Before the conference, Dan Morrill from Google tweeted that I/O would be great this year, and he was right! I attended both keynotes, most of the Android sessions, and one of the surprise Wave sessions, and was just wowed -- there's no other way to describe it.

First, seeing 4000 developers using their new Android mobile phones was awesome. Thanks, Google! And the preview demo of Google Wave is a must-see. This is the first time Wave has been demonstrated outside of Google. I can't wait to use Wave from my new Android phone.

 

 

 

 

You may have seen our recap of Day 1 on the Android Mobile track. I understand that Google will post videos of some sessions, and I encourage you to watch them when they're available. But meanwhile, here are some highlights of Day 2:

* The key to success in Android mobile games is quality. Chris Pruett's session, Writing Real-Time Games for Android, gave tips for making mobile games faster and smaller using either Canvas or OpenGL ES. Remember - polish, polish, polish and speed, speed, speed.


* Waves have embedding and extension APIs, also gadgets and robots. The Wave announcement met with great response, and the first developer session was jammed. Briefly, the extension API takes Wave and puts it out into the world, while the embedding API takes bits of the world and puts them into Wave. Need more info? Check code.google.com/apis/wave.

* Turbocharge your UI. Romain Guy's session is another must-see. Romain presented tips for building fast, efficient Android UIs with the proper use of adapters, backgrounds and images, drawing, and views.

At the end of the day, Randy Ksar and I cohosted the weekly MOTODEV podcast, where guests from ZDNet, MySpace, AndroidAndMe, and Flurry recapped their impressions of the conference.

Do you plan to start developing for Android with your new phone? Or enter Android Developer Challenge 2? Be sure to check out the new MOTODEV Android developer site for articles, tips, and getting started information on Android development.

If you're in the SF Bay Area, please come to the developer meetup we're hosting here at Motorola in Sunnyvale on June 16. You can get details here.

Did you attend the Google I/O Conference? What was your experience? Post a comment and of course let us know what else we can do to help you with Android development.


Suzanne Alexandra
Cohost, Weekly MOTODEV Android Podcasts