MOTODEV Blog

I sat down with Motorola Christian Kurzke yesterday on his upcoming travel plans to Mobile World Congress and talked about the MOTODEV event on February 15 where you'll be able to learn all about Android development and go-to-market strategies.  It is going to be a great event and we're offering free passes to Mobile World Congres for a limited time and first-come, first-serve to those that register on our site starting TODAY until February 11, 2010.  For those attending our event make sure to use the Twitter hashtag #mdap10 and for Mobile World Congress use #mwc10.

Here is the agenda for the day: 

Fast Track to Android with Motorola
Monday, February 15, 2010 - 10am - 2pm

Join us for an opportunity to spend the day getting tools, guidance, go-to-market knowledge and community support you need to create a whole new generation of phenomenal user experiences on Motorola's Android-based handsets

Da jia hao.

Hello, everyone.

Wo jiao Suzanne.

My name is Suzanne.

And so began our session on Android app widgets at MOTODEV Summit in Beijing. I was honored to copresent with my Motorola colleague Wang Changzhi.

Changzhi and I presented many tips on Android widgets—from using a UI prototyping tool, to sizing the widget for devices with different display densities, to creating configuration screens. Widgets are very useful and appealing and have been widely adopted by Android developers.

Whether or not you were able to join us at the Beijing Summit, you can download the two sample packs we mentioned in the session. The first pack is the WidgetShell demo, which gives you a very simple 2x2 widget with only a background image. This code project helps you get started designing, sizing, and testing widget layouts. Just import the project into MOTODEV Studio for Android and go.

The second pack is the PhotoGalleryWidget. For this one, we took the UI code pieces from the Widget Pack and built a full photo slideshow application with an app widget. (You can read about the Widget Pack in the technical articles.)

We look forward to seeing the widgets you create! Once you create your apps with widgets, remember that you can submit them to Shop4Apps for China—once you're a member of the Application Accelerator Program.

See you soon,

Suzanne

@suzalex on Twitter

Eric Cloninger, MOTODEV Studio for Android product manager, is going on a road trip on Wednesday February 3 from Oklahoma to Austin, Texas and he is taking all of us for the ride at http://gsnap.com/motodev/1067.  Access the site either via your desktop web browser or your mobile phone to see who he meets, what he learns about the Android SDK, what devices he tries out, plus he answers your questions along the way.  Eric will be updating the snapcast with text updates, photos, and on occasion videos so make sure to bookmark the page and interact with Eric.

Go to http://gsnap.com/motodev/1067

-Randy from MOTODEV

Motorola, the Motorola Foundation and Motorola employees have pledged more than $1 million in cash and in-kind products to support earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.  Help is still needed to rebuild the country and get people the medical attention they need.  Because we know you the MOTODEV & Android community are a strong and vocal community we want to ask for your help in joining our support for the below non-profits on Facebook.  You can either join the cause and/or make a online donation.  If you have already donated financially, products/services, or anything else let us know by commenting on this blog or on our Facebook fan page. 

Please join one or all of the following causes on Facebook helping those in Haiti:

• Android Developers Help Doctors Without Borders
• Android Developers Help Mercy Corps
• Android Developers Help Partners in Health
• Android Developers Help the American Red Cross
• Android Developers Help UNICEF

Now more than ever is the time to donate and help those suffering in Haiti. We, as the MOTODEV & Android developer community, can come together and help those in need.  Spread the word to your friends, family, and co-workers by posting a message on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, web site, or any other community you are a part of. 

In the words of anthropologist Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.

Randy Ksar from the MOTODEV team

Hi everyone. What an exciting week it was last week at Motorola!!! Hopefully by now you’ve read the news about our new SHOP4APPS Android app store in China. I’d like to tell you about the tremendous opportunity this represents for you.

The Motorola SHOP4APPS app store will be one of the premier application channels available for Android-based smartphones in China. Add to that the immense size of the market opportunity in China, (China is probably the single largest untapped smartphone market in the world), and you’ve got a recipe for success – Your success!

Motorola will be launching a number of Android-based smartphones with the SHOP4APPS app store preloaded in time for Chinese New Year. In support of these launches, we will be actively promoting the SHOP4APPS app store to our retailers and consumers with a variety of marketing and educational campaigns.  

To take advantage of all of this visibility you must move quickly. Those of you who submit your applications early will get the most exposure during our launch activities. So, beat your competition to market in China and submit your application through the MOTODEV App Accelerator Program at http://developer.motorola.com/shop4apps today.

