AndroidTO

Kim Pimmel: "Pull to Refresh: Leveraging Unused Gestures in Mobile Design"

When designing mobile apps, designers must understand their core user needs and workflows. Mobile apps must be dead simple and instantly usable, without any tutorial or how-to. But as apps become more complex, it becomes increasingly difficult to fit all of the required UI onto the limited mobile real estate. By determining what the key user needs are, designers can focus the designs around those needs, and hide additional/advanced/extra features and content inside the unused gesture spaces, such as pull to refresh…

Kim's bio:

Ever since he got his hands on Adobe Flash, Kim Pimmel has been fascinated by the possibilities that open up when design is made interactive with code. Now a design lead for Adobe’s user experience team, Kim is still hard at work making design come to life with code by creating delightful mobile and tablet apps for consumers. During his time at Adobe, he has worked on a wide range of projects with partners such as the New York Times, MTV, NBC, Samsung and Wired,  on a variety of platforms ranging across web, desktop, mobile and TV. Kim has also helped to concept, storyboard and design innovation demos for Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch.

The UK and Hawaii raised designer is a prolific creative, even In his spare time. Recently he has tapped into his interests in photography, music and storytelling, and used them to create experimental short films. For his Compressed series of shorts, Kim not only shot, edited and scored the macro-scale films, but also built custom camera control systems and animation rigs.  The Compressed shorts have been shown at film festivals internationally and been featured on sites such as Devour, Colossal, Gizmodo and Boing Boing. Kim’s analog visual effects have been used for Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole series, Australian Broadcasting Company branding, and even sampled for a TED talk.

Kim lives in San Francisco with his wife Sophy and their cat MIDI.

Matthew Patience - "The Multi-Screen Experience"

For their presentation at AndroidTO 2012, Matthew & Greg will be discussing how Second Screen applications can be developed on the Android platform. They will be taking a look at how these applications are coded and designed, what components are used, and will dive into "Vicinity", the SDK they developed specifically for the these types of interactions. As a bonus to the community, BNOTIONS will be open sourcing Vicinity for all developers to use. Their session wouldn't be complete without a demo, so we'll also be demoing a multi-user collaborative game that we developed for AndroidTO that demonstrates how fun it can be to use our phones as controllers. They believe the next generation of platforms like GoogleTV will change how we use our phones/tablets to interact with our new smart televisions . Let the future begin...

Matthew’s Bio:

Matthew Patience (Technical Director of Mobile)

As a Technical Director at BNOTIONS , Matthew Patience manages an incredible team of Android developers who create powerful and intuitive applications. Matthew has 4 years of Android development experience, 5 Years of Java development experience and has built his own Android Application Development Framework called Axcess. Matthew specializes in creating universally compatible applications across the three major Android platforms; smartphone, tablet, and TV.

Greg Carron - "The Multi-Screen Experience"

For their presentation at AndroidTO 2012, Matthew & Greg will be discussing how Second Screen applications can be developed on the Android platform. They will be taking a look at how these applications are coded and designed, what components are used, and will dive into "Vicinity", the SDK they developed specifically for the these types of interactions. As a bonus to the community, BNOTIONS will be open sourcing Vicinity for all developers to use. Their session wouldn't be complete without a demo, so we'll also be demoing a multi-user collaborative game that we developed for AndroidTO that demonstrates how fun it can be to use our phones as controllers. They believe the next generation of platforms like GoogleTV will change how we use our phones/tablets to interact with our new smart televisions . Let the future begin...

Greg’s Bio:

Greg Carron (Chief Evangelist)

Greg Carron is a veteran UI/UX designer who has worked diligently to help develop intuitive and creative mobile apps on the Android platform for a wide range of verticals since 2008. As the current mobile landscape adapts to incorporating new services and frameworks, Greg keeps a keen eye on ways to incorporate them into new types of apps.

Currently, he is the Chief Evangelist for BNOTIONS, promoting the mobile/web/api focused company through social media, attending tech conferences and providing insightful blog posts on new and innovative technologies.

Faisal Abid - "10 Things Every Android Developer Should Know"

In this presentation, you will learn 10 of the most important -in my opinion- tips and tricks that every Android developer should know. From interesting techniques on Async Tasks, to Intent Services, and new cool features such as Androids Animation Framework and the notification behaviour in Jellybean, this presentation has it all.

When you end up leaving this presentation, not only are you guaranteed to learn something new, you will become a more productive and efficient Android developer.

