• Read more about Navy Mutual: Deep Dive into Mobile

Navy Mutual's Mobile App

Navy Mutual Aid Association provides life insurance and annuity products to military families. In our previous blog, we discussed how an association’s struggle to face the challenge that investing in technology can pose.

 Navy Mutual Aid Association chose to face this challenge head-on and Mobomo helped usher Navy Mutual Aid Association through their first foray into mobile with the launch of their Survivor Benefits app.

The Navy Mutual Aid Association has a focus on educating members on their legally entitled government benefits, as well as on matters of financial security.  

In creating this app, Navy Mutual is now able to put appropriate resources directly in the hands of their members in an overall effort to increase awareness of government benefits.

It also allows Navy Mutual to more directly reach members through a new channel and increase its footprint in members’ lives.

Incorporating Legal Resources

One of Navy Mutual’s goals is to ensure veterans and veteran’s families fully understand their legal rights and benefits.  While the Navy Mutual website housed many valuable resources, the team wanted a tool optimized for, and easily accessible from a mobile device.

Throughout the process, the Mobomo team worked collaboratively with the Navy Mutual team, as well as their existing brand guidelines.  During all creative discussions, Navy Mutual ensured that the app would meet member needs and fulfill their mission.

We led them through the design, development, and launch of iOS and Android mobile apps. In order to meet these goals, we created various palettes to finalize a look and feel for the mobile app’s overall User Experience.   

For maintainability purposes, Navy Mutual opted to move forward with a React Native cross-platform application in order to create both iOS and Android apps from a single codebase.

The Benefit Calculator

One of the key features of the mobile app is a set of Benefit Calculators, which are on the website as well. These are for users to estimate survivor benefits and entitlements.

The calculators are processed through a legacy, internal backend database that did not have an optimized interface for plugging in new systems.

In order to make the backend accessible to the mobile apps, our team had to create new APIs for the apps to submit user inputs and retrieve the appropriate output to be displayed.

All of the tools that were created for use in the Survivor Benefits app are user-friendly as well as engage members throughout their experience.  

As discussed previously, members believe that the investment in technology was critical, but associations want their investment to last longer than the latest trend.  

The Navy Mutual Aid Association ensured that this app, not only was a financially sound investment but would meet their member needs long term.

• Read more about Ken Fang Named to Monte Jade Board

Monte Jade DC has recently announced that they have nominated Mobomo’s President, Ken Fang, as their Chairman of the Board. Ken has been on the Monte Jade DC board since 2013.

“It is indeed a great honor to be nominated to lead this great organization. Over the past few years of involvement with Monte Jade, I have seen incredible relationships grow as business owners connect, students and mentors learn from one another, and professionals network to build bonds with one another. It is a fantastic connection for the Asian community in DC."

Monte Jade is an organization that aids in resources for starting, funding and growing high technology businesses. Their commitment is to assist future entrepreneurs, students, researchers, scientists, scholars and business people to advance their careers in becoming leaders and executives in their organizations or assist those that have interest in becoming entrepreneurs and business owners. They accomplish this through the experience and knowledge our prestigious board and other key members that include C-level executives, managers, and directors leading, operating, and developing some of the most successful science and technology firms in the Greater Washington area.

Ken Fang is the President of Mobomo, primarily overseeing the strategy and operations of the company. He works closely with clients to create mobile solutions to meet their strategic needs, and is adept at developing apps on all major mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and mobile web. In addition to running Mobomo, Ken is the founder and chairman of Altum, Inc., the market leader of enterprise grants management and performance management solutions for federal and philanthropic organizations. Ken has published a number of titles and articles in educational software and advanced computing technology. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Computer Science from Pennsylvania State University, an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a certificate in Bioinformatics from Stanford University.

• Read more about Speed up your Android dev with x86

A significant portion of my development time is simply wasted, and as they say “Time is Money.”

My Android development environment is Eclipse; not unlike most developers. However, I also find that debugging for Android on an AVD device is excruciating. The majority of my frustration comes from its lack of performance. And even after searching the web for tips and tricks to make AVD more responsive, I’m still twiddling my thumbs while the emulator tries to keep up with my requests.

