design:
  • information design — all you
  • interaction design — all holo/android
    • 100% chance users use other Android apps
    • tiny chance they use other platforms
    • optimise for user experience, not app consistency across platforms
  • visual design — mixed
• use the default components!
  • but don’t components that are not needed for the app
• action bar gives you lots of things for free
  • adjusts for screen space automatically
  • components work across lots of devices — tested!
  • also hold down item gives tooltip
• best app for design on android right now: timely alarm clock
  • and follows all android guidelines!
• can fade out the action bar when content scrolls up
• use Android Asset Studio to show how 9 patch graphics work
  • designers can check online
• use fragments from support package even when targetting 4+
• decouple front end from backend
  • Greenrobot Event Bus
  • Square Otto
  • data manager -> bus -> fragment
• when fragment starts it queries for data by id
  • fragment should ask for it
  • manager should respond to bus with id when ready
  • fragment subscribes when it’s around and unsubscribes when it goes away
  • so fragment can then request data when it’s told that id is ready
• http://jimulabs.com — lets you change layouts on the fly
• make sure your design team uses android devices
  • at least for a couple of weeks!
• use standard components and follow guidelines
  • won’t just cost in coding — think about all the testing!
• think scalable from the first wireframe

Droidcon 2013: Conquering concurrency — bringing the reactive extensions to the Android platform

Matthias Käppler, Soundcloud @mttkay

Matt has written his own blog post to accompany his talk.

• this talk is about functional reactive programming
• but without talking about monads or other mathematical terms
• example: a list view with data from the server
  • lots of concurrency
  • callbacks, broadcast receivers, notifications all over the place
• wanted a single event handling model with natural concurrency
• problem with imperative programming is shared state across whole app
• doesn’t work with multiple threads and concurrency
• programming style should reflect the event-based, network-dependent world that apps live in
• AsyncTask has changed several times in its implementation
  • since ICS it uses a single-threaded executor
  • prone to leaking Context since you have to manage references yourself
  • also has no error handling built-in
  • can’t have long-running tasks that depend on each other
• event buses (otto, green robot) also have downsides:
  • designed around shared global state
  • still no ability to chain tasks
  • no built-in error handling

RxJava

• RxJava
  • actually a port of .net Rx extensions invented at Microsoft 5 years ago for Windows Phone
• Observable<T> ::onNext(T) ::onCompleted ::onError(Throwable)
• subscribeOn(scheduledThread) / observeOn(scheduledThread)
• have lots of useful schedulers e.g. observer on main Android thread
• also have map and mapMany to compose observables

how to use it

• soundcloud built android extensions
• http://gihub.com/soundcloud/rxjava
• dumb fragments
• service objects implement business objects
• custom operators for paging content in list views etc
• AndroidObservables.fromFragment
  • guarantees that it won’t leak but will maintain connection to a rotated activity

• e.g.

  
  fetchModels(request) { 
  return fetchResponse(request).mapMany((response) -> {
      return mapResponse(request, response);
  })
  }
  

• simple uniform event model

• unit tests don’t need to run background threads
• apply it in a focussed way
• don’t replace callbacks — used in service layer for API requests
• use proguard!

downsides

• java 6 anonymous classes are very verbose
• deep call stacks in debugging
• slight increase in GC activity (but didn’t have any noticeable performance impact)
• learning curve
  • but can use similar things for objective-c and server side (finagle & twitter futures) so can share knowledge

references

• http://rx.codeplex.com
• http://www.reactivemanifesto.org
• http://paulstovell.com/blog/reactive-programming

Droidcon 2013: Teaching Your Client Android Design; or, Ridding the World of iPhoneys

Kenton Price, Little Fluffy Toys http://www.littlefluffytoys.mobi

Presentation available online

Summly

• Android has algorithm on client as Android screens come in different sizes
• insisted that wanted back button in app
• got google developer advocate support to say no
• also added various improvements, several of which

