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.

MomoLondon: Web vs Apps

I couldn’t make tonight’s Mobile Monday on location, so I thought I’d post my delayed notes from last time’s debate on Web vs Apps.

It was a lively session with both sides arguing strongly, though (unfortunately?) sometimes for the other side! The team members started by taking turns in giving short presentations — notably all of team web had slides (including beautiful ones from Bryan as usual) whereas all of team apps had decided just to talk.

Team web ended up with the audience vote (just!), but personally I thought team apps had the better argument. Yes, there are billions more mobile devices out there that can access web sites rather than have apps, but as we’ve seen (and as even Tomi Ahonen has been repeatedly caught out by) slick user experience drives mobile devices more than anything else. Web sites are great for finding stuff — but people don’t keep coming back to the same web site like they do to a favourite, well-designed app. And the skew in stats that we’ve seen since the iPhone came out (iPhones and similar devices punch way above their weight in usage compared to number of devices) applies even more for apps vs web sites. In his 5 minute presentation, Mauricio put up some Flirtomatic stats saying that they made about three times as much revenue from mobile web as from apps, but then revealed that their iPhone app provided 11% of revenue from 0.8% of sessions!

Anyway, enough ranting… Here’s my usual semi-structured notes:

Panel

Chaired by Leila Makki

Team Apps

• Sam Machin — Geek at O2
• Alex Watson — Head of App Development at Dennis Publishing
• Rebecca Pate — Mobile Product Owner at Tesco.com

Team Web

• Bryan Rieger — yiibu
• Cait Roberts — MePlease
• Mauricio Reyes — QA for Flirtomatic

5 min presentations

Each team member made their own presentation, but my notes have all the points mixed together. Viji Pathy has posted a pretty comprehensive report of the session on the Mobile Monday blog that gives a bit more detail on the presentations side.

• Discoverability
  • App store pre-installed
  • Browse, search, one-click install
  • Web is about information — apps are about utility
• Building a mobile web app is not just about knowing HTML and CSS with a bit of Javascript
  • Easy to get very bad results on mobile
• Numbers: 77% of 6.8 billion people have access to a mobile device (5.3 billion)
  • only 100 million iPhones (only 2.015%)
  • for 1/3 of population internet access is only via mobile
  • the other devices are mostly “feature phones”
  • but this is not an argument for web vs native… since many of the feature phones either have limited mobile web, or else support native apps!
• Linkability — if you don’t have the app installed, sending someone direct content doesn’t work so well
  • this is Tim Berners-Lee’s fear, but apps can integrate with a web-based backend (e.g. instagram) and app stores themselves can be web-enabled
• Non-technical people actually don’t understand what a website is…
  • Big successful web sites are understandable on a human level: eBay/Amazon are shops; Facebook is the pub
  • Similarly, apps are a more human thing — you get a nice shiny icon
  • The blank browser scares many people
• AW: When you get the iPad, it’s totally useless until you put apps on it
• From content perspective: Google prioritises quantity of content, whereas apps can highlight small limited quality
  • For example, instagram has many less features than flickr but has grown to 5 million users very rapidly
• Flirtomatic — iPhone native has 11% revenue from 0.8% sessions…
  • and Mauricio is on Team Web…?
• At Tesco, have seen that mobile web used for research but not for re-use and habitual long-term usage
  • app use encouraged by push notifications and widgets
• 1 in 4 mobile searches in the US are on Google Voice search
• Mobile web seems to be doing well for mail order & delivery shopping sites — searchable content with larger payments
• Tesco made money back from iPhone app in less than a week
• Targeting mobile devices: build it and see who comes, then target appropriately

Summing up — pro apps

• Tangibility
• Ownership & engagement
• Native apps are faster
• Using hardware
• Lots of web browsers available, but are they ever going to be your customers?

Summing up — pro web

• Don’t just target the rich west — reach beyond
• Discoverability for apps can be one of the biggest problems

Q & A

• What about using web apps on a long flight?
  • Not really
  • but this is possible now
• Hard stuff: two-way voice with echo cancellation etc?
  • Not in a web app
• Fragmentation of web browsers?
  • Design your site appropriately: it depends on who you want to target, but it’s still a larger number than just iPhone apps
  • e.g. target a touch-enabled mobile site and get both iPhone and Android at once
• Mobile social
  • Good example of having both a mobile web and native strategy
  • e.g. Facebook native users add photos more; web users add quick status updates
• Mobile ads — is there a problem keeping competition away from apps?
  • Tesco doesn’t have external ads in their apps
  • The end-user wants the curated experience…
• Testing across multiple devices?
  • AW: It’s a problem for mobile computers — they don’t work some of the time…
  • AW: Apps are a reliable experience
  • The mobile web is no better and sometimes harder
• Apps are good for some things and webapps are good for others… It’s like asking a carpenter which is the better tool: a hammer or a saw?
• Monetisation?
  • Not for web games… yet
  • Flirtomatic has in-app purchases of virtual currency, but it’s a whole range of transaction
• How do costs compare for native vs web?
  • It depends… You can spend more or less on each
  • Tesco: cost seems quite similar — especially since mobile dev has to be optimised for various devices
• App-store owners take a cut; will it be the same for web?
  • probably — billing partners will always take a cut…
• Will it be a digital divide between those who have apps and those that don’t?
  • Some people just don’t want apps on their phone — e.g. mother has a binatone phone with big buttons and doesn’t even use a mouse
  • There’s just a time lag to the rest of the world
• What about lock-ins?
  • By choosing HTML, your development environment is free from manufacturer tie-ins
  • However, by choosing HTML, you play into the hands of Google making things free, operator content filtering etc.
• Mobile web currently over-promises and under-delivers, but we’re all hedging our bets as mobile web catches up…?
  • Panel: yes!
  • BR: mobile web is catching up very fast, and depending on your business may already be a better bet
• How do you find where your customers are?
  • Analyse the web browsers of your mailshot emails

