Android Open Conference 2011 Schedule

O’reilly’s Android Open Conference 2011 will take place on 9-11 October 2011 in San Francisco. This is the first time this conference takes place. According to the organizers this conference will “cover the entire Android ecosystem. Whether you’re a developer, IT pro, business decision-maker, or marketer, you’ll find the latest and best information for maximizing the power of the Android platform”.

There will be keynotes, practical workshops, and expert-led sessions dealing with:

• Building Android apps: best practices
• Android internals—under the hood
• Development tools
• New frameworks
• Alternative languages
• Gaming and game development
• Enterprise solutions and considerations
• Performance and security
• Analytics and revenue models
• Multiple Android markets
• Promotion and consumer needs
• and much more

Please find below the schedule for the workshops (Sunday 9th October 2011) and conferences (10-11 October 2011) related to application development and platform development during the 3-day conference.

Schedule on the 9th of October 2011 for Application Development and Platform Development

Application Development

9:00 – 12: 30 – Android App Development 101 presented by Ken Jones (Marakana, Inc.). Learn to develop Android applications in this hands-on workshop. By the end of the workshop, you will know how to design an application and build a working user interface.  The Android App Development workshop explores the main app building blocks and their interactions using a real-world application as an example. It gives you the solid foundation to tackle designing complex apps

13:30 – 17:00 – Designing an App from Idea to Market presented by Tony Hillerson (EffectiveUI), Juan  Sanchez (EffectiveUI). Thanks to Android’s powerful framework and component set, it’s not hard to get a compelling application developed relatively quickly. If you’re lucky enough to have a good eye for design, or know where you can find someone who does, Android apps can even look pretty good. In this workshop we’re going to focus on what’s hard: designing a good user experience for the Android platform.

13:30 – 17:00 – Getting Physical with Android: Open Accessories & NFC presented by Brian Jepson (O’Reilly Media, Inc.), Tyler Moskowite (O’Reilly Media, Inc.). Android is no longer just a mobile OS. It is fast becoming a hardware hub with new capabilities like NFC and the Open Accessory Development Kit. The Open Accessory Development KIt will allow anyone, without an NDA, to make hardware peripherals that work with Android. NFC uses radio tags to bring android into the physical world. You are no longer restricted to just software with Android.

Platform Development

9:00 – 12: 30 – Embedded Android presented by Karim Yaghmour (Opersys inc.). Much like Linux a decade ago, Android is disrupting the embedded world; displacing established players and overtaking home-brewed solutions. Android, however, is poised to achieve what no other OS was able to: become the default user interface for the majority of user-centric devices, whether they be mobile or not. This workshop will show you how to make your embedded device run Android.

Schedule on the 10th of October 2011 for Application Development and Platform Development

Application Development

10:45 – 11:25 – Securing Android presented by Aleksandar Gargenta (Marakana Inc). Android has become an indispensable companion both at home and at work, but its tremendous uptake has also been accompanied by a significant growth in security threats.  In this session, we will explore the security concerns of the Android platform, as well as what we as users, IT managers, and developers can do to mitigate them.

10:45 – 11:25 – Cross-Platform App Development with Flex Mobile presented by Stephen Chin (GXS). This session is a crash course on Actionscript and MXML for Java Programmers, with a focus on leveraging your existing skill set to get you building Flash mobile applications by the time you leave. Come learn a new skill, and impress your friends and boss with your very first cross-platform mobile application.

11:35 – 12:15 – Beautiful Android presented by Eric Burke (Square). Many Android applications are ugly, but not all. How do some developers manage to create beautiful apps that defy expectations? This is a deep dive into Android UI coding techniques, exploring hard-learned lessons learned while creating Square.

13:30 – 13:50 – From iOS to Android presented by Nick Farina (Meridian). While mobile developers may personally prefer one operating system over another, clients are increasingly demanding cross-platform development to address the myriad devices used by their customers. For years, a developer could make a good living building on the iOS platform. But Android’s growing market share cannot be ignored.