If we could put men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth with little more than a TI-86 and duct tape, then surely there is a way to make my quad-core computer execute code with speed comparable to that of a mobile phone.

That was then…

After a lot of searching (because, you know, I had a lot of time between breakpoints), I pieced together information and resources from various places to come up with a better debugging emulator.

The solution that I found is an Android-x86 based system running inside of an Oracle VM VirtualBox. However, the key to this is Intel’s Houdini binary translator (libhoudini.so), which allows nearly-native execution of ARM code.

After downloading and testing many Android-x86 ISO’s, I found one that has fully integrated support for ARM right out of the box. Another key feature is that it’s not just a live image, but an installation disk as well. And as a bonus, it supports the Android market.

While I haven’t had an issue with compatibility yet, it is important that all final testing be done on AVD or a physical device before delivery.

The current version is based on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

This first post is quite simple and we decided to just provide the iso already setup and ready to go. Next week, I'll post how to do it from scratch!

http://goo.gl/oZ4kO

• Read more about Google I/O - Afterthoughts

I arrived at Moscone Center on Wednesday the 29th to a mob of people making their way towards registration. When I finally made it to a registration table I got my badge and was off to the races.

I wandered around for a bit with the crowd until the keynote started upstairs an hour later. I was really looking forward to this, so I headed up to the third floor and found a seat. The music was good and on the screens over the stage were some of the great Google Chrome Experiments.

Vic Gundotra (SVP, Google Engineering) took the stage once everyone was seated. They did a great job of pumping up the crowd and it felt like a really exciting moment when he appeared.

Vic kicked off his presentation by giving a rundown of how great things are going at Google and then turned his attention to Android. While I am not personally the biggest Android fan I was actually pretty amazed at what I saw of Android at the event. He announced a new Android version, 4.1 Jellybean.

He introduced a new UX/UI layer and features, codenamed Project Butter.

Surprisingly, I found myself getting excited by all this cool stuff. While I still feel that there are massive challenges with development for Android, it seems Google is hearing our concerns and addressing them. Their demonstration was responsive, like iOS responsive. The Triple buffering was really quite amazing; smooth, fast and liquid. See the video.

Another feature presented was “Google Now", a tool to assist users with information when they need it most. It was presented as simple visual cards, such as weather, time to home, or time to the office. It constantly learns your common routines and presents solutions and or recommendations that are available whenever you need them. Fortunately it bordered more on the lines of clever than creepy, and I thought it was a really great idea.

Then, what seemed to be a moment many were waiting for, Nexus 7 was unveiled. This is a new Android 7” Tablet created by Asus and Google. From what I could see it looked pretty darn cool and not quite unlike many other 7” tablets out there. In fact my first thought was the Kindle Fire. After a few minutes it became clear Google was betting on this device.

With a price of $299, it is very attractive. The common question for ALL 7” Tablet makers is "will it compete with the iPad?" In my opinion, probably not, but it certainly appeared to be the best 7” Android tablet available. But with no carrier support and WIFI only, I was a little disappointed. I was fortunate enough to get one for myself though, which I will summarize later in this post.

Next up was the Nexus Q. If there ever was a mass WTF moment, this was it. Most of the people around me were wondering what this thing was. Google presented the “BALL” - an aluminum ball with multiple connectors and a LED light around the device. Google was quite proud that this device was their first endeavor with sole Google manufacturing form the ground up. They must have known that people would be asking questions because it was the only part of the keynote that included a reenactment use case of users within a living room.

Basically, this is a streaming device designed to be connected to your home stereo system that will play ONLY music from your Google Play account on standard equipment. It's a way to get music off your phone or desktop and into a more social experience. With the ability to create playlists from your phone or direct account, or your friends' phones or accounts, you can compete for which songs will play when you are all near the device. Honestly, for $299, I am not sure who will buy this. However, it does address the needs of Google Play users who want a simple way to get their purchases onto standard media equipment.