Notices

• BlackBerry Developer Day coming up on 24th June

• UCL have a course in Making money from Mobile

• Future Mobile Monday events:

  • 4th July — Vision Mobile state of developer nation

MomoLondon: Living in a Multi-Platform World

Another Mobile Monday on fragmentation of platforms, but this time hosted by a big company just about to launch yet another platform… The Microsoft reps seemed to come on a little strong tonight. So much so that I started to tune out when it was their turn to talk.

Nick Lansley from Tesco.com was a new face at Mobile Monday — and had some good things to say. He seems to have his head screwed on right about where to take Tesco.com in the face of multiple platforms and a wide spread of consumers (it’s the API, stoopid).

Tom Hume of Future Platforms also gave some interesting insights — I like his idea of using an AdWords campaign to figure out the target platforms for a new product. It’s always better to measure than to guess — and the internet lets you measure everything.

Alex Reeve - Director of Mobile Business Group, MSFT UK

• it’s fair to say that MS have had their challenges in the mobile industry
• they’re fully aware of that and they’re aware that “a new dawn is coming”
• mobile is enormously important to MS
• Windows 7 coming this side of Xmas
  • integrating contact details & social connections
  • options to show thing separately or together
  • keeping pictures together (including Facebook, etc)
  • “people want Internet Explorer on their phone”
  • do they really? don’t they just want Facebook/Yahoo/BBC, etc
  • fully-editable Word documents
  • email works the same as Outlook
  • I hope not… that would be horrible
  • “Zune is mainly a product in the US only”

Panel session

Panel (and their phones):

• Chair: Marek Pawlowski
  • this is no longer just about mobile — platforms to support now extend to TVs, games consoles, etc…
  • nearly all devices can do voice
  • most can do SMS, and a lot have browsers and Java
  • Q1 this year about 18% of mobile sales were smartphones
  • 11% of market by end of this year will be smartphones
  • 3/4 of developers use an Android or an iPhone as their primary device…
• Oded Ran - Windows Phone in the UK
  • Windows Phone - HDT HD2
• Tom Hume - MD of Future Platforms
  • Nexus One
• Nick Lansley - Head of R&D at Tesco.com
  • iPhone, Nexus One (which crashes 3 times a day)
• Jerry Ennis: CEO at Flirtomatic
  • #1 mobile social network in UK, if not in Europe, according to Comscore
  • though I guess it’s dwarfed by Facebook & twitter, which are social networks that people access on mobile…
  • iPhone
• Ilio Uvarov - lead UX practice at RG/A London
  • clients such as Nike, Nokia
  • iPhone

Which mobile platform would you develop for first and why?

• NL: probably give a different answer every couple of months
  • would like to choose most common in Tesco customer base, but that would mean a phone that’s incapable
  • started with iPhone “because I had one”
  • iPhone is a “hero device” — you get much more marketing for your buck
  • but need to balance with what devices customers are using
• JE: started believing they could use downloadable Java apps
  • but wasn’t really possible
  • target market are not using Java apps, even if their phone is capable
  • have instead gone to mobile web
  • also seeing some startling usage growth from iPhone (Flirtomatic have an iPhone app that wraps a browser)
• TH: would probably cheat and spend £50 on an Adwords marketing campaign to see who was interested…
• IU: depends on target
  • business people in NYC — Blackberry
  • teenagers in middle east — Blackberry
  • hipsters in London — iPhone

What can platform providers provide to developers to attract them?

• OR: don’t want to write once, debug across multiple hardware
  • want to make money
  • choose to piggyback on a platform launching (someone else’s marketing muscle)
• NL: iPhone and Android offer push update notifications
  • really important — bug fixes are v. important to customer experience
  • Ovi falling down massively here
  • Apple also making things difficult by making updates take up to two weeks
• JE: Flirtomatic app is just a wrapper around mobile web app
  • can’t take advantage of native aspects
  • but changes can be deployed very quickly without going through Apple

Who in the audience had a bad experience of starting out on a mobile platform?

