9:00AM Lab A: Building Client/Server Applications for iOS

Joe Goullaud Software Architect Raizlabs

One of the most powerful aspects of mobile computing is the always-on connectivity of our modern devices. Looking at the App Store today, you would be hard pressed to find an app that doesn't use a web service to some degree.

Whether it's to stream videos and music, share photos, receive notifications, or sync documents and data, web services are an essential part of most mobile applications. This session will examine the best practices for building networked apps and APIs by building a small, networked iOS app.

You'll learn:

When and how to leverage web services in a mobile application

How to building the client networking code, including caching and secure storage for credentials/tokens

Best practices for building mobile web service APIs

Minimal experience developing iOS applications is required (must be able to run and modify a sample project). Some experience developing web applications using environments such as PHP, JSP/JSF, Ruby on Rails, or Node is helpful but not required.

Participants must bring their own laptops outfitted with Xcode installed. A networked iOS device such as an iPhone or iPad will be useful for testing. We will supply course materials and labs electronically.

9:00AM Lab B: Develop, Test, and Debug Cross-platform Apps Using PhoneGap

Giorgio Natili CTO GNstudio

In this workshop you’ll learn how to use your existing web development skills to build cross-platform apps using a real-world app as an example. Using the provided assets (i.e. design and HTML/CSS files) you will leverage today's most relevant JavaScript libraries--Require.js, Mustache.js, Zepto.js and Sail.js--to work on the app's business logic. You also will learn: how to set up a mobile development environment, some optimization techniques for your JavaScript, and how to set up a deploy workflow and using weinre, Edge Inspect, and other tools to test and debug your mobile apps in the browser before moving them to emulators such as Ripple and real devices for final testing.

The workshop will cover also how to:

Use PhoneGap APIs such as Geolocation, Contacts, and Camera

Integrate external plugins into a PhoneGap project in order to extend native features

Build an app once for various screen sizes using flexible templates

Deploy your app on Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows Phone

12:00pm Lunch for Morning & Afternoon Lab Attendees

1:00PM Lab C: Building Apps with Backbone.js and Require.js

Sidney Maestre Platform Evangelist StackMob

When developing HTML5 application, your code is bound to get more complex over time. Employing design patterns like MVC are important for separating concerns and creating more modular and reusable code. Backbone.js is one of the more popular JavaScript frameworks to help you do this. Unfortunately, like most open source, the documentation is a work in progress. Don't worry, I'll walk you through a series of examples that build on each other as I show how the moving parts work together. We'll add the StackMob JavaScript SDK to extend backbone.js and persist your data in the cloud. We'll wrap up our session looking at how require.js allows you to break your backbone.js code into discreet modules during development. Once you are ready to deploy you can use require.js to build an optimized version of your javascript for production.

1:00PM Lab D: Building iOS apps with Facebook

Bear Douglas Developer Advocate Facebook Prashant Sridharan Developer Advocate Facebook

In this session, you'll get an introduction to Facebook's APIs and SDK for iOS. We'll show you how to use Facebook Login to make signup simple, personalize user experience by fetching user data into your app, and let people share stories from your app with their friends.

This intro session assumes no prior knowledge of developing with Facebook. We will provide sample code and walkthroughs. By the end, you will have built a simple social application.

8:00AM Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:30AM Welcome and Introduction by Conference Chair

8:45AM Keynote: Getting and Keeping Users with Facebook

Bear Douglas Developer Advocate Facebook

In an increasingly crowded app marketplace, getting your app noticed and keeping your users engaged can be difficult. Letting people interact with their friends makes your app more "sticky," and drives traffic as users share content and activity. In the last 30 days, Facebook sent users into Google Play and the Apple App Store to download new apps 263 million times.

This solution-focused session will show you how to design social experiences that keep users engaged, and compelling, shareable stories that drive traffic back to your app. The presentation will include code demonstrations using both iOS and Android SDKs.

9:30AM Keynote: Empowering IT to Create Mobile Enterprise Apps

Joe Huang Product Management, Mobile App Dev Tools Oracle

For years, Enterprise IT Developers have focused their skill set on developing and supporting JavaEE-based enterprise applications. However, enterprise users now demanding on-device mobile apps, which typically requires expertise in device-native development tools and language to develop. HTML5-based hybrid application tools such as Cordova and JQueryMobile have allowed Enterprise Developers to apply their current skill set to build mobile apps to some extent. However, these tools typically lack robust business logic services that support mission-critical mobile applications that extends Enterprise Applications and Platforms such as Oracle and SAP.

