AnDevCon IV Classes and Workshops Schedule

AnDevCon is a technical conference for software developers building Android apps, and the fourth Android developer conference will take place in San Francisco on December 4-7, 2012. The organizers have already listed the schedule, including details about the workshops and classes which will take place at the conference.

The 4th of December is reserved for workshops, and the other 3 days can be spent on shorter classes. All workshops will provide sample code, as well as most classes, excluding the overview session and business related sessions.

There will be three full day Android workshops:

Android Development Boot Camp – Hands-on introduction to Android application development and the tools essential to the process. Beyond an introduction to the basics, this workshop also covers some of the common hurdles met with development, and how to overcome them. You will also have the opportunity to build an Android app of your own where you can apply what you learn in the workshop.
Building and Distributing Social Apps with Facebook Platform and Open Graph – This full-day workshop will introduce key features of Facebook Platform with deeper dives delivered through live-coding examples. You will be guided through Facebook Android integration for native apps and Facebook Android PhoneGap and Cordova integration for mobile Web apps. You’ll also learn about Open Graph, how to build a Timeline app and more.
Embedded Android Workshop – This workshop is aimed at embedded developers wanting to build touch-based embedded systems using Android. You’ll learn about Android’s overall architecture, and Android internals. The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) will be covered during this session, then you’ll learn more about native Android user space and Android’s power tools, see how hardware support is implemented in Android, and see how the kernel is modified to support the Android user space. Finally, you’ll find out how to customize the System Server, the Android Framework and core Android applications.

as well as four half-day workshops:

Easy Mobile: Making Your Application Easier to Use – This hands-on workshop will consist of critiques and walkthroughs of your applications with an eye to making them easier to use. The goal is to make sure that everyone leaves this workshop with at least 1-3 usability improvements made to their application, and a list of 2-3 other things that can be done.
Pretty Mobile: Making Your Application Look Sexy – This hands-on workshop will consist of critiques and walkthroughs of your applications with an eye to making them look amazing. You’ll hack up screens and try new things using Photoshop, and learn about best practices.
Securing User Data with SQLCipher – One key tool for App security is SQLCipher for Android, an encrypted form of the SQLite database. You’ll learn how to replace your current SQLite usage with SQLCipher , how to check users password strength, and how to use it to store files and preferences securely.
Talk to Your Toaster: Developing Android Accessories – In-depth look at the APIs available in Android to connect with external hardware via USB, Wi-Direct, Bluetooth… You’ll also explore some accessory firmware, so experience with embedded development platforms such as Arduino can prove helpful.

There will also be plenty of classes categorized in 3 different levels. I listed a summary below, and highlighted the sessions related to embedded Android either directly or via communication to external devices, and lower level development (NDK, Drivers…) in green.