BBC Weather

• again received an iPhone design from the agency
• identified areas that should be more Android-y
• added additional Android features
  • NFC support — share locations over NFC
  • lock screen widget, daydream mode, dashclock integration
• don’t need to shout about these integrations, as early adopters will do it for you
• first release: got slated on play store as there was no landscape mode
  • tablet users will review you (no easy way to exclude…)
  • upset users are far more likely to leave reviews
  • designers hadn’t included landscape as it was not seen as a big use case
• about > version code > tap 7 times > easter egg :-)
• reviews: “BBC does it better on Android for once”
  • made design Android native
  • then added nice Android features
• even the BBC were surprised about what could be done

Play Store beta management

• assign a Google Plus community to different (alpha/beta/etc)
• accept/reject membership
• LFT used to use HockeyApp, but this is much better

how to

• get the product manager on board
• get graphic designers on board
• compare to best-of-breed
• get the ActionBar absolutely right

Q&A

• some designers feel that they haven’t designed it if there’s still native components visible
  • a lots of designers got burned by the change from iOS 6 to 7
  • maybe they’ve learned their lesson now!
• supporting older Android
  • support 240x320 as the smallest, but was difficult to work around lack of bucket design sizes (3+)
  • couldn’t test across everything
  • used ActionBarSherlock
  • lots of graceful degradation

Droidcon 2013: Ship Faster With Open Source from Square

Pierre-Yves Ricau, Square @piwai

Sample project: http://github.com/pyricau/shipfaster

• look out for talk later at devoxx about how square got rid of fragments
• debug panel in app, slides from right
  • lets you adjust the settings

dagger dependency injection

https://github.com/square/dagger

• create object graph in application
• injection happens in activity onCreate (prob. base class)
• can switch between modules when create graph (e.g. using build settings)
• resolves dependencies at compile time as it’s annotation based
  • don’t get errors at run time
  • doesn’t use reflection so faster
• also generates dot files so can view dependency graph

otto

https://github.com/square/otto

• (the bus driver in the Simpsons…)
• broadcasts are not type safe and fragile
• define event classes
• the bus then calls the event methods for all subscribers
• also provides an event logger
• events are called synchronously

dagger & otto together

• use a custom annotation with dagger bindings
• can then add subscription/unsubscription easily

robolectric

http://robolectric.org/

• main developer now at square…

retrofit REST client

https://github.com/square/retrofit

• define an interface for API
• methods take a callback method
• callback will happen on UI thread
• suggestion: use otto bus to fire events on return
• create a RestAdapter and plug it in using dagger
• has a log level to show you all headers
• also works with protocol buffers
• async by default, but can also do sync if you want to do multiple serialized calls from a background thread
• can use underneath robospice

picasso

https://github.com/square/picasso

• image loader from URLs
• placeholder & error images
• resize dimensions
• don’t need to deal with http or caching at all!
• has debug indicator corners on images:
  • green from memory
  • yellow from filesystem
  • red from network
• can apply transforms to images
• handles large images well
• adjusts threads for downloading & encoding according to network status (wifi, 3G)
• but may not respect cache expiry headers… (poss only when not used with OkHttp)

OkHttp

https://github.com/square/okhttp

• Android has switched from Apache HttpClient to URLConnection
• HttpClient no longer maintained in Android :-(
• OkHttp now part of AOSP!
• create a client and retrieve an HttpURLConnection
• used by retrofit and picasso by default

more info available

• http://square.github.io
• http://piwai.info

Droidcon 2013: Gradle for Android

Hans Dockter, CEO Gradleware & Founder of Gradle @hansd

http://gradle.org

http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system

buildTypes

• automatically picks up different source & resource directories
• can add code specific (e.g. setting constants)
• can adjust settings across multiple tasks
• automatically creates new tasks (e.g. packageTest, packageStaging)
• allows different dependencies for different types

productFlavors

• just like build types, but another axis
• can alter package name
• extends tasks further (e.g. installFreeTest, installPaidStaging)
• configure different things than buildTypes (not proguard, etc)

flavorGroups

• allows unlimited extension
• e.g. ARM/intel
• tasks allow you to run groups of things — e.g. test all debug builds

