May Meetup: Android on the Desktop (yes, he went there) + Mutative Design Updates

We wouldn’t be a very good Android meetup if we didn’t invite Mark Murphy of Commonsware to speak. Mark is known for answering tons of questions and helping the Android community on StackOverflow. He’s also an incredible public speaker, cracking jokes and interjecting sarcastic remarks into his presentations. We were lucky to have him at our May meetup, hosted and sponsored by American Express.

After warning the group of profanity ahead, Mark spoke about Android on the desktop, offering his pre I/O predictions for Chrome OS and how it may potentially merge with Android. He showed previous predictions from news reports (mostly denied/ignored by Google) and why it’s very possible now with Android N. He concluded by urging us to pick up appropriate hardware, and to “plan for delivering a first-class desktop experience.” Check out his slides here.

Our lead designer Liam Spradlin also gave a talk, presenting his updates on mutative design. He walked us through using a mutative interface, showing how buttons, contrast and brightness can gradually adjust after learning the behaviors of different users. There was a barrage of questions for Liam after from curious developers. If you’d like to learn more about Project Phoebe, you can read about it here and find the open source repo here.

Liam on mutative design.

Overall, it was a great night with stimulating talks that left our group wondering about the next big thing at I/O in a few days. Many thanks to Mark for trekking in, to Mark and Liam for speaking, and to David and Anat over at American Express for coordinating with us each month!

See you in June at Spotify.

The view from AMEX’s 26th floor auditorium.