Overview
- Android Fundamentals: What I Wish I Knew When I Started! – It will cover things like activities vs applications, UI development, and differences between Android and other mobile platforms.
Intermediate
- Android OpenGL ES Essentials – OpenGL ES 101
- Architecting Android Apps – Learn about building blocks of Android: activities, services, providers and receivers, as well as intents .
- Building HTML5 Apps for Phone or Tablet – Learn to build online / offline HTML5 applications.
- Creating Android Apps for Today’s Bluetooth Devices – Learn how to develop apps that let mobile devices receive and process data from BT enabled devices such as heart-rate monitors, thermometers, weight scales and more.
- Creating ePub Books for Android
- Designing Accessible Android Applications – Integrate accessibility features into your applications using touch, speech, sensors, haptics, gesture and more.
- Designing Responsively with CSS3
- Developing and Optimizing for Atom Processor-Based Platforms – Learn how you can use the x86 NDK.to optimize apps for Atom processors.
- Exposing the Android Camera Stack – Integrate, improve or innovate using the Camera subsystem, learn about the Android Camera APIs, Camera Internals, and driver Architecture.
- Extending the Android Platform – Ever run into a roadblock when developing for Android? There are several ways to extend Android capabilities such as using the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), using hidden APIs, rolling your own SDK add-ons or even customizing development tools.
- Intro to Renderscript or Can’t I Just Depend on JIT? – Learn how to boost compute intensive tasks performance with Renderscript.
- Introduction to Android Animation
- Leveraging Android’s Linux Heritage – Running embedded Linux applications in Android.
- MintChip and Virtual Loonies: A Case Study in Implementing Digital Currency – Virtual currency for mobile devices.
- Optimizing Android UI: Tips for Creating Fast and Responsive Applications
- Part I: App Marketing for Developers – Topics will include business models for apps, marketing funnel, tracking and analytics, keyword research, and many key marketing terms. Actual examples will be shown.
- Part I: Beautiful Android on a Shoestring – Learm how to use XML and Java to create nice looking UI.
- Part II: Hands-on Icon Creation – Demos on how to use the free resources to download vector graphics to create beautiful icons for your app using Photoshop and Imagemagick.
- Part I: Bringing Up Android on Your Favorite X86 Workstation or Virtual Machine – This class introduces the concepts of AOSP and how to use it in order to configure and build one of the most popular Android devices available: The Android emulator, for an X86 target.
- The Wonderful World of Wearables – Current wearable Android devices and accessories will be presented, and you’ll learn what it takes to get your apps to run on them.
- Tracking User Behavior Creatively – Introduction to Google Analytics for mobile Web applications, and tips and techniques for building custom and granular tracking features.
- Two-Part Class: Mastering the Android Developer Tools – Half-day workshop about Android development tools (DDMS, ADB, AVD/emulator, Lint, XML tools, HierarchyViewer, TraceView and more.
Advanced
- Advanced OpenGL ES – Learn how to use OpenGL ES 2.0 in your application
- Advanced Techniques for Developing Powerful, Yet Lightweight Android SDKs – How to developer your own Android SDK
- Android Forensics and Malicious Users – Hands-on review on how to forensically analyze an Android device and collect hidden data.
- Attacking Android Insecurity – Learn how to create a secure app.
- Battle-Tested Patterns in Android Concurrency – Leverage multi-core processors in Android.
- Building NFC-Enabled Android Applications
- Connecting to the Outside World – USB, Bluetooth and RS-232 connection to external devices. They’ll provide examples (barcode reader, credit card reader…) using an Arduino board.
- Drinking from the API Fire Hose – Tailor Web APIs for mobile device in order to improve performance and battery life.
- Extending the Android Vibrate Function for Games – Learn how to implement console-like gaming effects using the free Immersion Corporation SDK.
- Inside Android’s User Interface – Internals of Android user-facing components, useless for those who want to use and/or modify those for embedded systems.
- Intent + Service + Content Provider = Plugin Architecture
- KVKit: A Simple, Powerful, ORM and Key-Value Store – KVKit is a lightweight alternative to Hibernate, and can be used as a simple database (SQLite) or for key-value storage.
- Mastering the Android Touch System
- Mobile Data Synchronization: Any Database, Any Back End, Any Time – QCDBSync is a lightweight open-source library that allows you to synchronize data stored in the SQLite database on Android devices with remote databases of any flavor.
- Part II: Android Business Essentials – How to build a sustainable business based on Android apps. (Part I: App Marketing for Developers)
- Part II: Bringing Up Android on Your Favorite X86 Workstation or Virtual Machine – Comprehensive tutorial on how to configure and build an Android desktop machine. A full working laptop Android distribution will be built.
- Protecting Your Android Source Code – This classes will show how to decompile an APK in Java or Javascript, and provide techniques to protect your apps.
- QC: An Easy to Use Modular Framework – QC is an open-source framework that reduces time to delivery for applications.
- Reusable Custom Components – Learn how to extend a View class to create custom views.
- Save the Battery! App Design and Testing for Better Power Consumption
- Tips, Tricks and Secrets of the Android Multimedia APIs – How to use Android audio and video APIs, and ffmpeg in an Android app via JNI.
- Two-Part Class: Hacking APKs for Fun and Profit (Mostly for Fun) – Dive into the internals of Android (Dalvik bytecode, smali syntax, decompilation tools, …) and hack a popular app.
- Who’s there? Home Automation with Arduino and Android – How to use Arduinos to be notified that someone has shown up at your doorstep wherever you are.

You can find the same listed but with further descripion for each classes @ http://www.andevcon.com/AnDevCon_IV/classes.html

If you are interested in participating, you can register online. Here’s AnDevCon IV ticket prices:

Conference Pricing	By Aug. 3	By Sept. 21	By Oct. 19	By Nov. 16	After Nov. 16
3-day Passport PLUS Pre-Conference Workshops	$1,195 SAVE $600	$1,295 SAVE $500	$1,395 SAVE $400	$1,495 SAVE $300	$1,795
3-day Passport Only	$995	$1,095	$1,145	$1,245	$1,495
Pre-Conf Workshops	$595	$645	$675	$715	$795
Exhibit Hall Only	FREE	FREE	FREE	FREE	$50

As with other conference, it’s cheaper if you can register early. $100 discount is available for group registration (3 attendees or more), people working for the government (Coupon: GOV), in educational institutions (Coupon: EDU) or non profit organization (Coupon: NONPROFIT). The exhibit hall will be open on December, 6-7 2012 only.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.