Remember, very seldom does such an opportunity come along to enter an emerging market when it’s, well…emerging.

It's hard to believe the day has come and gone. All the hard work and long hours that went into hosting a Summit in Beijing, China really paid off. We reached out to our developer community in China and prepared them to be the first to bring their Android applications to market with Motorola.

Thankfully, the cold did not keep the developers at bay. In fact, they turned out in overwhelming numbers to hear what Motorola had to say about Android development and catch a glimpse of the most recently announced Android-based handsets from Motorola, including the XT800 and MT710.

Whether developers attended the keynote in the standing room only keynote hall, sat through numerous technical and business oriented sessions, conversed with a Fast Track partner on how better to bring their app to market or tapped into their creative side at the Developer Playground the buzz was definitely alive and felt throughout the entire conference.

Insightful and educated questions kept our speakers and technical staff on their toes as developers starved for Android knowledge kept the discussions lively and interesting. They even gave me a run for my money when I stood up at lunch to announce a secret product giveaway. Remind me, not to volunteer for that job again.

Overall, while the Summit maybe a wrap, the work has really just begun. I am excited at the prospect of the numerous and innovative applications our customers will experience once they enter the market for use on Motorola’s Android based-phones.

Clearly, this is just the beginning of a great ride.

Developers at the MOTODEV Summit Beijing definitely had their creative juices flowing as they molded clay into DROIDS of all types and used the simplest of tools— glue, scissors, markers, pipe cleaners, felt cutouts to decorate them in novel ways each delivering a personal message about Android and Motorola.

I'd have to say the consensus was that developers in China love Android and are excited about Motorola's Android-based phones for the China market. They kept the Developer Playground buzzing from before the keynote address until the close of the day producing some of the most creative and sophisticated 2D and 3D DROID-art that anyone could imagine.

Although the technical and business sessions are typically the core of a MOTODEV Summit, in Beijing today, I sure felt its heart and soul in the Developer Playground.

Greetings from the MOTODEV Summit here in Beijing, China!   It's been frigidly cold here in Beijing and there's snow on the ground, but that hasn't stopped hundreds of developers keen on finding out Android development for Motorola phones from coming out to the Marriott City Wall Hotel in the center of Beijing.  

Early morning registration was steady and busy, and when attendees had finished their breakfast and found the lab and playground, they were engaged and enthusiastic and very very curious about what Motorola is up to with Android and mobile ecosystem in China. We were pleased to be able to show off many Android devices, including the XT800 and MT710, two devices for China just announced.  The lab was packed till 10, when the keynote started.

Barely an empty seat in the huge ballroom for the keynote.  The room was elegantly set with long tables, pads/pens, and water for each attendee, and comfortable upholstered chairs. Settle in for an engaging session!  Joanna Wang, VP of Marketing for Greater China (Motorola Mobile Devices) opened the keynote with a warm welcome and set the stage for what the developers would experience today.  She then introduced Bin Shen, Vice President of Motorola and General Manager for Asia, who walked the crowd through Motorola's mobile device strategy, especially for China market, and what it means to developers. What are the advantages that Motorola brings?  Some of the things he talked about (and also demonstrated on the XT800) included the great browser and internet experience, the implementation of dual sim for calls as well as data, the best integration of wireless, outstanding support for multimedia and HD, innovative input method customized especially for China market, the best voice quality -- and all this on the Android OS, a great platform for development.   Elena Qian, Senior Manager for Social Media, closed the session by providing an overview of the sessions and the day for the audience.

The entire keynote was given in Chinese, but simultaneous translation to English via headset was spot on and provided an equally great experience for non-Chinese speakers. 

All in all a great start to an exciting day ....

Motorola has been working closely with Adobe on developing the Flash Player 10.1 for the Android platform as part of the Open Screen Project.  As a participant of the Open Screen Project, Motorola will be deploying the full Flash Player broadly across the Android product portfolio. Motorola’s Android products will have Flash Player updates available once Adobe releases Flash Player 10.1, expected in the first half of 2010.

Our friends at the Adobe Developer Connection, recorded a cool video demo of Flash Player 10.1 on the DROID and we wanted to hear your thoughts on the user experience as well as what does this mean to the mobile developer community.  Watch the video below and comment on this blog post. 

Hello everyone.  In order to spread the word about the MOTODEV Summit in Beijing, China on January 13, 2010 I wanted to share with you some assets for you to use on your blogs, social networks, bbs, and web sites. 

Link to:  http://bit.ly/motodevch

MOTODEV Summit China description in Chinese: