The Developers Strike Back: Camera Apps

RETO MEIER: Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to Android Developers Strike Back.
Last week, we heartlessly reviewed camera apps in the
app clinic and redesigned those apps in
Android Design In Action.
Now it's time for the developers of those apps to
have their say.
My name is Reto Meier.
IAN NI-LEWIS: And I'm Ian Ni-Lewis.
Today, we're lucky to be joined by the developers of
three of the apps we looked at last week, including IM CTO
Ramzi Risk, Glimmr developer Paul Bourke, and Alex Drizen
of Camera ZOOM FX.
As always, we're safe in the Android Developers bunker in
an undisclosed location.
So Ramzi, Paul, and Alex are joining
us via Google+ Hangouts.
RETO MEIER: Also joining us is are resident design guru,
Roman Nurik, live from New York.
ROMAN NURIK: It's Saturday night.
Hey, guys.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Before we meet the developers, let's quickly
review last week's prescriptions.
Reto, what makes a great camera app?
RETO MEIER: Well, we went through each
of these last week.
And really I think what it comes down to is having
something which is really compelling.
It's a very visual medium so you want
everything to just work.
So, first and foremost, you want it to look great without
contradicting the design guide.
IAN NI-LEWIS: And I think that was something that we really
wanted to emphasize because cameras
are an artistic medium.
They deserve an artistic user interface.
They don't need to look like an alarm
clock or a text editor.
But they need to not contradict or change our
design guidelines in a way that might confuse users.
RETO MEIER: Exactly.
You want it to be something which is a really rich
experience, but not a confusing experience.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Right.
RETO MEIER: I think that's really the cake.
We want to make sure that it supports every image in the
image gallery.
So there's a lot of these apps which are providing filters
for photos.
We want to make sure that it works, even if the image that
you happen to choose is on Picasa or
some other image provider.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Sure.
Flickr or whatever, yeah.
RETO MEIER: Exactly.
Hipster filters we mentioned, some way to be able to browse
a community of photography, which I think really helps
draw you in and understand what the benefits are.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Yeah, that was something that I hadn't really
thought about.
But it is a really nice bonus to help you feel like you're
part of a larger community and compare
your photos with others.
RETO MEIER: Absolutely.
And the last point which I wanted to mention was that it
should work on devices without cameras.
So Nexus 7 devices, anything like that, which may not have
a back-facing camera, but it's a really great device for
looking at photos and enjoying that community.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Now, remember, though, we ended up adding one
thing at the end that we didn't put on this slide.
And that is that, at least as of Jelly Bean, which is a much
faster OS UI wise than previous OSes from Android,
you should be able to have jank-free
scrolling in your app.
So as I'm browsing a large number of images--
now, of course, sometimes you're going to see a blank or
placeholder image as that image comes
down from the network.
But if the image has been loaded, you should be able to
scroll up and down without seeing any jank.
And by jank, we mean just frame rate drops, little
pauses in the scrolling.
Some of the apps did that really, really well, better
than our own apps, in fact.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Which is always impressive.
So it was great to see that and definitely something which
we are going to be looking for in pretty much all the apps
we'll look at in the future.
I think that's going to be a big part of it.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Absolutely.
RETO MEIER: So let's get started.
Let's have a look at each of the apps.
So these are the apps that we reviewed on Friday.
EyeMe, Glimmr, Camera ZOOM FX, and, what was the other?
Picnik, I think.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I think you said EyeMe again.
But it's really EyeEm.
RETO MEIER: It's EyeEm.
I don't know why I keep saying EyeMe.
We should ask Ramzi, see if he's willing
to change the name.
It's going to make it much easier for me.
So, happily, we do have the developers of three of these
apps to speak to today.
We are going to start with Ramzi from EyeEm.
So before we do kick over to him, I just want to show you
quickly on screen here what the lab results were judging
by the criteria which we put forward.
And I think the two big concerns we had were the
ability to support every the image in the gallery.
And I think we had a couple of concerns
about the design guide.
And can you remember what was the jank
factor like on the EyeEm?
IAN NI-LEWIS: I'm sorry, I don't.
RETO MEIER: I think it was reasonable.
But I don't think it was the standout.
So let's get Ramzi on and let him speak for himself.