other features

• gradle wrapper
  • allows specifying the version of gradle in source control
• additional plugins
  • manymo — devices in the cloud
    • has gradle plugin to run tests against selections of their devices
• has a rich model & deep API that allows additional scripts in build
  • e.g. real-time warning if a test runs for longer than 20ms
• can combine with wrapper to have your own custom gradle installation
  • put scripts in .init of gradle installation to apply to all builds
• Android Studio picking up gradle built types
  • so can switch and see effects in the visual designer
• in future want to specify virtual devices in gradle
  • so IDE just executes gradle
  • IDE has less to do :-)

Droidcon 2013: Crafting Unique, Delightful Apps

Dan Lew @danlew42 & Chris Arvin @meinhyperspeed, Expedia

• created a sample app to show ideas: http://goo.gl/XCyLWl
• default holo vs customized UI
• finding interesting ways to interact
• holo is great for developers, but need to extend it to add character
• designer should build on how android looks, feels & works
  • e.g. cards, vertically sliding content
• build from user’s prior Android experience
  • i.e. don’t put brand consistency ahead of platform consistency

animations

• android apps move: so should your mockups!
• really important for communication as a designer
• tools for designers: after effects, html/css + transforms, quartz composer (but steep learning curve)
• generally requires a little bit of coding knowledge but no too much
• animations gives lots of visual clues
  • e.g. expanding an item in a list to go to detail

working together

• developer first reaction is generally: how am I going to do this?
• takes a few minutes to start to get to grips — it will take more work…
• first need to really understand what the designer is going for
• interesting UI = a lot more development
• work on the big stuff first — usually the animation
  • makes sure that the view hierarchy is right
  • need to think a few steps ahead
• need to ensure that animation performs
  • use translations rather than layout changes
  • use GPU overlay to help with effects and performance
• communicate:
  • what’s going to be a challenge?
  • what can we make easier?
  • what do we have to cut entirely?
  • come up with 5-10 different options
• e.g. rounded corners done with 9 patch as quick fix

polishing

• developers often get it close enough but not quite right
• designer needs to communicate effectively
• communicate in dps not pixels
• adjust from what’s already in the app rather from mockups
• use relative measurements not absolutes
• annotate real screenshots
• e.g. make fonts 2dp smaller here, add 4dp padding there
• little play things:
  • e.g. expedia wait screen shows plane window with sky going past
  • rotating phone adjusts horizon; can close and open window

engaging UI

• really relying on images can set the tone of your app
• hotel detail done with parallax layers
  • encourages users to engage with the app
  • scrolling up and down enlarges areas

Q&A

• when designing, how far do you go for different densities?
  • simple design, start with single device
  • complex design, might want to ensure it works in a couple of densities
  • key is landscape: make sure it’s not totally different — don’t want to lose the user
  • but don’t avoid doing cool things in portrait just ‘cos you can’t do it in landscape
• working in dps
  • set the resolution in photoshop
  • or set the file to the full resolution
  • preview on device: skala preview or similar
• development environment
  • gradle -> hockeyapp
  • still using eclipse — android studio not quite stable enough yet
• pivotal labs experimenting with developer/designer pairing

Droidcon 2013: Phones in Space

Chris Bridges, Surrey Space Centre, @DrChrisBridges

STRaND-1 Nanosatellite

space is old tech!

• catch-22 with electronics in space: if it hasn’t flown, we can’t fly it
• most electronics in space are 10-20 years old
• they are larger: 90nm features
• 30nm of modern fabs may have trouble in space — we think they will be knocked out by single event effects
• largest particle coming out of the sun is an ion proton at just under 90nm
• but foundries that make 90nm chips are soon going to be decomissioned
• so need to start testing effects on smaller chips soon!
• also, newer components, especially mobile are smaller and much more powerful
• if we’re worried about reliability, could duct tape three phones together and get more power than the entire ISS
• also useful for medical purposes — investigate how tech behaves in radiation situations