A bit further into the presentation we all hear “Excuse me, cough, hello”... And Sergey Brin appears on stage. This was a great moment. Who could not be impressed by such an influential figure? Most people were trying to figure out what was on his head. He was, in fact, wearing a Google Glass device. He was telling the crowd he really wanted to try something special with Google Glass when on the screens suddenly there were some people in a craft above Moscone Center, each of them wearing a Google Glass device.

Then he explains this is the first time we can actually see “in realtime” what it looks like to jump out of a blimp... The idea here of course was to show that Google Glass is all about realtime and being unobtrusive with activities you may enjoy. He talked to the jumpers briefly and then they were off. Sure enough a live stream of them diving towards the Center’s rooftop was being shown. Once they landed they delivered something to some BMX bikers, a climber, and went down the external walls of the Center to another BMX biker and finally into the event Keynote.

I have to admit it was kind of exciting... Sergey gave the audience time to clap and cheer and then tells everyone at the event they have a chance to get their own Google Glass Explorer for $1500. I think many of us were hoping to receive one as a schwag item, but our collective disappointment faded quickly because Sergey handed the keynote back over to Vic and the 2012 schwag was revealed.

I did notice there was a sense of entitlement from most attendees at the event. Speculation about the schwag was the most talked about topic up until this point. So what did we get?

• Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which I have to admit is a really nice phone. I have already switched over to it from my iPhone.
• Nexus 7 Tablet. After using it for a bit, it really “kills” ALL other Android tablets.
• Nexus Q, which is still in its box.

I spent the rest of the day strolling the second floor, which was the vendor and products floor.

Seeing all the Google products at work and in use by real industries made me feel really good about being there. Everything from Android based brail consoles to Android based flying mini-drones, to Google TV. (I was satisfied they weren’t going to abandon such a GREAT product).

The first day of the event ended with a big party with a few performers including Train. People were excited and enjoyed themselves late in to the night. The overall mood here was really positive.

I spent day 2 and 3 of the event in and out of code labs, product presentations and talking with a lot of developers. Some of the more interesting sessions I attended were:

• For Butter or Worse: Smoothing Out Performance in Android UIs
• Making Good Apps Great: More Advanced Topics for Expert Android Developers
• Data Driven Storytelling
• Advanced Design for Engineers
• Crunching Big Data with BigQuery
• Knowledge-Based Application Design Pattern

Overall, I had a great time at Google I/O. I was fortunate to receive some great schwag, see some interesting presentations, and connect with a lot of great developers to talk about product ideas, strategy, and code.

Visit our Flickr page for some more great photos from the event!

• Read more about Android: Managing Multiple BroadcastReceivers

When I was developing the Presently Android client I ran into an interesting problem. If a user is in the main timeline activity and a new message comes in, the active timeline just needs to update with the new message. However, if the user is in another activity stream, (like viewing @ replies or DM's for example) and a new message comes in to the main stream the application should not only update the main stream but should also show the user a notification so they can be aware that new messages are coming into another activity.

In this post I will show you how I solved this problem.

There is a background service to pull new messages from the server. When the service receives a new message, a broadcast will be sent:

Then, we have a BroadcastReceiver in TimelineActivity to receive the broadcast.

Now, when new messages come in the user can see the messages update to listview and get a notification in the status bar. But there is a small problem: it only works in TimelineActivity, because when the user opens a new activity or presses the Home button, the BroadcastReceiver is unregistered in the onPause() method.

So I tried to put the register/unregister operation in the onCreate()/onDestroy() methods. This fixed the problem of new messages and notifications not showing in other activities. But then there was another problem: in TimelineActivity, the user receives an additional and unnecessary notification. So I set out to fix this particular problem.

The first question I asked myself was, “Can I only use one BroadcastReceiver?” The answer was “No!” So, I used two BroadcastReceiver(s) to fix this problem.

In this code there are some key points I want to outline:

• Broadcast the new messages with sendOrderedBroadcast() instead of sendBroadcast(). It will be passed one by one unless you stop it by abortBroadcast().