So hi, Ramzi, can you spend a little bit of time-- tell us a
little bit about yourself, a little bit about the app, just
so the audience knows who you are.
RAMZI RIZK: Absolutely, first of all, thanks for having us.
And thanks for the review.
We can rename it to EyeMe as soon as you guys release
support for Action Bar on--
[LAUGHTER]
RETO MEIER: That's a fair call.
RAMZI RIZK: No worries there.
Yeah, so, I'm Ramzi.
I'm one of the engineers behind EyeEm and one of the
four guys that founded it originally.
Not much to say about myself.
I develop Android, among other things.
Recently, our team has grown over the last few months.
And now we have actually some really awesome developers that
are taking care of most of the Android development.
And that's why the app has gotten so much better over the
last couple months.
But yeah, and EyeEm itself is--
well, you can say it's a photo-sharing platform.
But we like to think of it as the next
generation of photo discovery.
So photo filters, hipster photo filters are all awesome.
But what we really like are data centers.
And what we think is that the fact that you're taking photos
with your mobile means you have so much more information
available to you that you don't need to
make the user enter.
So you don't need the hash tags.
You don't need all of that.
But you have the location information.
You know what sort of location it is.
And based on that, you can always learn a little more and
make better recommendations.
And that's what we're trying to do EyeEm.
So the idea is whenever you take a photo, you're telling
us a little bit more about what you
like and how you live.
And we use that, learn a little more, and make better
recommendations so that you're always getting nicer content
recommended to you.
And you're always discovering content independent of the
social graph.
So it's buzzwords, topical graph, interest
graph, all of that.
And that's what we're focusing on.
RETO MEIER: Very nice.
And that's, in fact--
I think the key thing for me when I was browsing through
the app was being able follow these little bread crumbs of
links, Things that, ooh, that's taken
at the Android building.
I would love to see how many other photos there are.
So that, for me, was really compelling.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Absolutely.
It's a very, very interesting service.
RAMZI RIZK: And can I say one more thing quickly?
RETO MEIER: Please, yeah, this is all about you.
RAMZI RIZK: Awesome.
First of all, again, I want to apologize because the app
crashed while you were demoing it, while you were trying to
take a photo.
And this is a funny story, because we had actually just
released that update a couple hours before the show.
And we'd switched our location detection stuff into the
repository that you have on Google
Groups, the Protips location.
So we were sort of inspired by that.
And we tested it, and it was all OK, except in the case of
latitudes that were minus 120, 122.
So basically--
yeah, and thanks for reporting it because otherwise we
wouldn't have found that.
IAN NI-LEWIS: You're very welcome.
RAMZI RIZK: It was pretty cool of you.
RETO MEIER: Oh that's great.
That's really interesting.
So Ian's playing with the app right now.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I like how Googolplex is a tech
startup near you.
RETO MEIER: [CHUCKLES].
IAN NI-LEWIS: Yeah, that's how we roll.
RETO MEIER: Absolutely.
Well, I can see a lot of duct tape in this room.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Yeah, there you go.
So, yeah, I think the scrolling
is definitely usable.
But, as you said, it wasn't the standout.
There are apps that scroll a lot better than this.
But in general, the performance is pretty good.
And I really, really like the way that you can see these
different categories, although some of them are a little bit
mystifying.
Like I don't know why that pretty girl on the train
tracks was labeled coffee.
Maybe that's some sort of slang that I don't know.
RETO MEIER: Yeah don't ask, don't tell.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I think that the main objection that we had to
the UI was the camera button.
What do you think, Ramzi?
RAMZI RIZK: I absolutely agree.
I mean, you guys definitely know this.
It's a bit of a challenge trying to keep up with design
guidelines in a lot of ways.
And especially, like you said, when it comes to photography
apps, you have your own spirit.
And we're a very design-driven company.
So we have a team of people that are always
tweaking this stuff.
And actually, this is one of the things that they are
looking at.
So they started basically looking and realized that
issue when you mentioned it last Friday, was it?
And they are looking at ways to improve that.
So it definitely will be moved.
It makes sense.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Because it's certainly tricky when you have
capacitive buttons.
Different manufacturers do different things.