hardening phones

• components also get shaken to 30-40G when rocket goes up
• used 3D printed brackets (chins) to hold pieces together
• control satellite attitude with magnetic coils
• had to harden the phone & connections
  • extract out the button connections & stick the trackball in place
  • need to remove any electrolytic components — they pop in space
  • also some plastics degrade in space
• controlled from Digi-Wi9C: low power linux single board computer
• put programs into solid state flash memory (PIC-24) that is not affected by space radiation
• also needed to check out timings: satellite works at about 8-40MHz; Digi-Wi9C at 150MHz
• android apps had to be instrumented so that they could be monitored and controlled: added heartbeat monitors to check if apps were still alive
• wanted to have a software lab in space
• had to check how the hardware behaved without convection
  • saw that battery voltage reporting flipped a sign when temperature went below zero
• destroyed about 12 phones in radiation… cobalt-60 ionising radiation
• tested satellite for equivalent of 6 years of radiation
• have a camera that looks at the screen
  • useful if usb connection fails
  • can connect over wi-fi
  • or else fall back to taking a picture of the screen

your apps in space

• had an app competition for software on facebook
• can you scream in space?
  • does the vibration from the speaker reach the microphone?
  • don’t know yet…
• antenna communicates at 9Kb/s back to Earth
• went up into low earth orbit in 25th February
• SSC groundstation
• amateur satellite trackers around the world really important and integrated — 10 people around the world
  • gmail > gdocs > SQL databases > plotting
  • can get a groundstation in a single USB stick
  • just need a bit of wire for the antenna
• when it’s first released, the satellite tumbles uncontrolled — need to use coils to place it in controlled orbit
• strand-1 status on web site
• testing charging the phone — have done it 9 times now
• will soon be testing apps…
• code available on s-android on google code
• satellites normally take years to build: STRaND-1 built in 3-4 months in lunch breaks and evenings
• NASA taking it forward
• UniS doing STRaND-2
  • want to have two satellites docking & undocking in space

Droidcon 2013: Authentication for Droids

Tim Messerschmidt, PayPal @SeraAndroid

Presentation available on slideshare

OAuth2 client libs

• scribe https://github.com/fernandezpablo85/scribe-java

• postmanlib: another layer on top of scribe

  • http://github.com/fedepaol/PostmanLib—Rings-Twice—Android

• OAuth 2 & the road to hell…

  • the lead author and editor left the working group and withdrew from the specification as he felt could no longer be associated with the standard
• OAuth 2 attack surface everywhere
  • need to have proper security on server side

Identity

OpenID

• developed 2005
• 2012: discovered you can hijack it
• considered dead :-(

BrowserID & Persona

• from Mozilla
• great idea, but nobody really uses it apart from them…

OpenID Connect

• layer on top of OAuth2
• http://openid.net/connect
• still a draft but looks really good
• has a whole section on session management (i.e. stop allowing that app)

Providers

• 80-90% via Google, Facebook & Twitter
• all have their own SDKs that handle the OAuth for you
• PayPal added a new identity provider
  • provides verified information
• needs to be best practice to show which information will be shared at each time
• Blue Inc 2011: Consumer Perceptions of Online Registration and Social Sign-In
  • 45% admit to leaving a website instead of resetting their password or answering security questions
  • 66% think that social sign-in is desirable alternative

Q&A

• on mobile, app can fake a web view and capture identity
  • this is why facebook goes via app
• think about different social providers for different countries
  • e.g. baidu for China, yandex for Russia
• see also Google Authenticator libraries for two factor auth

Droidcon 2013: CyanogenMod

Abhisek Devkota, Community Manager, Cyanogen Inc, @ciwrl

Shane Francis, device maintainer, CyanogenMod community, @BumbleDroid

• nexus comes with fastboot but other devices need root etc.
• building easy installer
  • google play app + PC app
• pro version going to be locked down a bit more
  • root is off, but easily available — phone secure for mass market appeal
  • aiming for new releases every two weeks
• CM Account — equivalent of Find my iPhone & iCloud
  • 4GB of storage per user, but shared across devices
• working with moxie marlinspike (redphone, whisper systems) on secure end to end messaging
• system level additions
  • latest conversations: across multiple apps (gmail, hangouts, etc)
  • allows recent contacts
  • added various framework additions, e.g. share video to Roku Airplay
• would be first time Google has certified a community-based android spinoff
• hope to have a bounty programme by mid-next year — especially for security issues
  • also been purchasing devices for maintainers