• Register/unregister RefreshTimelineReceiver in onResume()/onPause(), and RefreshTimelineAndNotifyReceiver in onCreate()/onDestroy(). This makes certain there is no RefreshTimelineReceiver in other activities.

• Give FILTER_HIGH_PRIORITY to RefreshTimelineReceiver and FILTER_LOW_PRIORITY to RefreshTimelineAndNotifyReceiver. In TimelineActivity, RefreshTimelineReceiver receives the broadcast first.

• AbortBroadcast after showNewMessages() in RefreshTimelineReceiver. Don't pass the broadcast to next receiver.

And this is how I solved the problem of notifying a Presently Android user of new incoming messages to the main activity if they are active in a separate activity stream. Hopefully this might help someone else out who might be working through a similar problem!

• Read more about How to use the Application object of Android

We know there is an Application class in the Android api and according to the class name it's used for global settings or running entrance. What does it to do for an application? I will dive into it along with some examples in this blog post.

In the Android reference it describes the Application class: "Base class for those who need to maintain global application state. You can provide your own implementation by specifying its name in your AndroidManifest.xml's tag, which will cause that class to be instantiated for you when the process for your application/package is created."

So you can create your own subclass of Application like this:

And specify its name in your AndroidManifest.xml's tag

The Application class is mainly used for some Application level callbacks and for maintaining global Application state.

Application level callbacks

• onConfigurationChanged( ) Called by the system when the device configuration changes while your component is running.
• onCreate( ) Called when the application is starting, before any other application objects have been created.
• onLowMemory( ) This is called when the overall system is running low on memory, and would like actively running processes to tighten their belts.
• onTerminate( ) This method is for use in emulated process environments. It will never be called on a production Android device, where processes are removed by simply killing them; no user code (including this callback) is executed when doing so.

Maintaining global Application state

Sometimes you want to store data, like global variables which need to be accessed from multiple Activities - sometimes everywhere within the application. In this case, the Application object will help you.

For example, if you want to get the basic authentication data for each http request, you can implement the methods for authentication data in the application object.

After this,you can get the username and password in any of the activities like this:

And finally, do remember to use the Application object as a singleton object:

• Read more about More Mobile Updates for Presently: Android Application Refreshed

Here at Presently we understand that the key to staying connected is mobility so we've been working hard to improve our applications for all of our mobile platforms! In last week's announcement on the new Presently Desktop app, we promised you an update for Presently Android, and we're here to make good on that promise! Starting today you can uninstall the old version and visit the Android App Marketplace to download the new version of Presently.

Improvements

We've made several critical improvements from the previous version, including:

Work Continues

We hope that the new Presently Android app helps you stay connected to your network no matter where you are, and we're confident you'll be happy with the update! Our developers have been busy this year and we're not slowing down. An update to our Blackberry application is on the way, and our iPhone app was updated last week, so be sure to tell your coworkers to grab whichever application suits them! As always, if you have any feedback about the app, or need any help please don't hesitate to shoot an email to support@presently.com or visit and search our knowledgebase for more answers.

What is Presently?

Presently is the perfect microblogging solution for businesses. Communicate and collaborate in real-time, in a secure Twitter-like environment built for the enterprise. If you're not using Presently yet, let me give you a few reasons to check it out:

• Empower your employees - increase productivity and creativity through collaboration via Presently.
• Enable your employees to easily share files and media.
• Easy solution for groups or departments to collaborate on projects.
• Track ongoing conversations with threaded view and inline reply options.
• Past information is available in an instant through Presently's search tool.
• Our Desktop, Mobile, and Web applications give you the flexibility you need to access Presently anytime, anywhere.

So try it out today and see what the power of real-time collaboration and communication can do for your company. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it!

• Read more about The iPad and Other Media Tablets as Productivity Tools

It's the gift-giving season and it's likely some of you are thinking of giving someone or even yourself a mobile media tablet such as Apple's iPad, Samsung's Galaxy Tab or Barnes & Noble's NookColor. You may or may not be inspired by the fact that a growing number of bankers, executives, doctors and other professionals are getting such devices issued to them at work. However, can today's media tablets help such employees be productive, or is there something missing -- such as suitable stylus for those who find finger-based input onerous?