Faisal’s Bio

Faisal Abid is a software engineer, author, teacher and entrepreneur.

From server-side and database challenges to the the front end issues, Faisal loves solving problems and strives to create software that can make a difference.

Faisal is an author published by Manning (at age 17) and O'Reilly and has also appeared in leading publications with articles on ColdFusion and Flex.

Apart from developing and publishing, Faisal is also involved in the community by teaching Android development at the Rich Media Institute (downtown Toronto), as well as giving presentations at FITC, Riadventure and other conferences on Android, ColdFusion and various other topics.

Alan Paulin - "Architecting your Android App for Success"

In this presentation, we'll discuss patterns and practices that can help your app achieve success, release after release. We'll cover strategies for building and app in a climate of change and rapid innovation. Topics include best practices for configuration, use of webviews, and capturing URLs. Whether you are new to app development, or an experienced veteran, you should expect to learn a few techniques for improving your app.

Alan’s Bio

Alan has been in the software industry for over 10 years, joining Google in 2011. He's worked on mobile off and on since 2004, including mobile web sites and android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 apps. Over his career, Alan has worked primarily on mapping software, from consumer websites and apps to web services to enterprise solutions. Alan spent 2012 working on the Google Offers android app.

Sachin Monga - "Growing Your App with Social Design"

As Android becomes the OS that tunes more and more devices into the social graph, every experience can be made better when they are personalized for you, and your friends are with you wherever you go. This session will cover the basics of social design (designing experiences as multiplayer as opposed to single player games) and how distribution channels like news feed change the way apps grow, by surfacing the best social experiences. We will cover winning tactics and design patterns employed by successful apps, and explore how people-centered design can deliver business results.

Sachin's Bio

Sachin Monga works on platform and market development at Facebook, helping top brands and developers build people-centric products using the Facebook Platform. Other roles at Facebook have included product marketing & partnerships for Open Graph and he’s a frequent instructor on social design & information distribution. Prior to Facebook, Sachin did information architecture, software development, and product management at the Department of National Defence, Bank of Montreal, and Awareness Inc. respectively. Sachin studied Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Anthony Kanfer - "Mobile Apps – The Battle of Web vs Native"

Apps, apps, everywhere…the age-old question of mobile web apps vs native mobile apps is more relevant than ever. And more confusing. How do you determine whether a native app strategy vs a mobile web strategy is more appropriate for your business.

Anthony's Bio

Anthony brings over 20 years of experience in the development of innovative software technologies in the mobile, internet, payments, education, healthcare and manufacturing industries and is currently Senior Director, Mobile & eCommerce Platforms at Rogers Digital Media. Anthony came to Rogers via the acquisition of Brave Commerce, where he was founder and CEO. Prior to founding Brave Commerce, Anthony was CTO at MyThum Interactive, responsible for the strategic direction and development of MyThum’s award winning mobile solutions. Anthony has been involved in mobile technology development for over 10 years, starting with the role of m-Commerce Group Product Manager at 724 Solutions. In addition, he has been involved in numerous startup and early stage technology ventures throughout his career.  Anthony holds B.Sc (Electronic Engineering) and M.Sc (Engineering) degrees from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Vance Lockton - "Key Privacy Considerations For Mobile App Developers"

This talk will focus on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA, Canada’s private sector privacy legislation), the obligations it creates for app developers and/or their clients, and the means by which those obligations can be met.

PIPEDA is flexible, technology-neutral, and principles-based, allowing it to be interpreted in light of any new technology or use of personal information. Though all 10 privacy principles of PIPEDA are equally applicable, three particular challenges with respect to the collection, use and/or disclosure of users’ personal information – appropriately identifying purposes, obtaining meaningful consent, and meeting users’ reasonable expectations – will provide a framework for discussion during this presentation.

Vance's Bio

Vance Lockton is the Senior Regional Analyst at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s (OPC) Toronto office. He has an M.Sc. (Computer Science, University of British Columbia) and an M.P.P. (Public Policy, Simon Fraser University), both focussed on online identity. In his work with the OPC, he has worked with a broad range of subject areas, with a recent focus on mobile applications.

The OPC’s mission is to protect and promote the privacy rights of individuals. The Toronto office was established in 2010, with a broad goal of increasing compliance with PIPEDA through strong relationships with stakeholders.

Melanie Millar Chapman - "Key Privacy Considerations For Mobile App Developers"

This talk will focus on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA, Canada’s private sector privacy legislation), the obligations it creates for app developers and/or their clients, and the means by which those obligations can be met.