Droidcon 2013: Boundbox & Memento + Annotation Processing

Stéphane Nicolas, Octo Technology

Matthias Käppler, Soundcloud @mttkay

boundbox

Slides available online

https://github.com/stephanenicolas/boundbox

• break encapsulation to ease testing (with Android in mind)
• let’s you access things from Android SDK that you wouldn’t normally access
• also lets you add fields (e.g. for stub Android jars that only have methods available)
• can indicate how far up the hierarchy you want to expose
• don’t need to change your code — just adjust your tests
• access using reflection, but access checked at compile time
• open source on github
• compares with WhiteBox from PowerMock
• intended for helping test UI layer
  • find views by field name
  • invoke methods & inner classes directly
  • faster and more direct than robotium & UIAutomator
  • as fast as espresso

memento

https://github.com/mttkay/memento

• dealing with keeping state when the screen rotates
• the activity gets destroyed and recreated and all your state is thrown away…
• can use onRetainNonConfigurationInstance to pass objects through configuration changes
  • but what if you need to retain more than one object
  • deprecated in place of fragments — these keep their configuration using setRetainInstance
  • but watch out: setRetainInstance doesn’t work for child fragments and is super-prone for data leaks
• but what if you have multiple fragments sharing the same state?
• mark a package private field as @Retain
• override the new onLaunch method (used to indicate first time initialisation of the class i.e. not after a config change)
• then use Memento.retain(this)

annotation processing in general

• use JavaWriter from squareup
• look at how square does it for dagger dependency injection
• Google has a library so you can assert over java source files
  • lets you compile with a processor and check the output
• want to split up the annotation processor into two:
  • one for the client-side annotation itself and any required classes
  • one for the processor (don’t want it in your app)

Droidcon 2013: Remote Styling

Peter Nash

http://nativecss.com/

• styling using CSS on top of Android views
• live updating

• free software — make their money from support

• can pick up images — automatically cached & scaled to correct size

• multiple background images on a view
• can use in both Android & iOS
  • allows platform-specific overrides
• allows designers to adjust UI
  • using language they understand
  • on multiple devices at once
  • without needing to make a new build
• can use media queries (e.g. device-width)
• dynamic styles based on settings in the app
• can apply a promotion in the app for a day
• android support:
  • API 10 (2.3) with additional setup
  • API 14 with single line setup
• suggested as a value for key bits, not for the whole app
• uses a single CSS for all activities

Droidcon 2013: Android Based Dongles & Wearable Accessories

Ken Blakeslee, Chairman WebMobility Ventures

• scanadu, bracelets, knife with screen!
• argus app on iOS - life monitor, incl. sleep
• Ken has been wearing fitbit, pebble, fitbug, misfit shine for about 3 weeks to compare

smart dongles

• digital signage, using mini pc dongles
  • e.g. kestronics mini pc
• dongle only needs HDMI input in TV
• e.g. imerz platform
  • control big screen from tablet by using smart dongle
  • selecting video using image comparison
  • adding tags to video content

smart glasses

• insideAR conference by metaio
• AR moving from PC centric to person centric (going mobile)
• the technology is no longer the issue
• vuzix M100: full android implementation in a glasses form
  • can port apps onto it
  • doesn’t have cellular but has wi-fi…
  • head tracking, gps, wqvga display
  • aiming at enterprise rather than consumer
  • focussing on big company lead partners first
  • available for smaller companies in November
• not yet consumer devices
• industrial, construction, medical, automotive, customer service
• this use and google glass are conventional AR — we’re still waiting to see something consumer facing…