Systems Integration
May 19 2013
Thoughts on Google I/O 2013
Google I/O 2013 has ended and while we saw a few new things on the Android front, this year's event was much more dialed back than 2012 as far as the platform is concerned. There was no Android update announced, much to the chagrin of some bloggers. In my opinion, this isn't that big of a deal as the platform is in a very stable, viable place right now. The platform along with the Android Design Guidelines provide the foundation for developers to deliver almost everything possible in their apps.
May 19 2013
Google IO – Android Highlights
We have anotherWeWe have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
I/OWe have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
We have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
We have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
Google Cloud Messaging – This one was new to me, still it seems that is widely used and with great success. This technology allows you to communicate effectively through the cloud with your entire application installs. There are several communication patterns for this, and they just announced upstream communication (i.e. your applications can communicate with the cloud which in turn will communicate with your server). This is part of the Google Play Services so it is available for use right now for all OS versions higher than Froyo.
Volley Networking framework – This really picked my interest since it has a lot of potential. This networking framework promise to take care of all the heavy lifting regarding network communication. It is multithreaded and optimized for certain tasks such as downloading images.
ActionBarCompat – The action bar will be added to the support library making it available for older OS versions. Finally you will be able to standardize your navigation and UI look and feel for older devices (version 2.2 and above). This one was a “soft” announcement since, as with many other things, they didn’t provide a release date. The fact that is being used by the IO application distributed for the event indicates that should come sooner rather than later.
Android Studio/New Build System (Gradle) – I list these two together because the new Android Studio relies on the new Gradle build approach. They are effectively deprecating the ant support for builds. Support for Eclipse will continue, however it is clear that they are investing heavily in the IntelliJ IDE. The release for Studio that is available right now is marked as “early preview release” and it is not recommended yet as a primary IDE.
We will continue to expand on the I/O announcements in future blog posts. In general this I/O was more about incrementally updating the platform instead of introducing significant change. In my opinion this speaks to the maturity of the OS, after project Butter and Jelly Bean we have a stable environment that provides most of the necessary pieces to build incredible applications. Now if I could only get my new Pixel to run Android Studio, everything will be perfect :).
We have another I/O in the books, and even though we didn’t get any updates to the Nexus family or official updates to the OS; there were a lot of announcements regarding the future of the platform. During several Android sessions it was mentioned that we would get an incremental update to Jelly Bean (API 18) in the next couple of months. But while we wait for it, there are many updates that we can start leveraging right now. These are the ones that I think will have a major impact in the short term,
May 17 2013
Microsoft Announces Android Tablet Editing Support in SharePoint 2013/Office Web Apps
In our April webinar “SharePoint 2013: Building Better Business Outcomes,” Kelly Rusk and I covered the mobile capabilities and limitations of SharePoint 2013. Recently Amanda Lefebvre on the Office 365 blog announced upcoming changes that address some of the limitations around mobile access and real-time coauthoring.
May 14 2013
Rendering UIViews with anti-aliasing, Identifying Problems and Solutions
If you have experience designing views in Xcode you likely have run into an instance where a UIView or one of its subclasses is rendered blurry. This is caused by anti-aliasing, an attempt to avoid jagged looking edges by blending with the colors of the layer below it. This blog discusses both simple and complex issues with rendering UIViews with anti-aliasing.
In the image below, the left text and image have been anti-aliased. Select an image to see a larger view.
The difference can sometimes be subtle. The left image below is anti-aliased.
May 14 2013
The Visionary Executives Who Are Pushing Customer Experience and the Value They Are Creating.
What is a company’s true source of value? Is it the products they make or the customers who use them? Yeah, it’s the customers.
So why then do otherwise smart people consider Customer Experience as anything less than critical to their business? Consider the Wall Street-defying announcement Amazon’s Jeff Bezos recently made that caused Michael Hinshaw to declare on the MYCustomer blog, “When an incredibly successful, Fortune 100 company says customer relationships matter more than short-term profits, it should inspire us.”
This is a story about leveraging digital innovation to deliver customer delight.
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