14:00 – 14:20 – Eclipse For Android C/C++ Developers presented by Eric Cloninger (Motorola Mobility). This is a tools session on NDK, not so much the mechanics of OpenGL, JNI, etc. and how to use these from C++.

14:00 – 14:20 – App Inventor and Its Future presented by Dave Wolber (University of San Francisco), Sharon Perl (Google). App Inventor for Android is a visual language which has empowered thousands of new mobile app developers. It is great for prototyping, for building “situated” apps with personal and small group utility, and as an introduction to Android development. It also is perfectly suited for education and inspring beginning programmers from middle school to the university level.

14:30 – 15:10 – Extending HTML5 with Native Code: PhoneGap Plugins presented by Joe Bowser (Nitobi). With the success of PhoneGap and other frameworks that use Web Technologies such as HTML5 and Javascript, there have been numerous applications using this technology.  However, sometimes developers want to add Android-specific features, such as AppWidgets, OpenAccessory, TTS and NFC. This talk will cover how plugins work, and will show how to make a true hybrid app.

16 :10 – 16:50 – Below Android OS – Essentials for New Devices presented by Mark Gross (Intel). Android is a pretty complete stack and includes a lot of infrastructure for testing and integration.  It even includes code for boot a loader and a pre-os environment for doing device updates after the device is deployed.

16 :10 – 16:50 – Getting the Magic on Android Tablets presented by Suzanne Alexandra (Motorola). The best UI patterns and development tips for apps users love on Android tablets.

17:00 – 17:40 – Embracing TDD with Android presented by Sara Haider (Twitter). A look at different testing strategies and frameworks and how to get test coverage without pulling your hair out.

Platform Development

10:45 – 11:25 – Pushing bits from the cloud – Android and Push Notification (C2DM) presented by Lars Vogel (vogella.de). As of Android 2.2 you can notify your Android application once relevant new data is available in the web via the Cloud to Device Message (C2DM) Service. This talk will demonstrate how you can build C2DM into your own app and will show example server side code.

11:35 – 12:15 – Scala as a Java Replacement on Android – Presented by Mike Burns (thoughtbot). Java is the past. We present the Scala programming language, which exists in the powerful space between Java, Ruby, Haskell, and awesome. See the tools for building Android apps using Scala, along with their benefits in integration and debugging. This will be a frank discussion of debugging, performance, workflow, and how to make the choice between Scala and Java. There will be code!

13:30 – 13:50 – Tips & Tricks for Building on the Android NDK presented by Peter Hoddie (Marvell). This session will introduce Kinoma and discuss the challenges that had to be overcome to bring a high performance, alternate application framework to Android.

14:30 – 15:10 – Building Android Accessories using the Open Accessory Development Kit and Arduino presented by Simon Monk (Momote). This presentation describes how to use the ADK with standard Arduino hardware to create accessories for Android devices.  Both the Arduino and the Android ends of the solution are explained in detail, with example code.

17:00 – 17:40 – Android is Client Java presented by Zigurd Mednieks (Surfaceable.com). One of the theses of Programming Android is that Android is now client Java. Android Java is very different, emphasizing component lifecycle, inter-process communication, and inter-app cooperation. How will Android change Java and can Android’s app runtime be treated separately from Android OS – that is, can Android’s Java runtime be a portable, cross-OS Java runtime?

Schedule on the 11th of October 2011 for Application Development and Platform Development

Application Development

10:45 – 11:25 – Extending Development on Rooted Devices presented by Jay Freeman (SaurikIT, LLC). While most developers wait for new platform features, others choose to create them: developing for rooted devices provides both compelling opportunities and “interesting” challenges for those who not only want to, but /insist upon/, pushing the boundaries of what is normally considered possible.

11:35 – 11:55 – Cross Platform Mobile Applications: How LinkedIn Does presented by Kiran Prasad (LinkedIn). Development of almost any software has some aspect of Design, Implementation, Testing and Deployment. When working on mobile software, the differences in platforms make it a bit more difficult to navigate these stages of product development.