In this session, we will explore the options IT developers now have in developing enterprise mobile applications that extends Enterprise Applications and Platforms, as well as focusing on new technologies that combines Java, JavaScript, and HTML5 to build on-device mobile applications. Furthermore, we will also outline services available to Enterprise IT developers to easily connect their mobile application to Enterprise Application back-ends.

10:30AM UX is Key! Mastering iOS Interface Design

Michael Griffith Director of Strategy and Creative Bottle Rocket Apps

Mobile UEX Design, Building an Engaging and Relevant Experience

The easy way out would be to build an app containing menus, standard list views, and web views. STOP THAT. Our user's expectations are growing faster than we can design. Mobile experiences on gesture based smart devices has evolved to be a very different animal than all previous digital experiences. Let's start thinking deeper about our client's needs, our end users, and the technology.

Takeaways

Michael will be speaking about some simple UX design philosophies that will ensure your app stands apart from the competition. The ideas will be presented at a conceptual level, but real world examples of apps that do it right will be provided.

Build an app experience, not just an app

Build an app with a focused and guided experience

Build an app that changes the way someone thinks about something

Build an app experience that is unique and own-able

After attending you will be...

Inspired to build deeper and more relevant app experiences for your client and end users.

Why is this session important?

It is too easy to be comfortable in your client's requests and using baseline UI elements provided within the OS. Challenge yourself to better understand your client, your users, and the technology. In a crowded app space, a superior user experience will rise above.

What will you learn?

Designing a user experience is much larger than a collection of user interface elements.

Who should attend?

People interested in building custom apps that go beyond the basic UI/UEX and extend their client's brand in a strategic way.

Mobile Strategists

Creative Directors

UI/UEX Designers

UI/UEX minded Developers

10:30AM Making Money with Android Apps

Sonia Sharma Technical Account Manager Google

You’ve worked long hours and created a great application, and now you want to monetize it. Find out what are the different monetization methods available in Android. This session covers few tips and tricks, insights, and different business models like: Paid apps, inapp billing, advertising and much more.

11:15AM Wicked Easy Backend for iOS Apps

Sidney Maestre Platform Evangelist StackMob

When developing your iOS application, focusing on the primary features and overall user experience is where you most likely want to spend all your time. You know Xcode like the back of your hand and can build Storyboards in your sleep. Wouldn't it be nice to stay in Xcode while creating your backend? StackMob built its open source iOS SDK to make it easy to create data schemes on the fly and interact with the server-side backend services. Our SDK leverages Core Data to build a fast and performance data API to StackMob. You can save and fetch data in just minutes. You’ll leave this session knowing how to build a backend service in minutes, not weeks.

11:15AM Delight Me: Getting the Android UX Right

Suzanne Alexandra Founder and Creative Director Delight Them

The key to great mobile apps that users love and pay for is delight. But how do you get it? What makes one application succeed while another fails? Join Suzanne for this fascinating journey into user experience and the human mind. Attendees will learn:

Why delight is key to your business

The seven key delight factors in mobile apps

Tips for keeping the design process lean

12:00PM LUNCH

1:00PM A Case Study in Building Excellence in Mobile E-commerce

Greg Raiz CEO Raizlabs

Raizlabs has worked with a number of companies on their mobile strategy. In this session Greg will show a case study explaining how Raizlabs approached a unique brand and design challenge. The session will show a behind the scenes look into building a great app.

Many people ask what it's like to build an application. Greg will explain the process from start to finish showing you what you can expect and how to set yourself up for success. Greg will explain the process behind building a great application from the design, API's and animations involved in building a great application.

What you'll learn:

How to pick an idea

Choosing the right platforms (iPad/iPhone/Android)

Principals in ideation and design explorations

Wire-framing an application design

Visual design and branding

Working with services and API's

Animations and transitions

Launching an app to an eager audience

1:00PM Avoiding Android App Security Pitfalls

Zach Lanier Accuvant Senior Research Consultant

There's an Android app for just about everything. But, like any other software Android apps can be written insecurely, and ripe for attack by malicious users and even other, malicious apps. Using case studies and other research, we will discuss common security pitfalls in Android applications, Android’s enforcement of security restrictions (or in some cases, not), and recommendations for dealing with these issues.