PIPEDA is flexible, technology-neutral, and principles-based, allowing it to be interpreted in light of any new technology or use of personal information. Though all 10 privacy principles of PIPEDA are equally applicable, three particular challenges with respect to the collection, use and/or disclosure of users’ personal information – appropriately identifying purposes, obtaining meaningful consent, and meeting users’ reasonable expectations – will provide a framework for discussion during this presentation.

Melanie's Bio

Melanie Millar-Chapman is Manager of Research with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada in Ottawa. Since joining the OPC in 1998, she has worked on a variety of files within the Research and Policy group.

Gary Yentin - "The Secrets of Being a #1 App and not Losing Money"

Being a number one app does not mean you are making money.

The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with the tools and the secrets of app marketing and monetization. It is never too early to plan a marketing and monetization strategy and it is recommended to begin prior to development in order to secure success for your app.

Often times, advertisers and brands know they want an app and rush into development without first thinking of the business side of app development including understanding the cost of acquisition of a customer and the lifetime value and revenue from that customer.

Gary Yentin, the CEO of a leading app marketing and strategy firm, will lead participants through a series of exercises aimed to help app publishers better position their app within the marketplace, market their application and ensure their app is equipped with strategies to help generate revenue necessary to sustain an app as a business.

Gary's Bio

Gary Yentin is a senior mobile executive, with over 15 years of experience managing strategy sales, marketing, operations and technology for established entertainment, new media and technology companies.

For the last ten years Gary has focused on mobile technologies, including content development and distribution having worked for m-Qube (now VeriSign) in the capacity of Vice-President, and mobile advertising, having worked and consulted with Admob, Enpocket, Nokia, Quattro and Jumptap.

Currently, Gary is CEO and Founder of App Promo (@Apppromo) focusing on the strategy, discovery, distribution and monetisation of mobile applications .

Allen Lau - "How Wattpad’s Android User Base Drives Success"

Users are spending 2 billion minutes per month on Wattpad and the majority of this traffic is coming from Android devices. Allen and Mike will share our insights on how Android can be used to look for opportunities abroad and how to grow an international community. The discussion will include creative tips for mobile marketing techniques and Play Store SEO. They will also discuss how a mobile-first development philosophy is a competitive advantage and why it should be a priority for your business.

Allen's Bio

Allen Lau is the co-founder and CEO of Wattpad, the world's largest community of readers and writers.

With years of experience building successful mobile tech companies, Allen first started prototyping a mobile eReading app in 2002 on a grey-scale Java phone that could only display 5 lines of text. He wanted to solve a problem he was facing - how to read while on the go. So for the past 10 years Allen has been exploring the power of mobile/social collaboration, online communities, and user-generated content.

Wattpad now serves over 10 million people a month and with over 5 million stories uploaded, Allen is leading a team that's revolutionizing the way people share and discover stories on the web and across every mobile device.

Mike Beltzner - "How Wattpad’s Android User Base Drives Success"

Users are spending 2 billion minutes per month on Wattpad and the majority of this traffic is coming from Android devices. Allen and Mike will share our insights on how Android can be used to look for opportunities abroad and how to grow an international community. The discussion will include creative tips for mobile marketing techniques and Play Store SEO. They will also discuss how a mobile-first development philosophy is a competitive advantage and why it should be a priority for your business.

Mike's Bio

Mike Beltzner has spent the last 10 years bridging between product strategy and product execution. Mike helped design Eclipse and Rational Developer at IBM, acted as Director of Firefox at Mozilla for over five years, and most recently joined Wattpad as Head of Product. He is a problem solver, a product manager, a software designer, an erstwhile teacher, an occasional dreamer, a full time pragmatist, and a stalwart Canadian.

Chris Haseman - "I wish I'd Known That When I Started"

What nearly a decade of making mistakes in the mobile industry has taught me about designing, building, and selling Android software. Making Android software is hard, there is no effective way to learn aside from making, and learning from, catastrophic mistakes.  In this talk I'll share with you some of the essential principals I've acquired along the way:

• How Simplicity and Responsibility are essential to designing successful Mobile software
• Why Efficiency and Preparation are vitally important in development
• What Trust and Listening have to do with building, and eventually selling to, your community of users.

While I cannot dive too deeply into any one topic, building, understanding, and following a set of core principals can mean the difference between building a good application and the next great one.

