On Wednesday May 4 I attended an Android Developers meeting organized by C. Enrique Ortiz. Not that I have intentions of becoming a developer, but I thought this would provide additional insight into the mobile scene here in Austin and give me a look at some nifty new products.

Ringtail Design, a 9-person shop doing a lot of interesting work for DARPA, hosted the meeting.  They concern themselves with such problems as how to get a ton of data onto a tiny device worn by a field soldier and to enable that soldier to get the most critical life-saving data fast.  They also showed applications where Android data is ported to a Microsoft Light Table for analysis.  The company hosted this event because they are looking to hire a tenth expert.

Thomas Sloan gave an interesting overview of making Android phones talk to devices, in his particular case a garage door opener.  He actually hacked into that device, soldered a jumper across the “open” button, and wired it so that a server could activate it by supplying power.  Someone asked why wouldn’t it be easier to just push a button rather than enter a user name and password, but that wouldn’t be “cool” – not to mention that many other household items can be controlled similarly from one phone.  This falls into the category of GTD (“Getting Things Done”) products and is more of an experiment than an attempt at a commercial concept.  Thomas relied heavily on Balsamic Mockups for ease of development. 

Kyle Miller then talked about boozehound, an app where users can report special prices at liquor stores and restaurants and where those businesses can post their own deals.  He developed this in his spare time, and he has a very complicated system of awarding points for various actions.  It was so complicated in fact that I guessed anyone buying that much booze couldn’t figure it out anyway!  (If it were ScotchHound, I might try harder to grasp it!)

Dr. Michael Mayrath presented his company GYLO, an educational software developer that was started in 2008, grew to some success organically and then recently accepted its first angel investment.  The company has sold more than 15,000 apps for iOS and Android, including a statistics teaching product that combines content, tests, calculators, and flashcards and has proven its mettle in university settings.  GYLO is now working to develop e-tests for Cambridge University Press.  Mayrath, who has his Ph.D. from U Texas Austin and did post-doc studies at Harvard, certainly knows his field, and he talked about turning “products into platforms.”  He echoed other sentiments in the room that it’s hard to make a living on iTunes app sales alone.

Michael Kupka concluded with presentation showing an SMS tracking app for installation on a child’s phone.  It tracks all inbound and outbound texts, including content and location, and tracking voice is next on his list.  (Would have saved the CIA a lot of work if it had been installed on OBL’s phone.)  Needless to say, his four children have varying opinions about the merits of this app.  This too was a bit of an experiment with a goal of helping Kupka hone his Android skills, but he is selling apps in the Android Market.

A common theme in this session was each new version of the Android OS resulting in a lack of forward and/or backward compatibility for many apps and giving developers some challenges.  Maybe that’s one reason there are plenty of job openings for Android developers in Austin, and several consulting shops I discovered in the room also seemed to be thriving. 

<image from Fast Company>