I visited UK DroidCon (London, 24-25 October 2013) to launch the Basic4Android book. Here is a report of some of the things I found there which might be of interest to Basic4Android developers. More about the conference at: http://uk.droidcon.com/2013/lineup/
Facebook in Apps
Perhaps the most interesting talk I heard was from Tyrone Nicholas, software engineer at Facebook talking about the lessons learned from developing the Facebook app for Android. Facebook provides an SDK to allow Android developers to integrate Facebook into their apps:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/android/
Note that you do not need to use this SDK to access Facebook. You can use the Graph API to do query data, post new stories, upload photos etc. Details at
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/getting-started/graphapi/
For an account of using the Graph API from Basic4Android see:
http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/oauth-facebook-feeds.14576/#content
However, Tyrone’s talk was about the difficulties the Facebook Android developers had faced in creating the SDK. He discussed, among many other things, how slow the Guava libraries are, how Java on Dalvik is different from normal Java and how this has led to problems. (Dalvik is the virtual machine running apps on Android devices.)
AppFireworks
This service allows developers to monitor how many times their app has been installed (by connecting to hosts such as Google Play), which users install your apps most often, monitor user activity, track in-app purchases and uncover deep insights about user behavior.
There are several levels of analysis, the basic one being free.
http://www.appfireworks.com/index.php
Haptic Tactile Effects SDK
The Immersion Developer Zone is the ultimate resource for developers interested in learning about how to integrate touch feedback, or haptics, into their mobile and PC Gaming applications. The Haptic Effects Library contains 124 pre-designed haptic effects that you can add to your Android application to enable touch feedback instantly. Significantly cut down your development time – you no longer need to specify motor on/off times, just choose one of the many pre-defined haptic effects from categories like: UI, weapons, collision, engine or alerts.
http://www2.immersion.com/developer...t&view=category&layout=blog&id=110&Itemid=503
QuickBlox
http://quickblox.com/developers/Chat
QuickBlox Chat claims to be a quick and reliable chat solution which combines benefits of scalable cloud hosted XMPP chat server, seamless Single Sign-On authorization via Users, incoming IM / chat alerts via Push Notifications and file attachments via Content. You can provide your users with text-based chat, group text chat, sending files, voice chat, video chat, recording video chat and other features.
SDKs and code samples are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry 5-7 and BB10, also Web (including Facebook and Wordpress) and desktop – QuickBlox Chat is the best and most comprehensive solution so far to have your users communicate cross-platform.
There is a free option for developers (http://quickblox.com/plans/free/) which allows you to offer 10 Gb traffic/storage, unlimited API calls, unlimited video chat minutes and unlimited push notifications per month.
Borland Silk
Borland now specialise in app and cloud testing tools. For Android developers they offer Silk Mobile (http://www.borland.com/products/silkmobile/) which allows you to automate tests on devices and repeat them whenever you mod your app. The cost is several hundred dollars.
AppDynamics for Mobile
AppDynamics previously offered monitoring web-based applications. Now, AppDynamics for Mobile (currently in Beta) provides insights into the performance of your native mobile apps for iOS and Android, allowing you to ensure that your mobile users have a great experience from the moment they open the app. There is a free version of the service.
http://www.appdynamics.com/blog/tag/mobile-monitoring/
Apportable
Apportable claims to allow developers to use the same C/C++/Objective-C code to develop apps for both iOS and Android. The free version is limited in the type of apps it will create, but costs a lot less than the $1000 (minimum) per year for a single developer licence.
http://www.apportable.com/
UK Ordnance Survey SDK for Android Developers
Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping authority. The new Android SDK allows access to the range of high quality datasets available, including street-level mapping, vector based mid-scale mapping and our popular outdoor mapping product, OS Landranger Maps (1: 50 000 scale), featuring national parks, tracks, paths and fields.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/os-openspace/android-sdk.html
Rebtel VOIP
The SIP library, provided as standard within Basic4Android, allows users to make Voice Over IP (VOIP) calls. This requires that each user is registered with a server, as discussed in the thread:
http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/android-sip-voip-tutorial.13088/. The server mentioned there is the free http://www.iptel.org/service. Calls using this service can only reach other IP services.
If you want your users to be able to call landlines, or mobile phone numbers, you need to find a different service provider. There are various providers who offer SDKs. The one I saw at DroidCon was by Rebtel (http://developer.rebtel.com/). This lets your users call other users free, or call other countries for discounted rates. For example, UK to USA mobiles for $0.99 per minute. The developer does not pay anything until your app has thousands of users.
AppMachine
Not really of interest to users of Basic4Android but worth knowing about. AppMachine lets you (or users themselves) build apps for both iPhone and Android devices rapidly and relatively painlessly using drag and drop methods. The Developer Edition will allow the app to be extended using Javascript. It will cost 999 euro.
Conclusion
Talking to developers at DroidCon about Basic4Android I realised something I should have realised before, that once people have learned to program in Java and invested their time in that code, the chances of them switching to any other language is very small.
Therefore, people who want to promote Basic4Android need to get students when they are just beginning to develop apps. Universities, for example, should be a prime target, as well as commercial trainers such as the Mobile Academy (http://themobileacademy.org.uk/) who had some interesting speakers at the conference.