And, of course, a lot of manufacturers do have big
fixed buttons.
But they're all getting sued so--
apparently.
RETO MEIER: That's not working out well for them.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Right.
RETO MEIER: And I do notice that this app, it does sort of
point you towards the camera in that it has the sort of
bubbles which float around the button to indicate, hey,
something's down here.
And you should check it out.
I wonder--
RAMZI RIZK: That's when it's loading more content.
That's sort of the loader, the spinner.
RETO MEIER: That's interesting.
OK, that's kind of cool.
Roman, I know you spent a bit of time looking at different
camera apps.
And they're all going to have this same sort of issue as to
how do you make the button more visible.
Do you have any tips for EyeEm, in particular?
ROMAN NURIK: I think the one problem I have with the
placement is that the other half of the button, it's
negative space, basically.
I mean, you almost see the other half of the button
overlapping with the home button.
So when your finger jumps to that location, your finger
jumps to where the home button is.
I think the general location, it's kind of hard to move it
to a completely different part of the screen.
But having it fully on the screen or just bigger, a
larger touch target, is going to drastically minimize the
number of errors.
But it is just something that's difficult, especially
for camera apps, where that is probably the most common place
for a shutter.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Fair enough.
RETO MEIER: That's fair.

Otherwise, I think-- oh, there was the menu button.
Yeah, Ramzi help us out.
You've got to get rid of the menu button, man.
RAMZI RIZK: Yeah, yeah, guys.
Actually, like the stuff that you mentioned, it's all being
taken care of.
We're doing final testing for supporting--
well, going up to target SDK16.
And we've dropped the camera required, made it into a--
or camera provisions not required.
RETO MEIER: Awesome.
RAMZI RIZK: So basically you can use it with or without.
And what else did you mention that we took care of?
RETO MEIER: Oh, the Picasa gallery stuff, yeah.
RAMSEY RISK: Sorry?
RETO MEIER: Being able to edit images from Picasa or Flickr
or wherever else.
RAMZI RIZK: That's all in there.
That should be hopefully out there tomorrow night.
RETO MEIER: Oh, that's awesome.
RAMZI RIZK: And with image scrolling, I think we might
have nailed the jankiness part.
RETO MEIER: Oh, good.
RAMZI RIZK: It's a big challenge.
IAN NI-LEWIS: It is really hard, isn't it?
It's when you're dealing with this much information, and
these bit maps are large enough that any one of them
could just about blow your Java heap.
We've actually spent a long time here just trying to
figure out all of the best techniques for that.
Dan Galpin's been working on it in his spare time.
But, yeah, I will say that, at least on this build, the
jankiness does seem to be increasing a little bit,
making me think that there is a memory leak somewhere or
some kind of resource leak.
RAMZI RIZK: That is the problem exactly.
We do cache images, so we have two-layer caching.
And the disk caching, it seems that the disk caching is
causing some of these issues as well, so the seek time on
disk, which is what we're trying to figure out right now
and finalize.
RETO MEIER: We will definitely be keeping
an eye out for that.
It sounds like you've pretty already done all the things
that we thought needed to be doing.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Right.

We're still looking for a pure Java solution.
But I think that for some photo things, you actually do
have to drop down into the Linux layer and the NDK.
Because at that point, you can do efficient file mapping, and
you can do decoding with neon instructions instead of with
Java instructions.
So that may be part of it.
There's also--
one thing that you have to avoid like the plague is
allocations during your scrolling.
Because as you acquire and release objects, every release
is a possible GC.
RAMZI RIZK: Yeah.
RETO MEIER: So yeah, I mean, we'd definitely love to hear
from you and from your team once you guys have the next
launch out.
And if it is nice and smooth, it would be great to hear some
of the hints that you guys might have for other
developers which are going to be
encountering the same thing.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Some of our other guests may have some
advice as well.
Let's go ahead and take a look at Roman's redesign.
Do we have one for that?
RETO MEIER: I don't think we do.
For EyeEm, I think Roman left that one alone.
I think Glimmr and Camera ZOOM FX--
IAN NI-LEWIS: Good the way it was?
RETO MEIER: I think so.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Except for that camera button.
RETO MEIER: Except for the camera button.
