Recap: The London Android User Group. June MeetUp

karang — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:35:53 GMT

Hey MOTODEV fans,

Since this is my first blog, let me introduce myself - I work in Motorola for the Developer Technical Services team which helps developers create great applications for Motorola phones whilst taking feedback for improvement of our Software and Tools offerings.

Just wanted to give you peek at Android User Group Meetup on the other side of Atlantic - London! The London Android Developers have been meeting up for sometime informally but since April, there has been a formal meeting venue with a sizeable audience. The user group meeting held on 22nd June, 2009 is the third one since April.

The Meeting organizer Carl Harroch arranged for two wonderful lectures on varied topics. Below are the details:

Richard Hyndman - "Android Home Screen Widgets"

Richard introduced what a home screen widget was and then dived into a code walkthrough of a batterywidget. The important development tips shared being:

keeping the update frequency to the least possible interval appropriate for the context to save battery life
use rich UI
widget sizes
Use a "Service" for updating purposes to avoid "Application Not Responding error"
Use "PendingIntents" for widget interactions

View the presentation that was given here.

View the code presented during the talk here.

Follow Richard on Twitter - @geekyouup.

Dr. Paul Thomas - "OpenGL - Implementation in Android"

Paul introduced the basics of OpenGL and what the projections, transformations, texture mapping are all about and then demonstrated how OpenGL API is implemented in Android. Paul mapped the concepts discussed by the demo of “VoxelFun” a 3d game which is available on Marketplace. The audience was reminded that not all of OpenGL needs to be implemented in hardware but part of it could be left to be handled in software. The hardware details required for rendering 3d were also covered. There was a very keen Q&A session to know more about OpenGL.

Paul promised to write-up on the material he covered and share it with the community soon. View his current work including videos of demos.

Post meet, there was an active networking among the developers. For all the android developers in UK, mark your calendars for the next meetup. The details of the London Android User Group meet-ups can be obtained from - http://www.meetup.com/android. See you soon!

Karan