Thumbs Down for the Finger as Input Device

To facilitate enterprise use, I strongly believe that a mobile device needs stylus support, so I suggest waiting to see what 2011 brings. Don't get me wrong. I'm very fond of both my Apple iPad and my NookColor (Android), and find touchscreens addictive. But for some mobile tasks, using a stylus is much more productive than a finger. As a long-time fan of Palm's Vx PDA and the Treo 650, I found the stylus very useful. On the other hand, I'm not so enamored of the Palm Pre Plus due to the small screen and lack of a stylus. I find the device hard to use for my fingers, unfortunately making it a non-productive device at least for me. Now imagine having to either enter a lot of data on a mobile app, or select from a large number of options. Certain professions require this. Now imagine doing it every day. For example, when a colleague asked me to create two medical diagnostics apps for the iPhone and iPad for hospitals, I thought about how onerous these would be for daily use without a stylus. Another colleague discussed a simple image manipulation app for the iPhone, but if you've ever tried cropping a photo with your finger, you know how awkward that can get. Can you imagine the awkwardness of tasks such as signing digital documents, or worse, take notes with your finger? Note-taking, in my opinion, will become a very common activity on media tablets, if stylus support is included.

What's Coming

It's a fact that 2011 will bring a whole slew of media tablets for most or all of the top mobile operating systems, and stylus support would be nice for those who feel the finger is just not an accurate data input tool for the enterprise, or even for personal creative use. Never mind the fact that a stylus can have a finite number of predefined pressure or capacitive settings as necessary, unlike a finger. A stylus also doesn't get tired like a finger, after hours of use, day in and day out. At the moment, there are a number of stylus makers out there. I've personally only researched them for the iPad. What I've found so far might suffice for simple uses, but I haven't seen a for-iPad stylus yet that seems precise (pointy) enough for notetaking or drawing/ diagramming. An informal poll of tech-savvy people I know who have iPads or Android tablets suggests that they'd all like to use the devices for notetaking, and I don't imagine that'd be much different for all the professionals being issued tablets by employers.

Thumbs Up for the Stylus as Productivity Accessory

As a productivity techniques evangelist, I'm a long-time fan of mind maps-based diagramming -- something I just don't relish doing with my finger on media tablet. But as soon as a viable stylus is available, I may never diagram or write on paper again. What's missing, at least in the iPad arena, is a stylus sanctioned by Apple, unless I've taken a Rumpelstiltskin-like snooze and missed some important news. On the other hand, as mentioned in a recent All Things Digital article, a number of stylus makers are trying to persuade Android handset makers into supporting stylus-based touchscreen input. If Apple does not offer their own stylus solution with the next generation of iPads (rumored to be shipping in Feb 2011), or at least sanction a third-party stylus for the iPad before the end of H1 2011, Android tablets could potentially offer a huge advantage for enterprise use. As well, a stylus would open up the possibility of creative tasks on media tablets. For example, photo cropping or drawing, or the aforementioned mind mapping and diagramming. Combined with the popular Swype method of text input (over the virtual mobile keyboard), a stylus could be just the accessory to turn a media tablet from the expensive toy it's sometimes perceived as, collectively, to a high-productivity tool. Expectations of Apple's iPad outselling every other media tablet out there in 2011 may not come to pass if private and business users show that they want precision stylus support. So if you're undecided about which media tablet to purchase, you might want to skip Xmas, skip Boxing Day sales and wait until Q1 or Q2 2011, to see if any of the upcoming mobile devices have serious stylus support. On the other hand, if you just want to play popular games such as Angry Birds or Infinity Blade, there's something to be said for the addictive factor of using your fingers.

• Read more about The Apple/Google Android Mobile Horse Race

Recent reports about Apple and Google mobile market shares might seem a bit contradictory, but the gist of them is fairly simple: both companies are winning in the mobile space.