Roman, you didn't feel like you wanted to spend half an
hour talking about different ways to put a
camera button on screen?
ROMAN NURIK: Yeah, the thing is to what we try to do with
Android Design in Action is we try to look at the apps that
have a lot of UX possibilities, like a lot of--
something that we can change drastically and still maintain
the core app.
I think EyeEm--
I'm hoping I'm pronouncing that right.
I think EyeEm, just like you guys, are very close.
The only redesigns we would do would probably be just very
small visual tweaks here and there.
So we didn't think it was worth spending too
much time on it.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I think that really the main critique that
I have of the interface is that compared to some of the
other photo apps we saw, it takes a long time to get a
full-size image.
And once I've drilled down into the full size, then you
can't just move to another image really quickly.
RETO MEIER: It would be nice to have that type of scrolling
from that perspective, too.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Right.
Like I--
in general, and maybe you could put Ramzi back up, Deb?
I think when I'm looking at this interface, I feel like
it's got everything that I want.
But it's not ordered in the order that I want it most.
So the frequency of wanting to go from picture to picture
with some of this information is much lower than wanting to
actually interact with some of this extra information.
I wish I could just go immediately to the screen and
then swipe back and forth with pictures, back and forth with
pictures, and then up and down for other things in the
category, or maybe even like a drawer or something.
Because remember that photo apps are all
about browsing photos.
RAMZI RIZK: Right.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Cool.
Well, I think that's all the time we've
got to spend on EyeEm.
RETO MEIER: So thank you very much for joining us today.
And thank you for a great app.
We are really looking forward to seeing the update and
getting all of the extra stuff that we asked for.
RAMZI RIZK: Absolutely.
RETO MEIER: Thanks, man.
RAMZI RIZK: Thank you, guys.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Thanks very much for joining us.
RETO MEIER: All right, so next up we're going to take a look
at Glimmr by Paul Bourke.
So this is little bit different from some of the
other apps that we looked at in that it's not
about taking photos.
It is about browsing Flickr effectively.
So it's very much all about being able to create these
rich, smooth, scrolling experiences.
So we gave him a couple of red marks.
But it was on stuff which the app doesn't
actually have to do.

IAN NI-LEWIS: Why don't you introduce yourself, Paul?
MALE SPEAKER: So Paul's actually having some rejoining
our Hangout.
Maybe we can move on to the next app and get the next
developer on and come back to Paul.
RETO MEIER: Sure, absolutely.
Yeah, we can totally do that.
Lets move on to Camera ZOOM FX while we're waiting for Paul
to get his Hangout connection working once again.
So this is a little bit more like EyeEm in that it is
effectively a camera replacement.
I think the key difference here was that Camera ZOOM FX
wasn't so much about the community of photography.
It was more about being able to create great photos with an
app that replaces the native camera.
Or at least that was my perspective, so it will be
interesting to hear Alex's.
I think where we gave it a red mark here again was some of
the community stuff and some issues with the design guide.
And this is, in fact, an app which Roman and his
team took a look at.
So I think we will actually start by having a quick look
at some of those changes.
So Roman, if you want to talk us through.
We've just got basically the two screenshots on screen.
Do you want to give us a very quick rundown of some of the
thinking behind the changes that you did?
And then we can let Alex tell us why they are or
are not a good idea.
ROMAN NURIK: Yeah, so like we said in Android Design in
Action, I think the main thing that we wanted to do is, from
an interaction standpoint, just to simplify
the location of things.
So we basically put the camera and settings on the right, and
then effects, which is I think the most awesome
part of this app.
There's so many awesome effects.
We put that on the left just to simplify
the model for users.
And then we started grouping things like the shutter time
or the shutter type and the camera settings.
We moved that, along with the other settings,
into a single screen.
And then we made the image, the entire camera preview,
take up the entire screen, which I did caveat is not
possible in some cases.
But that takes up the entire screen, And all the controls
are just overlayed.
The last point I wanted to make was that we branded the
shutter, the shutter button itself.
And we made it so that it was larger and further away, if
possible, from the home button to try to minimize the number
of accidental touches on the home button.
So I think those are the main things.
RETO MEIER: All right, perfect.
So let's see if we can get Alex on screen.
And just tell us a little bit about yourself Alex
and about the app.
