CTIA 2015 highlights: phones, drones and Internet of Things

The beginning of September saw the Android Authority team head to Germany for this year’s IFA show in Berlin and straight after that, I took to the skies to fly out to Las Vegas for CTIA 2015. Along with a few meetings to check out some really cool products, the trip was my first experience of Las Vegas, so what were my highlights of CTIA? Let’s take a look.

CTIA as a show has been reducing in size over the past few events but with an attendance of 35,000-45,000 people, it’s still quite a large show. Over the past few editions, it’s seen a shift towards a more business- and distributor-focused show meaning the event holds relatively little in the way of consumer products.

That being said, there were quite a few products we got our hands on, and one of these was the Nextbit. We’ve already covered the cloud-first Nextbit in our full hands-on but to quickly recap, this is a phone that’s generated over $1 million in backing on Kickstarter.

Led by a team that includes Tom Moss – one of the former heads of the original Android team at Google – and Scott Croyle – the former design chief behind the iconic HTC One M7 – the Nextbit Robin has the pedigree to make a difference in the market. The Robin is the company’s first smartphone and certainly has a rather unique cloud-focused proposition that’s different to anything else on the market. For a full look, head over to our Nextbit Robin hands on.

From one phone to another and the BLU Pure XL is definitely a device that stands out from the crowd. I’ve already published my first thoughts on the device but to quickly recap, it is BLU’s best smartphone-to-date and the American manufacturer has certainly packed a lot of punch inside a smartphone that costs just $350 unlocked.

The specs list is vast and includes a 6.0-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display (which is fantastic), a MediaTek Helio X10 processor, 64GB internal storage, a fingerprint sensor, 3GB RAM and a 24MP rear camera. It offers exceptional value for money and while it’s going up against some incredible competition in the $350 bracket, we wouldn’t write this smartphone off. Head over to our first impressions posts for a closer look at BLU’s new device.

While at BLU’s booth, we also got to check out another really interesting BLU smartphone: the Vivo Air LTE, which is the world’s thinnest smartphone. At a cost of $199, it has a decent specs list and it’s more sturdy than it looks. For more info, head over to our impressions post. We’ve got reviews of both of BLU’s devices coming in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

From phones to drones, and a key focus at CTIA was the future bots of the sky. Although there was an entire satellite event dedicated to these winged bots, there were a few on display on the main show floor and the DJI Phantom definitely caught my eye.

It was announced earlier this year and has a range of features, including easy to use controls and a companion app for iOS and Android. The companion app itself is great as it adds further controls to the drone and once you’ve docked your smartphone into the controller, the app also displays a first person POV feed direct from the 12MP camera, which offers 4K video recording.

At a cost of $700 to $1200, the Phantom is certainly not the cheapest drone on the market but it certainly looks the part, has great handling and seems well built. If I was going to buy a drone, the DJI Phantom would probably get my money (although I’ve not spent time with any of its competitors).

Now to one of the coolest products I came across at CTIA: the connected wheelchair. Developed by the AT&T Foundry in partnership with Permobil (the world’s leading wheelchair maker), the connected wheelchair has a range of sensors that measure everything from seat position and padding to movement and mobility.

The wheelchair comes equipped with a SIM card and uses AT&T Foundry’s IoT technology to display information in an easy-to-use dashboard. The network says that the dashboard can display information for a single wheelchair or all the wheelchairs in a fleet and can segregate data on a need-to-know basis.

As an example, dealers and maintenance companies can access information like wheelchair battery and repair status (but not patient data), while physicians can access patient data such as amount of movement, seat position (great for diagnosing back pains or ulcers) and padding amount. For physicians, the wheelchair can also send notifications when the user stops moving (e.g. when the wheelchair has run out of battery) and if it topples over, which makes providing care a lot easier.