• TouchNote: went for Nokia 3rd edition (Symbian) & Ovi store
  • just not a lucid, easy experience for customers, even in comparison to Blackberry, let alone iPhone & Android

Who’s had a good experience?

• No one put up their hands!!

Do customers really take updates?

• TH: 60-70% take updates for android
  • would imagine iPhones are about the same
  • Java apps are almost impossible to get customers to update
• NL: always offer new features with bug fixes
  • every time Tesco update the Tesco Finder app, they see 99.9% of new version by the end of that day!
• IU: have about 100 pending updates on his iPhone
  • end up not using 90% of apps that you’ve downloaded
• MP: 70% of mobile web users went to 10 major brands

MS have developer lock-in for tools, will they lock-in legally like Apple?

• Silverlight & XNA plus mobile web are main ways to market on Windows Phone 7
• Haven’t finished Ts&Cs yet

Is it sustainable to support so many platforms, or will we see consolidation?

• TH: we are seeing consolidation around the web
  • don’t feel intimidated by number of platforms, as only have to deal with those that provide an audience
  • feel locked in to Apple not by legal language, but by the audience that they provide

What can platform providers do to make a new platform attractive?

• don’t make us write the app in Silverlight — let us write it in C#
• reveal the number of apps in the store — no hype
• charge less than Android & Apple (30%)
• make it easy for customers to buy cheap things with enough money going to developers

Which platform gives the best ROI? How does mobile web compare?

• JE: make money with virtual currency (80% revenues), rest from advertising
  • how do we bill people to buy virtual currency?
  • operator billing (reverse SMS), credit card, paypal
  • still 60/40, 70/30 — not so good
  • credit card still cheapest for business
  • Apple don’t let you use in-app purchases for virtual currency…
• TH: not sure that there’s a link
  • look to introduce customers with operator billing and then convert repeat customers to credit card later
• JE: operator billing is a terrible UX — sometimes a 12-step process
  • not as bad in UK, but US can be really bad

What about emerging markets? What are platforms doing?

• OR: active in two sides, services (Hotmail, etc) & devices
  • phone becomes 1st screen
  • exploring new ways of getting hold of the phone, since Windows Phone is not targeted at emerging markets
• NL: when Tesco arrives in a market, it could be said to have “emerged” already…
  • “Tesco in a box” — all systems for a new country shipped out
• MP: discussing India with major internet brand, responsible for UX
  • because device is becoming primary, there are increasing number of smartphones
  • also multiple SIM cards for each user (up to 12!!)
  • Italians have 1.77 SIM cards per subscriber, cf. 1.4 UK & 1.3 in US

Multiple platforms outside of mobile

• IU: depends on the use-case
  • things that work nicely across channels: e.g. instapaper
  • boxee: combining web, mobile & TV (can use mobile as remote)
• NL: did ethnographic research in people’s homes as to how they shop
  • calling on phones, SMS, writing messages on paper
  • wanting to allow people to add things little and often throughout the week
  • have cheated by building an API to get other people to create apps
  • e.g. Yahoo widgets on TV: watch cooking show, and add ingredients while you watch
• TH: big fan of opening up API, but how does that work as a provider? are you worried about the customer contact being mediated via a third party?
• NL: grocery shopping is not really exciting to customers
  • would rather get great ideas in front of customers
  • customers still have to login and checkout on Tesco site

What about voice as a platform?

• TH: Google introduced voice search and changed his behaviour
• MP: need to be very careful about experience:
  • experience was significantly enhanced when interacting with an avatar
• JE: tried out a voice part of app a year or two ago
  • watched my teenage daughter who never talks to people, but uses text & facebook instead
• MP: is that an opportunity? getting people to use their unused minutes!

How do you handle that your app is living on a phone with others?

• NL: Nexus One had an app using up all his minutes when in US
  • data hogging apps rapidly become unpopular
• TH: it’s one of the important things that makes the difference between mobile and desktop
  • number one feature on the iPad is battery life

What about upcoming standards: JIL, BONDI?

• NL: if you don’t make your app the best it can possibly be for that device then don’t bother
• MP: customers have one device — they’re not bothered by fragmentation

Brief summary

• IU: kept going back to UX
  • do you want to be good enough or delightfully different
• JE: all about UX — the best possible UX is using the latest features of any platform, rather than going cross-platform
  • payment is crucial, runs across different platforms
  • needs to be improved, simplified and cheaper for business
• NL: has to be relentlessly good design for every make and model of handset
  • gives you brand consistency
• TH: root causes of fragmentation are a good thing
  • mass market (2/3rds of world’s population) and extremely fast rate of change
  • developers have to get used to it
• OR: successful developers are embracing the fact that fragmentation is here to stay
• MP: “can economise on plumbing but make sure your bathroom is pretty bling”

Announcements

• Microsoft BizSparkCamp: June 22nd 9.30-5.30
  • “they want to give you things…”
• July - MomoLondon: Marketing your mobile app
• August - MomoLondon break
• September 10th & 11th - OverTheAir 2010