Facebook in Apps
Perhaps the most interesting talk I heard was from Tyrone Nicholas, software engineer at Facebook talking about the lessons learned from developing the Facebook app for Android. Facebook provides an SDK to allow Android developers to integrate Facebook into their apps:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/android/
Note that you do not need to use this SDK to access Facebook. You can use the Graph API to do query data, post new stories, upload photos etc. Details at
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/getting-started/graphapi/
For an account of using the Graph API from Basic4Android see:
http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/oauth-facebook-feeds.14576/#content
However, Tyrone’s talk was about the difficulties the Facebook Android developers had faced in creating the SDK. He discussed, among many other things, how slow the Guava libraries are, how Java on Dalvik is different from normal Java and how this has led to problems. (Dalvik is the virtual machine running apps on Android devices.)
AppFireworks
This service allows developers to monitor how many times their app has been installed (by connecting to hosts such as Google Play), which users install your apps most often, monitor user activity, track in-app purchases and uncover deep insights about user behavior.
There are several levels of analysis, the basic one being free.
http://www.appfireworks.com/index.php
Haptic Tactile Effects SDK
The Immersion Developer Zone is the ultimate resource for developers interested in learning about how to integrate touch feedback, or haptics, into their mobile and PC Gaming applications. The Haptic Effects Library contains 124 pre-designed haptic effects that you can add to your Android application to enable touch feedback instantly. Significantly cut down your development time – you no longer need to specify motor on/off times, just choose one of the many pre-defined haptic effects from categories like: UI, weapons, collision, engine or alerts.
http://www2.immersion.com/developer...t&view=category&layout=blog&id=110&Itemid=503
QuickBlox
http://quickblox.com/developers/Chat
QuickBlox Chat claims to be a quick and reliable chat solution which combines benefits of scalable cloud hosted XMPP chat server, seamless Single Sign-On authorization via Users, incoming IM / chat alerts via Push Notifications and file attachments via Content. You can provide your users with text-based chat, group text chat, sending files, voice chat, video chat, recording video chat and other features.
SDKs and code samples are available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry 5-7 and BB10, also Web (including Facebook and Wordpress) and desktop – QuickBlox Chat is the best and most comprehensive solution so far to have your users communicate cross-platform.
There is a free option for developers (http://quickblox.com/plans/free/) which allows you to offer 10 Gb traffic/storage, unlimited API calls, unlimited video chat minutes and unlimited push notifications per month.
Borland Silk
Borland now specialise in app and cloud testing tools. For Android developers they offer Silk Mobile (http://www.borland.com/products/silkmobile/) which allows you to automate tests on devices and repeat them whenever you mod your app. The cost is several hundred dollars.
AppDynamics for Mobile
AppDynamics previously offered monitoring web-based applications. Now, AppDynamics for Mobile (currently in Beta) provides insights into the performance of your native mobile apps for iOS and Android, allowing you to ensure that your mobile users have a great experience from the moment they open the app. There is a free version of the service.
http://www.appdynamics.com/blog/tag/mobile-monitoring/
Apportable
Apportable claims to allow developers to use the same C/C++/Objective-C code to develop apps for both iOS and Android. The free version is limited in the type of apps it will create, but costs a lot less than the $1000 (minimum) per year for a single developer licence.
http://www.apportable.com/
UK Ordnance Survey SDK for Android Developers
Ordnance Survey is Great Britain's national mapping authority. The new Android SDK allows access to the range of high quality datasets available, including street-level mapping, vector based mid-scale mapping and our popular outdoor mapping product, OS Landranger Maps (1: 50 000 scale), featuring national parks, tracks, paths and fields.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/products/os-openspace/android-sdk.html
Rebtel VOIP
The SIP library, provided as standard within Basic4Android, allows users to make Voice Over IP (VOIP) calls. This requires that each user is registered with a server, as discussed in the thread:
http://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/android-sip-voip-tutorial.13088/. The server mentioned there is the free http://www.iptel.org/service. Calls using this service can only reach other IP services.
If you want your users to be able to call landlines, or mobile phone numbers, you need to find a different service provider. There are various providers who offer SDKs. The one I saw at DroidCon was by Rebtel (http://developer.rebtel.com/). This lets your users call other users free, or call other countries for discounted rates. For example, UK to USA mobiles for $0.99 per minute. The developer does not pay anything until your app has thousands of users.
AppMachine
Not really of interest to users of Basic4Android but worth knowing about. AppMachine lets you (or users themselves) build apps for both iPhone and Android devices rapidly and relatively painlessly using drag and drop methods. The Developer Edition will allow the app to be extended using Javascript. It will cost 999 euro.
Conclusion
Talking to developers at DroidCon about Basic4Android I realised something I should have realised before, that once people have learned to program in Java and invested their time in that code, the chances of them switching to any other language is very small.
Therefore, people who want to promote Basic4Android need to get students when they are just beginning to develop apps. Universities, for example, should be a prime target, as well as commercial trainers such as the Mobile Academy (http://themobileacademy.org.uk/) who had some interesting speakers at the conference.