Chris's Bio

Chris has been writing mobile software in various forms since 2003. He was involved in several large-scale Brew projects, from MMS messaging to Major League Baseball. More recently, he was an early Android engineer behind the doubleTwist media player and is now the lead Android developer for Tumblr. He’s recently published "Creating Android Applications." with Peach Pit Press and he lives in Manhattan, where he constantly debates shaving his beard.

Boris Chan - "Becoming Social by Default on Android"

While current smartphones have made it easy for us to communicate with each other, the focus on apps has diluted the channels through which we communicate, complicating how we connect. What if we think about communications, taking photos, and using location services from the ground up to be social?

What are the challenges with designing and developing our apps with social in mind first? As mobile platforms remain fragmented, building out great native experiences that behave this way will get harder. We will discuss how to create these experiences that we are anticipating by going over practical design and development approaches on integrating social into iOS and Android. In addition, we will review what makes the current generation of great social apps work in design and development, and also what we can do to fix what doesn't.

Boris' Bio

Boris Chan is a Principal at Xtreme Labs who leads product development and innova- tion efforts. His work with startups and large corporations has been featured in major publications like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and TechCrunch. He is known on the Canadian Tech scene as a respected mobile expert, and was nominated as Developer of the Year by the Canadian New Media Awards. Boris has an honours bachelor degree in software engineering from the University of Waterloo.

Peter O'Blenis - "Rethinking Mobile UX – The Era of the Natural User Interface (NUI)"

Peter's Bio

Peter has been active in the software industry for over 15 years. With an undergrad in Computer Science, Peter served as a software developer and manager at Corel Corporation and The Object People in Ottawa, Canada. In the mid-1990s, he founded MediaAge, a contract PC game development shop focused on next generation 3D engines. In 2002, Peter left Oracle to co-found TrialStat Corp, a pioneer in the use of SaaS and mobile technologies to capture patient data during clinical trials. He, along with two partners, raised $15 million in venture capital and grew the firm to become a top 3 competitor in the clinical EDC market.

Peter is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Flick Software in Ottawa, a firm specializing in native cross-platform enterprise mobile solutions. Outside of work, Peter heads Race the Runway, an annual charity fund raiser featuring extreme performance cars competing for top speed on an airport runway.

James Wu - "Rethinking Tablet UX"

The iPhone was first unveiled to the public over 5 years ago. The OS was essentially stripped down version of OSX, simplified for the the hardware and with UI interactions tweaked for direct manipulation. Since that time, the UX paradigm established by that interface has essentially defined main stream mobile touch interface design, in particular Android. From a UX designer's perspective, Android has always been iOS's ugly sibling. This perception stems as much from the likely roots of the experience (emulating an experience without fully understanding the fundamentals behind the design), as from the open nature of the platform. Each implementation does things slightly differently, resulting in fragmentation and inconsistency. However, this open nature also means that designers are free to completely rethink how a user interacts with the device, not just riff on existing concept. This opens the door to move tablet computing UI paradigms to the next step beyond what has been established by iOS and current Android implementations.

James' Bio

I came to the field of User Experience from a research background. In undergrad I was studying computer science, and as I moved into graduate school became interested in how the properties of different development tools made them more or less useful to developers building large scale applications. I studied different ways of analyzing development tasks and comparing them to available tools, then set about designing better tools that bridged the gaps we found. This was before I even knew I could get real job as User Experience professional.

I began my career outside of academics as a usability analyst. I moved quickly into the the architecture side, having always had a soft spot for good interface design and ergonomics. I've done UX for companies such as AOL, BMW, DirecTV and OfficeMax, and in fields ranging from distributed computing middleware to social HR software. Working at Kobo in Toronto as the UX Lead for Tablets, my current focus is on Android devices, and figuring out new and interesting ways to improve a user's experience with their content.

In my spare time, I enjoy all things with wheels - cars, motorcycles and bicycles. I spend as much time as possible with my kids, and I enjoy the pleasures of fine wines and scotches.

David Offierski - "Experience Driven Navigation: UI Considerations for the Second Screen Experience"

Historically, best practices in mobile and tablet UI design have called for static navigation and incorporating features that are best defined as “always on”.

More recently, we have seen a new class of mobile experiences that are designed as real time audience engagement tools and are often tied to a specific event or production. The goal of course, is to use mobile and tablet experiences to deliver the most temporally relevant, actionable information to a highly engaged audience.

Konrad Group will explore new trends, technology, use cases and impacts of Experience Driven Navigation.