11:35 – 11:55 – The Good, The Bad, And The (Hopefully Not) Ugly presented by John Malloy (BlueRun Ventures). We have never lived in such interesting times for mobile software development. Developers have more choice and runway for innovation than ever before. Android has skyrocketed as a platform with both developers and consumers.  Still, it is not a perfect environment and developers continue to wrestle with shortcomings in the Android and Honeycomb platforms.

14:00 -14:20 – Static Analysis For Improved Application Performance And Quality presented by Eric Cloninger (Motorola Mobility). This session will show the types of problems that compilers, debuggers, and test suites can’t solve. Items that often only show up in real-world situations for consumers and end-users. Then it introduces the MOTODEV App Validator tool as a solution for developers.

14:30 – 15:30 – The Honeycomb Action Bar: Front to Back presented by Mark Murphy (CommonsWare). One of the staples of the new Honeycomb UI framework is the action bar — the combination toolbar, menu, and title bar that appears at the top of most Android activities. This presentation covers a myriad of topics related to using the action bar, from simply enabling it, to customizing its contents, to supporting context-sensitive operations.

15:20 – 16:00 – Fragments for All presented by Ken Jones (Marakana, Inc.). Fragments were introduced in Honeycomb “primarily to support more dynamic and flexible UI designs on large screens.” Google’s introduction of the Android Compatibility package extended Fragment support to devices running version 1.6 or later. In this session, learn how Fragments can make your applications more modular, flexible, and portable — even for smaller handheld devices.

15:20 – 16:00 – Design, Building and Architecture Strategy for Twin Towers: Android & iOS presented by Bess Ho (BayAreaParty), Amir Youssefi (just.me), Jean Hsu (Pulse), Indrajit Khare (Bump Technologies Inc.), Purin Phanichphant (IDEO). Android is gathering massive market share in smart phone. It is a growing trend for businesses, companies and startup to build and launch Android and iOS simultaneously. We gather a panel of mobile designers and developers to discuss strategy and challenges on app design, UI/UX, development, database / NoSQL and server / cloud.

Platform Development

10:45 – 11:25 – Challenges of Building HTC Sense presented by David Wu (HTC). HTC Sense is a customized UI framework that enhances the stock Android by centering its design around people and their social networks. It aims to provide a seamless social experience across applications and widgets, while conserving battery life and maintaining performance. In this session we will share some of the technical challenges in designing HTC Sense and experiences to overcome them.

11:35 – 11:55 – Leveraging Android’s Linux Heritage presented by Karim Yaghmour (Opersys inc.). Though Android is built on top of Linux, can “classic” Linux apps be made to run with or under or on Android? Can such apps be made to “talk” to Android components and vice-versa? Beyond getting the basic legacy Linux apps running under Android, this talk will go over some tips and tricks for making Linux apps coexist and interact with the Android stack on the same Linux kernel.

14:00 -14:20 – Casual Programming presented by Ralph Tavarez (Collective Bytes). With the release of the Android ADK there will be an incredible demand for apps that assist in the automation of home appliances. The development community will have a difficult time keeping up with the demand. As a result new tools need to be created to enable casual programmers and end-users to develop solutions.

15:20 – 16:00 – RenderScript Internals: Using a Numerical algorithm to Spike the RenderScript Compiler & Runtime presented by Yahya Mirza (Aurora Borealis Software). RenderScript is Google’s open source solution to the problems of productivity, performance and portability.  This presentation uses a simple numerical algorithm as a case study under Android-x86 and the Intel Sandy Bridge CPU.  This presentation’s objective is to provide insight into how a RenderScript program works and how a RenderScript compiler translates source programs to a specific target.

There are also other presentations related to Android Business & Marketing as well as keynotes. Visit Android Open website for the full schedule listing.

Android Open Conference 2011 Registration and Fees

If you want to attend the conference, you can register online. As usual, the earlier you register the cheaper the entrance fee. It’s a bit too late for best prices as you can see below.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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