According to a recent report from Canalys, Apple has taken the U.S. smartphone share lead for Q3 2010 with just over 26% marketshare -- edging out 2nd-place RIM by only 2%. But in terms of mobile OS, Android maintained its previous U.S. lead, with close to 44% for Q3 2010. However, consumer researcher NPG Group's findings show that Google's Android mobile OS's U.S. share jumped considerably (3% to 44%) between Q3 2009 and Q3 2010, whereas Apple and RIM have fallen in that time period -- RIM considerably, by a drop of 24% in that one year period.

On the flipside, both Apple and RIM won with handsets. Apple's iPhone 4 and RIM's BlackBerry Curve 8500 took first and second spots, respectively, in Q3 2010 as top handsets. High-end Android phones such as Motorola Droid X and HTC EVO 4G, which took 4th and 5th places, respectively, are examples of handsets that have helped Android move into and maintain top mobile OS spot.

Of course, since Android has multiple active versions in the wild and is not limited to one manufacturer's handsets, it's not surprising that this mobile OS is in the lead. Also, it doesn't hurt that there are some pretty sexy high-end Android smartphones competing with Apple's iPhones. I recently purchased a Droid X for Android development and I have to say I'm liking the phone about as much as my iPhone 3GS. I also like the Android experience, though that may change once I get an iPhone 4.

Now the question is, can Android maintain its lead as top mobile OS (at least for the U.S.)? Android apps are available in multiple "marketplaces" (including Google's official one), and that number is going to grow. For example, Barnes & Noble is coming out later this month with their Nook Color, an Android-based media tablet that has maybe not the ability to compete with the Apple iPad but to do well if marketed properly. However, taking a page from Apple's strategy, B&N plans to have its own curated marketplace for Nook Color apps. Similarly, wireless carrier Verizon already has its own VCast apps market for Android.

Whether marketplace, OS version and UI fragmentation is good for Android or not remains to be seen; Google is apparently making an effort to unify the Android UI experience for consumers. The fact is that there's a lot of confidence in the OS. According to Millenial Media's State of the App Industry 2010 Report, a survey of app developers and app publishers suggests that the top mobile platforms for 2011 will be, from highest to lowest, iPhone (30%), Android (23%), iPad (21%), RIM (12%), Windows Mobile (6%), Palm (5%), and Symbian (3%) [via ReadWriteWeb and Venture Beat]. Of course, those numbers might change as Android tablets -- which will on average be lower-priced than iPads -- come to market.

Need advice on a mobile apps strategy for your business? Just want to know how you can leverage the mobile platform in general? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app idea or mobile campaign needs.

• Read more about Android Wallpaper Template for Photoshop

Looking for a robust Photoshop template to create & preview Android wallpapers? The search is over! Intridea is happy to provide a pixel-perfect PSD GUI that allows you to preview Android wallpaper images exactly as they'll appear on your device. This wallpaper template is based on the HTC Vision (a.k.a. G2) running stock Android 2.2 (Froyo). The template is setup to preview wallpapers of 960x800 in size.

Here is what makes this Android Wallpaper Template awesome.

Preview wallpaper on different homescreen positions

A central feature of this template is the ability to preview your Android wallpaper as it shifts from left-to-right to imitate your different home screens. Using only a single wallpaper layer, you can turn on/off individual phone layers overlaid in different positions across your wallpaper.

Toggle the appearance of your app icons

Rows of actual Android icons can be toggled on/off in your Photoshop layers panel, helping you visualize exactly how your wallpaper image will look behind your collection of awesome apps.

Complete & Editable G2 PSD GUI

Furthermore, this Android GUI is offered in hand-crafted, pixel-perfect Photoshop format, complete with all layer groups intact and editable. Feel free to use this template as a jumping off point in your future Android user-interface design projects.

Thanks are due to ~wwalczyszyn for his PSD collection of Android icons, ~bharathp666 for his PSD collection of Android widgets, and =zandog for the educational reference his G2 PSD GUI provided. All phone hardware layers in the PSD were created entirely by me, but may be reused freely.