AT&T are also planning to develop a series of wheelchair-focused maps, which – using crowd-sourced data and the company’s own data collection efforts – will mean that users can plot a wheelchair-safe route whenever they want to go somewhere. The long term goal is that the majority of wheelchair users will be using one of these and having seen this in action, I can say that, if I needed a wheelchair, this is definitely one I’d like to have.

So there you have it, a short recap of a few cool products we came across at CTIA 2015 in Las Vegas. The event was certainly interesting but unlike other shows we normally cover, it was less consumer-focused and more designed for businesses and distributors. What did you think of CTIA and the few products we found?

Android design guidelines: what they are and why you should follow them

Stock Android has gone through a lot of aesthetic changes throughout the years, from random placements and colors to a whole design language that has a great deal of continuity. To keep this continuity, Google has a set of developer guidelines to make sure everything looks up to par.

What are the design guidelines for Material?

Google completely overhauled the user interface for Android in 5.0 Lollipop. The UI now has bright colors and “cards” that have shadows as well as new animations that make it seem like they are sliding into place. Google also introduced a third axis that gives developers a 3D space to work with. The Z axis, as well as lighting, is used for perspective to make the space look more 3D. All three axes can be modified within the 3D space to give depth as well. There are a bunch of other factors that go into the user interface including but not limited to:

• Animations must take into account weight and mass just like real life, as well as acceleration and deceleration. Make sure all the animations follow the same path so they do not confuse the user. Transitioning between two objects should have a clear, obvious path going between those objects.
• Limit the number of colors in your app to three from the 500 colors Google provides with one accent color. Opacity of text may also be used to signify importance of certain elements. Icons are inspired by actual physical paper copies of the material. Images should have meaning and should be delightful. Matching app colors with picture colors can add a nice clean effect. Do not use stock photography, it has no unique or creative insight, also have a clear point of focus. It may also be a good idea to create a story with an image, this makes it more interesting for the user. Use the best quality images when possible, using degraded images will make even the best apps look bad.
• The layout of the app should behave like an actual piece or pieces of paper, seams may be used and a floating button may be placed on the seam if that button is relevant to both sides of the paper. Pixel density is an important part when designing an app, to find the pixel density take the width or height in pixels and divide it by the width or height in inches. There are also density-independent pixels that will scale the UI elements regardless of pixel density. A dp is defined  as dp = (width in pixels * 160) / screen density. Scalable pixels work the same as density-independent pixels but for fonts. All elements in the app align to a 8 dp square baseline grid for padding and text aligns to a 4 dp grid.

Google goes into mind-numbing detail about every single aspect of the UI here. It is important to follow as many guidelines as possible, this will insure the best experience for the user and provide the best continuity between apps and the operating system.

Android Design Support Library and why you should use it

The Android Design Support Library enables older devices to get a taste of the latest and greatest designs from the newest Android OS. Google provides code which allows developers to integrate the new user interface elements here. This code sample is the content view for a navigation drawer:


<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:fitsSystemWindows="true">

<android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="start"
app:headerLayout="@layout/drawer_header"
app:menu="@menu/drawer"/>
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>

As long as the Android device is running Android 2.1 or above, this can be implemented into the application. The Android Design Support Library should be used whenever possible to ensure that an application can run on older versions of the operating system, unless the app is specifically designed for Android devices running 5.0 and above. To use the library, import the Gradle dependency shown below.

compile 'com.android.support:design:22.2.0'
Inserting this into the Gradle file will enable the use of the Android Design Support Library and allow the use of Material-like features on devices running a version before Android 5.0 Lollipop. This will give the app a more uniform look across most versions of Android.

Wrap-up

Google has gone into incredible detail when it comes to Material design. Material was built from the ground up and everything has been redone. Luckily, code samples and help are readily available for beginners or the faint of heart. All of this new styling requires Android 5.0 Lollipop or above, however, Google does offer the Android Design Support Library. Without too much work, this allows devices running at least Android 2.1 to be able to take advantage of Material-like aesthetics. This will make sure the app has continuity throughout different versions of Android.