Android hands on with the cycle hire widget

Kenton Price and Reuben HarrisLittle Fluffy Toys Ltd

www.littlefluffytoys.com

[email protected]

Twitter: @LFT_Android

If you have an Android phone, please download Cycle Hire Widget free from Android Market now

Little Fluffy Toys Ltdwww.littlefluffytoys.com

Who we are Cycle Hire Widget overview Leverage platform differentiators Getting the fundamentals right Use Londroid, the London community Code hands-on TfL API and its shortcomings Google App Engine Challenges and solutions Going to Market with rapid revisions


School friends who grew up on 8-bit micros◦ ZX81, Spectrum, BBC Micro, Electron

Published games for the BBC Micro Model B◦ Kenton speaks at retro games conferences

Fell into careers in corporate IT◦ Kenton is a Microsoft integration specialist◦ Reuben spent five years at Symbian

Decided to return to having fun with Android◦ Mole Miner is a rewrite of a game we wrote in

1986


From the Comic Strip classic Mr Jolly Lives Next Door“The greatest 60 minutes of film ever committed to

celluloid - or at least it seems that way when you're pissed.” - Facebook fan page


Compact homescreen widget◦ Smallest possible size: 1x1 (1/16th of homescreen)

Compass directions to nearest 3 locations◦ Dynamically updating closest 3 locations

When touched, display main screen:◦ List of nearest 20 locations◦ Map of all locations◦ Favourite locations


We expected Google Maps-based competitors

We focused on creating a homescreen widget

Compass-based directions◦ All Android phones have compasses

Crowdsourced realtime data

Added maps support in a later revision


See “in the news” link at littlefluffytoys.com

Featured on Android Market◦ Only about 50 of the 100,000+ apps are featured

Google App Engine blog case study CNET UK Best Android cycle hire app The Londonist Best Android cycle hire app PC Pro magazine Android app of the week Appeared on the Press Association newswire In-depth interview in The Guardian 90% of users rate the app 4* or better


Learn Android properly Keep the interface simple and intuitive Behave like other Android applications Respect the back and home buttons

◦ At least two other cycle hire apps keep GPS running after you press Home to exit the application

Read Reto Meier’s Radioactive Yak blog◦ Lots of design tips and gotchas◦ Also buy his Wrox Professional Android 2 book

Be prepared to get slaughtered in feedback◦ “I can’t haz world-on-a-stick for free?”


Come to Londroid meetups◦ www.meetup.com/android◦ www.londroid.co.uk

Ask questions on the Londroid mailing list◦ StackOverflow.com for general Android questions

Come to Droidcon London◦ 28-29 October, Business Design Centre, Islington◦ www.droidcon.co.uk◦ £150 early-bird signups still available


Reuben HarrisChief Technical Officer


XML file containing locations and descriptions

No realtime data◦ A Londroid tester suggested we crowdsource it◦ We created a crowdsourcing server on App Engine

Press picked up on the crowdsourcing

We were the first app to show realtime data◦ On launch morning, TfL website had realtime data◦ Fed our crowdsourcing server with this real data


Reuben HarrisChief Technical Officer


Accuracy to 500 metres is useless◦ GPS takes forever to get a fix◦ Often impossible with tall buildings or indoors◦ Skyhook Wireless takes away location provider pain

Animating a widget is non-trivial◦ Not really made for that – most update ~15 mins+◦ Used a service to force the arrows to animate

Our Compass Hell◦ Yesterday Google admitted their samples are buggy◦ Eventually an end user donated us working code!

Platform fragmentation◦ Deploying Android 2.2 APIs in a 1.5 device


No approval process: hit publish, you’re live

Users often vicious via anonymous feedback◦ Be prepared for mean, nasty, unfair comments◦ No way of responding to them

Respond rapidly to constructive feedback◦ No approval process => immediate updates◦ Dell Streak 2.1 update was our evil nemesis


Please contact us: [email protected]

Follow us on Twitter: @LFT_Android

Subscribe to our RSS: www.littlefluffytoys.com

Available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and maybe the odd custom Android application

Android hands on with the cycle hire widget

Technology

Transcript of Android hands on with the cycle hire widget