David's Bio

Leading Strategy and Technology at Konrad Group allows me to engage clients as a technical consultant spanning a wide variety of industries. Advising on the configuration and application of consumer and enterprise software and hardware requires a 'finger on the pulse' approach to this rapidly evolving ecosystem.

Our focus on engineering and great design have caused KG to quickly become a leading technology development firm and trusted partner to innovative companies that seek to drive real business results from their investments in technology.

Matthew Patience - "The Multi-Screen Experience"

For their presentation at AndroidTO 2012, Matthew & Greg will be discussing how Second Screen applications can be developed on the Android platform. They will be taking a look at how these applications are coded and designed, what components are used, and will dive into "Vicinity", the SDK they developed specifically for the these types of interactions. As a bonus to the community, BNOTIONS will be open sourcing Vicinity for all developers to use. Their session wouldn't be complete without a demo, so we'll also be demoing a multi-user collaborative game that we developed for AndroidTO that demonstrates how fun it can be to use our phones as controllers. They believe the next generation of platforms like GoogleTV will change how we use our phones/tablets to interact with our new smart televisions . Let the future begin...

Matthew’s Bio:

Matthew Patience (Technical Director of Mobile)

As a Technical Director at BNOTIONS , Matthew Patience manages an incredible team of Android developers who create powerful and intuitive applications. Matthew has 4 years of Android development experience, 5 Years of Java development experience and has built his own Android Application Development Framework called Axcess. Matthew specializes in creating universally compatible applications across the three major Android platforms; smartphone, tablet, and TV.

Greg Carron - "The Multi-Screen Experience"

For their presentation at AndroidTO 2012, Matthew & Greg will be discussing how Second Screen applications can be developed on the Android platform. They will be taking a look at how these applications are coded and designed, what components are used, and will dive into "Vicinity", the SDK they developed specifically for the these types of interactions. As a bonus to the community, BNOTIONS will be open sourcing Vicinity for all developers to use. Their session wouldn't be complete without a demo, so we'll also be demoing a multi-user collaborative game that we developed for AndroidTO that demonstrates how fun it can be to use our phones as controllers. They believe the next generation of platforms like GoogleTV will change how we use our phones/tablets to interact with our new smart televisions . Let the future begin...

Greg’s Bio:

Greg Carron (Chief Evangelist)

Greg Carron is a veteran UI/UX designer who has worked diligently to help develop intuitive and creative mobile apps on the Android platform for a wide range of verticals since 2008. As the current mobile landscape adapts to incorporating new services and frameworks, Greg keeps a keen eye on ways to incorporate them into new types of apps.

Currently, he is the Chief Evangelist for BNOTIONS, promoting the mobile/web/api focused company through social media, attending tech conferences and providing insightful blog posts on new and innovative technologies.

Faisal Abid - "10 Things Every Android Developer Should Know"

In this presentation, you will learn 10 of the most important -in my opinion- tips and tricks that every Android developer should know. From interesting techniques on Async Tasks, to Intent Services, and new cool features such as Androids Animation Framework and the notification behaviour in Jellybean, this presentation has it all.

When you end up leaving this presentation, not only are you guaranteed to learn something new, you will become a more productive and efficient Android developer.

Faisal’s Bio

Faisal Abid is a software engineer, author, teacher and entrepreneur.

From server-side and database challenges to the the front end issues, Faisal loves solving problems and strives to create software that can make a difference.

Faisal is an author published by Manning (at age 17) and O'Reilly and has also appeared in leading publications with articles on ColdFusion and Flex.

Apart from developing and publishing, Faisal is also involved in the community by teaching Android development at the Rich Media Institute (downtown Toronto), as well as giving presentations at FITC, Riadventure and other conferences on Android, ColdFusion and various other topics.

Alan Paulin - "Architecting your Android App for Success"

In this presentation, we'll discuss patterns and practices that can help your app achieve success, release after release. We'll cover common differences between mobile web and app development, and how to build an app and server that are well-suited for rapid change and innovation. Topics include strategies for updating your app as well as best practices for image caching, configuration and capturing URLs.

Alan’s Bio

Alan has been in the software industry for over 10 years, joining Google in 2011. He's worked on mobile off and on since 2004, including mobile web sites and android, iOS and Windows Phone 7 apps. Over his career, Alan has worked primarily on mapping software, from consumer websites and apps to web services to enterprise solutions. Alan spent 2012 working on the Google Offers android app.