And then we can start talking about some of the changes
which Roman and his team suggested and how they fit
into your vision of the app going forward.
ALEX DRIZEN: Sure.
My name's Alex Drizen.
I've been working with Android for about three years.
Camera ZOOM FX was kind of our first app.
And where we've kind of been quite fortunate is to be
involved with Android right from the beginning.
And I think Camera ZOOM FX was actually the first app on the
Google Play Android market, as it was then, to support
digital zoom.
RETO MEIER: Oh, nice.
ALEX DRIZEN: Yeah, so it kind of starts in the app where we
were trying to solve a lot of the--
I suppose the end of problems.
You're going back to the days of the G1 and 1.5, 1.6.
So the app kind of built from there.
Digital ZOOM was kind of what started it, hence the name.
We were originally Camera ZOOM.
That
RETO MEIER: Makes sense.
ALEX DRIZEN: Then we added the FX, changed the name
to Camera ZOOM FX.
RETO MEIER: I see what you did there.
ALEX DRIZEN: Yep, it's getting longer and longer.
I don't think we will change the name again.
But essentially, there are two parts to the apps.
As you mentioned, the first half is at the capture time,
trying to improve on the ability that people have
whilst they're composing and taking pictures.
So we're looking at things like grid compositions, stable
indicators, burst mode, time lapse.
Burst mode, for example, we can take up to
10 shots per second.
And I guess kind of where we're going is we look at
doing a major update every year.
We did a major update last August.
And-- you see my cat has actually just come into the
frame here.
RETO MEIER: Well, it wouldn't be a Hangout without a cat.
ALEX DRIZEN: Well, absolutely.
And this year, we actually have another big update, which
is coming out probably in the next few weeks.
That's
RETO MEIER: Exciting.
ALEX DRIZEN: So I would like to kind of say thanks to Roman
and to Nick for looking at the redesign, actually, because
it's very good timing for us.
We haven't finalized the design.
So what you've given us is the chance to see what we've got,
what's working, and where we can improve.
So a lot of the points that you raised we
completely agree with.
Starting with things like the shutter button, we have had a
lot of feedback around that.
We are making that bigger.
We actually love Roman's design with the wheel, the
cover effects around that.
We think that looks really great.
We like the fact that it's bigger, it's further away from
the home button.
We also agree that probably most useful settings in the
app are the power features.
So changing the auto focus mode.
So we kind of agree with Roman's points there about
moving that to the right-hand side of the screen.
I suppose the only issue that we have is that because the
app is kind of two parts, we have the capture time and the
effects screens, what actually happens once you flip to the
FX mode, the effects becomes the most important toolbar.
And what we try to do is have a similar interface at the
capture time as you would have it at the FX time.
RETO MEIER: That makes sense.
ALEX DRIZEN: So that's kind of one of the reasons why the FX
is on the right.
But we are kind of reviewing that to see if there is
possibly another approach that we can take.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I can't remember exactly what
Roman did with this.
But I remember when we reviewed it, we said it would
actually be interesting to put this on a view pager so I
could go back and forth between camera and effects or
have some other--
RETO MEIER: Some easy way to switch between.
I can see why you want to keep the interface similar in that
once you learn it in one mode, you don't want to have it in a
completely experience when you switch to the other mode.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Yeah, so all right.
So here's a beautiful photo that I just took.
Reto making kissy faces at Dan.
So, yeah, Roman, what all is wrong with this interface, or
could be changed, or could be better?
Or Paul--
this is Paul, right?
No, this is Alex.
I'm sorry.
RETO MEIER: This is Alex, yeah.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Or Alex, do you want to weigh in on what
you're changing here?
ALEX DRIZEN: Yeah, we've actually got a whole bunch of
changes coming down the line.
We're actually moving up from version 3.5, which is on the
Google Play now, up to version 4.
So it is a major update.
I mean, some of the features that are going
in there, auto rotate.
I know that's something that you mentioned.
RETO MEIER: Oh, nice.
ALEX DRIZEN: And we absolutely agree that
needs to be in there.
It's actually been quite a bit of work because there's so
many controls in the camera screen.
And we actually have to--
in terms of the actual--
it's a landscape screen, but you have to present some
controls kind of turned on their side.