1:45PM Mastering iOS Development Tools

Speaker TBA Submit a Speaker Proposal Now! Click here to submit a proposal.

1:45PM Case Study: Android Development Tools at Bottle Rocket

Luke Wallace Lead Android Developer Bottle Rocket Apps

There are so many tools and tricks for Android development - do any of them actually help when you're building apps day in and day out? Learn about a few that actually save you time, and a few tricks to get the most out of them.

Takeaways

Eclipse tips & tricks

Tools for Continuous Integration

Using Lint to improve your app

Quick starting a native app with web tools

Why is it important?

Knowing effective ways to use the Android framework and tools is important to make the your development process go smoother, with fewer bugs.

Who should attend?

Android Developers looking for ways to make their workflow and processes more efficient and bug-free.

After attending, you will be able to…

make your development process more efficient, and you'll come away with some tricks from the pros!

2:30PM Successful iOS Apps: Selling Well at the Store

Josh Michaels Founder Jetson Creative

With over 600,000 apps in the iOS App Store, it seems increasingly hard to make a successful app. However, there's a dirty secret - 99% of apps are terrible and no one uses them. When you take out all of the apps no one uses, you're left with a vibrant marketplace of extremely great products that people love. The opportunity for creating and selling great products world wide through the App Store has never been greater. There's just one catch – your app has to be great! Come learn what it takes to craft a great app and how to navigate the App Store to reach the top of the charts.

2:30PM Audio Routing in Android

Sujith Ramakrishnan Software Architect Green Throttle Games, Inc.

Understanding how Android manages audio routing is vital for fluid, intuitive user experiences in games and applications.

In this session, Sujith with cover:

Audio modes and their significance

Audio streams and how to identify the right stream for your needs

Types of audio sink devices: earphone, wired headset, Bluetooth headset, speaker

After this session, attendees will learn:

Best practices to set up an intelligent and reliable audio routing mechanism between sink devices

Caveats, gotchas, inconsistencies, and workarounds between various Android releases

3:15PM Afternoon Break and Refreshments

3:30PM iOS Focus Control

Ted Drake Accessibility Director Intuit

Put your focus on accessibility

The iPhone revolutionized the world for people with disabilities. Nobody (outside Apple) imagined this touch-only phone with no physical buttons would become the defacto device for people with disabilities. In fact, today's smart phones have not only replaced computers, but also expensive dedicated assistive technology equipment.

Make your application accessible

To be accessible, your app's content must be discoverable, actionable, and understandable. All of these depend on management of content focus. Fortunately, the platforms have made this fairly easy. The first step is being aware, that is the first part of this presentation. You will learn how to navigate with a phone's screen reader.

This presentation will also give detailed information on how to work with the functions that control focus within each operating system.

Key elements include:

iOS: VoiceOver, isAccessibilityElement, UIAccessibilityPostNotification, shouldGroupAccessibilityChildren, accessibilityLabel, accessibilityHint

Android: TalkBack, ICS/JellyBean, setFocusable(), android:focusable, onFocusChange(), Android Lint

Win8/HTML5: Narrator, ARIA, tabindex, setFocus, accessible name

4:15PM Is It Too Close? Navigating Mobile App Development Laws

Bradley Gross Managing Partner Law Office of Bradley Gross

Every software developer faces the same problem: how close can your app come to another app before you're accused of copying someone else's work? How much can you "borrow" from existing apps without getting into hot water?

What if the apps look similar but function differently? What if they don't look similar, but functionally they're almost identical?

And what about titles? What if the titles of the apps both use common terms, like "Alien" or "Phone"--can those names be protected? How about words that sound the same, like "Phones" and "Phonz"? Is that trademark infringement?

What should you do if an app store, like iTunes, refuses to market your app because of claims of IP infringement? What should you do if you get a cease and desist letter from a competitor--or a patent troll--alleging IP infringement?

You have lots of questions...and now is your opportunity to get some answers.

In this session, we'll probe the boundaries of the laws impacting mobile app development, and discuss the five things that mobile app developers need to know so they can answer the question: "How close is too close?" You can expect to be entertained and educated in this session led by Brad Gross, a leading national digital media law attorney. You have questions? Great. They will be encouraged and welcomed. And even answered!

You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll definitely learn things about mobile app development and the law that you never knew before.

5:15PM Mobile+Web DevCon Networking Party with Appetizers and Cocktails!