So that has created work for us.
But we're pretty confident, and I'm happy with the way
that's gone.
RETO MEIER: Oh, that's great.
ALEX DRIZEN: We also, following on from your
feedback, you talked about being able to work on devices
with front-facing camera only or devices
that have no camera.
That's something that will be fully-supported.
RETO MEIER: Oh, that's awesome.
ALEX DRIZEN: We're looking at doing more on the holo theme.
So, again, Roman's work, we loved it.
I showed it to my designer, and he's kind of, yeah let's
kind of do what my design has done and let's kind of do what
Roman's done and put the two together.
And we think we've got something really good.
RETO MEIER: This is such a treat.
So we review these apps.
And then within a couple of weeks, we're going to have new
versions of all of them with all of the
features we asked for.
We should review more apps.
No, that's really great, man.
That's great news.
I kind of almost feel like there's not much left to ask,
because we can just look in a couple weeks and see exactly
what they've done.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I'm really curious to know what sort of
problems you had or what sort of challenges you needed to
overcome developing this app for Android?
Because obviously it does a lot of very complicated work.
ALEX DRIZEN: Yeah, I guess because we were kind of there
from the beginning, we were always trying to support right
back to Android 1.5.
And when you look at cameras, the main complexity is in the
camera screen, not in the effects screen.
And on the camera side of things, it's really just
trying to pull together a consistent app which can deal
with if everyone has different focus modes, different scene
modes, different filters available, the zoom works
differently on different phones.
We actually managed to even provide zoom on phones like
the Nexus S, which didn't support any
kind of zoom at all.
So it really has just been a case of just going--
at home, I have eight devices myself.
And we have testers all around the world who are giving us
feedback and saying what works.
One of my test devices is not necessarily going to work
somewhere else.
So the real the complexity has to do with fragmentation.
But it's also been a real opportunity because we're now
in a position where we have over a million users all
around the world.
And we're getting this amazing feedback from
all different places.
So it's an opportunity.
But it's an ongoing challenge.
Every time a major new device comes out, like the Nexus 7,
before that the Galaxy Nexus, we were
always facing problems.
And on NDK, one of the problems that we have is that
we get the devices after you.
RETO MEIER: Good point.
ALEX DRIZEN: So often our users will find problems
before we even have a chance to fix them.
So it's an ongoing battle.
But we're really happy with where we've got to.
I think this particular release, we're focusing a lot
on the design and adding some additional camera features.
So, for example, things like brightness, exposure controls,
concept controls, which, again, vary quite a bit
between devices.
Pinch to zoom, we think we've got that working now in a way
which won't affect the older devices.
So we're kind of happy with the way it's looking.
We're going out to beta next week.
So anyone who wants to come and take part in that, just
shoot me an e-mail.
RETO MEIER: I suspect that we'll get some takers.
We're kind of running out of time a little bit, but I did
want to dig a little bit deeper into what you talked
about having testers all over the world.
So I think with a camera replacement app, as you say,
you're going to be right on the forefront of really having
to test on a lot of different hardware, because there are
just a lot of different cameras.
So are those people who work as part of your organization?
Or do you have a public alpha testing group of people who
you send out to test the app on a lot
of different hardware?
ALEX DRIZEN: We have a group, who every time we go to beta,
they're pretty much our core group of testers.
And that's going to be between 10 and 15.
And then, in addition to that, what we do is, once we are at
the stage where we're ready to go to do beta, we do invite
people through channels such as this.
Or when people e-mail our support desk, we will kind of
say, actually, the feature you're requesting, that's
something we've worked on.
Would you be interested in seeing the
beta for that feature?
And nine times out of 10, they're going to say yes.
Send it to me straight away.
If someone's emailed you recently, you know that they
have an active interest in your app.
And the fact that they're taking to you, you know that
they're going to spend the time looking at it giving you
valuable feedback.
So, to be honest, it's never been a
problem getting testers.
That's never been a problem at all.
I suppose having enough time to spend on each case is
probably more challenging.
RETO MEIER: I can see how that would work.
I mean, as a user, that's what you really want.
You email the developer and go, yeah, this thing isn't
working on my phone.
Or I want this feature.
And to get that email back going, yeah actually, we've
fixed that.
Do you want to beta test it?
Is kind of an awesome experience.
Maybe it's because we're geeks.
But it certainly tells me the developer cares about the app
and cares about the community of people developing it.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Well, I think as a developer, feeling like
you've got a community behind you has got
to be a great feeling.
So bravo.
We are just about out of time.
Was Paul able to get in?

MALE SPEAKER: Paul was unable to join the Hangout.
I think it had something to do with his Tablet.
RETO MEIER: I think he was joining us via a device rather
than a computer, which is impressive
that it can be done.
It's unfortunate it didn't work out.
But we will try and get some feedback from Paul and maybe
share it on G+ afterwards.
I think it would have been really useful to talk to Paul,
because I think Glimmr was the app which had the incredibly
smooth scrolling.
IAN NI-LEWIS: You know, this is exactly what happened.
We said, oh, maybe some people will give us some hints about
smooth scrolling.
Boom, Paul's gone.
I didn't realize that was this kind of show.
RETO MEIER: Yeah, he's going, yeah, you're cutting off.
I'm going through a tunnel.
IAN NI-LEWIS: All right, let's go ahead and wrap up then.
Thanks very much, Alex.
Thank you, Ramzi.
And thanks, in absentia, Paul.
RETO MEIER: Absolutely.
Thank you all for joining us.
It's really great to hear back from you developers to find
out a lot about what the challenges are, how you've
overcome them, and, in this instance, especially to find
out all of the cool stuff that you've already done.
And we'll get to look at very soon.
IAN NI-LEWIS: Yeah, we really appreciate everyone who's
taken the time to listen to what we have to say and
implement design guidelines and Android features that you
didn't have before.
That's always not only a great way to satisfy your users, but
a great way to get the Android development community to look
at your app and possibly even promote it on Google Play.
So we will certainly be looking out for these updates,
because we want to nominate those for
featuring on Google Play.
We don't have very much power in that sense.
But we can always at least--
RETO MEIER: We try.
IAN NI-LEWIS: --send an email.
RETO MEIER: Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think these apps are good enough that it's going to
be self-evident.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I think they're fantastic.
RETO MEIER: Put them in front of someone and I think they'll
see the benefits straight away.
Also coming up later this week, so on Friday me and Ian
are going to be back for the app clinic to get the apps
which we're going to then talk about next week on this show.
So this week, we're going to be looking at travel planning
and booking apps.
And we're going to go back to our desks after this and
choose the apps to look at.
So if you haven't already nominated your favorite travel
booking and or planning app, do run on to
the Moderator page.
And now you can find that at the developers.googl
e.com/live/android.
Navigate your way to the app clinic show for this Friday.
And then your Moderator page will be right there.
IAN NI-LEWIS: And in what will probably turn out to be a
fruitless attempt to be more prepared, we are also going to
choose the apps for next week tomorrow so that we'll have a
week to look at them.
So if you have any specific ideas for--
I'm sorry what was the--
RETO MEIER: I have no idea.
IAN NI-LEWIS: You should go look and look at our Moderator
and find out what we decided next week is going to be.
RETO MEIER: Indeed, indeed.
IAN NI-LEWIS: What were we saying about being prepared?
RETO MEIER: That we we're going to try and do it and
fail miserably.
So I think we nailed that.
IAN NI-LEWIS: The intro to this show went
well, didn't it?
RETO MEIER: It did.
IAN NI-LEWIS: The first couple minutes, they were good.
RETO MEIER: I'm happy that we went that far at least.
And then, of course, we've got the games review.
And I don't know who's going to be with Dan.
And I don't think we should even try to guess.
IAN NI-LEWIS: You know what?
The entire game show tomorrow is going to be a potluck.
It's going to be very interesting.
RETO MEIER: That's something to look forward to.
Let's see, so, yeah, that's it.
Again, thank you to our developers for joining us, and
to Daniel for engineering the show, and to Roman for joining
us all way from New York, where it's late in the
afternoon by now.
And I'm surprised he hasn't already gone home.
My name's Reto.
IAN NI-LEWIS: I'm Ian.
RETO MEIER: And thank you again for joining us.
IAN NI-LEWIS: See you later.