If you want to write an Android app that interacts with the camera beyond merely taking a picture or shooting some video, you’ll want to make use of the Camera2 API, which became available at API level 21 (a.k.a. Android 5.0, a.k.a. Lollipop), which goes all the way back to late 2014.
There are a number of recently published articles and documents that you can consult if you’d like to explore Camera2:
As I mentioned in the previous article in this series, the biggest development in the latest version of Android Studio (at least as far as I’m concerned) is that Jetpack Compose is now included, and therefore official.
Jetpack Compose is Android’s declarative UI, which puts it in the same general category as iOS’ SwiftUI or Facebook’s React.
Jetpack Compose is called declarative as opposed to imperative, which is often summarized as building UIs in a “this is what it should be like” way versus a “this is how it should be created”. It’s the difference between this…
// Imperative UI (Kotlin)
// ======================
val helloButton = Button()
helloButton.text = "Hello, World!"
val layout = Layout()
layout.add(helloButton)…and this:
// Declarative UI (Kotlin)
// =======================
Layout {
Button("Hello, World!")
}The first one specifies, step by step, how to build a simple UI, while the second simply says “this is the UI I want”.
This is a brand new way to build Android UIs, and it’s expected to become the standard way. Now is you chance to get a head start, and the following links can be your first steps.
If you want to learn Jetpack Compose, start here — at developer.android.com, where they’ve got a page of links on learning the basics.
In this official tutorial direct from Android’s own creators, you’ll learn Jetpack Compose by building a screen for a chat app that features:
…and all in fewer than 100 lines of code.
You’ll want to supplement the article above with this video, which also has you writing a list-based application using Jetpack Compose.
This article introduces Jetpack Compose in small steps, starting with a “Hello, World!” app. It goes from there to introduce key concepts such as state, modifiers, and layouts. Finally, you’re introduced to the list and are shown how to use it by building a list of famous comic book superheroes.
This Wednesday, August 11th, is Congressional Startup Day, and the startup news hub Grit Daily is holding a celebratory in-person event at the gorgeous coworking space, Industrious Tampa from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.!
Congressional Startup Day used to be known as “Startup Week Across America”. It takes place in August for a specific reason: That’s when the U.S. Congress takes its annual recess, and when lawmakers go back to their home districts. It’s a great time for senators and representatives to get in touch with entrepreneurs in the places they represent, and for entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs to share their ideas with elected officials and discuss the importance of the businesses and opportunities they create.
The 4X Latina VC Summit is the main attraction of the Congressional Startup Day, and you can catch it in person or virtually. It will feature four of the global top ten Latina VCs talking about all things money and startups:
Here’s the event’s agenda:
| Time | Event |
| 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. | Grit Daily’s Congressional Startup Day at Industrious Tampa. |
| 2:30 – 3:00 p.m. | Latina VC Summit, with Ayurella Muller (Forbes Columnist) and Loralyn Mears, Ph.D. (Grit Daily) |
| 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. | One-minute startup pitch competition x 12, Grit Daily Royale. |
| 4:20 – 4:40 p.m. | “How to Raise Money.” A panel with Loralyn Mears, PhD. with Todd Belveal (WashLava) |
| 4:45 – 5:00 p.m. | Closing Keynote by Florida Legislature Representative Jackie Toledo. |
| 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. | VIP dinner. Inquire for tickets. Limited to 20. VIP only. |
Want to know more about this event or register? See the event’s EventBrite page.
Remember, we’re in Florida, and we’re in the middle of an all-time high for COVID-19 cases. If you plan to attend the event in person, you should be fully vaccinated and mask up for the event. Alternately, you can attend the anchor event, the 4X Latina VC Summit, virtually.
If you haven’t updated Android Studio lately, you may not be aware that the newest revision, codenamed Arctic Fox, has been released on the stable channel. That means that it’s the official current version of Android Studio.
This new version packs a lot of interesting new goodies, but for me, the biggest development is built-in support for Jetpack Compose — the new declarative/reactive/state-driven way to build user interfaces — and the accessibility scanner for the Layout Editor.
To find out more, check out this video from Android Developers:
Mobile apps are often front ends for APIs, so one of the first things you should learn about Android programming after getting a reasonable grasp on the basics is how to access an API. If you’re at this stage, this is your lucky day: Tutorials.EU has just posted a new tutorial titled Everything You Need To Know About Retrofit in Android | Get Data from an API that shows you how to build an app that accesses the Rick and Morty API:
There are a number of Android libraries that you can use to access APIs, including OkHttp, Volley, and the one used in this tutorial: Retrofit.
Both OkHttp and Retrofit are creations of the digital payments and financial services company Square, whose work you’ve probably encountered when buying something. Both are HTTP clients, but when it comes to accessing APIs, you want to use Retrofit, because that’s exactly what it’s for.
This video is the first in a series. This first video will cover the basics of API access with Retrofit. There’ll be a second video where you’ll clean up the app’s architecture using the MVVM pattern, and then a third video where you’ll change the implementation so that it uses coroutines to perform tasks in the background.
I write apps for both iOS and Android devices, so I make it a point to own both an iPhone and an Android phone. Since I’m giving my current Android device, a Motorola One Hyper, to my father-in-law so that he has a mobile phone from the current millennium, I needed a replacement. This set of photos is of that replacement: the RedMagic 6R.
RedMagic, a sub-brand of Nubia, which was originally a sub-brand of higher-end phones from Shenzhen-based phone and telco equipment company ZTE, specializes in gaming phones. In addition to using the better CPU and GPU chipsets required for gaming, RedMagic also does a better job of packaging than you’d expect from many other Chinese phone companies who are competing solely on price.
Case in point: Compare the sleek RedMagic packaging you’ve seen so far to the box that my 3rd-generation Motorola G came in:
I peeled off the shrink wrap and opened the box to see this:
The RedMagic 6R packaging is layered in a manner similar to the iPhone’s. The top layer is a box, which I flipped over to open, as shown below:
In addition to the SIM tray ejection pin, the top layer box contained the following:
Its contents were the Quick Start Guide, a warranty card…
…as well as a basic case, contained within a protective envelope:
The case itself is one of those clear, pliable, “soft gel” ones:
The next layer contained the phone itself:
The phone’s thin protective plastic sleeve has a little tab that makes it easy to lift out of the box, which was a nice little high-end touch:
Here’s the front of the phone, which is still inside its protective plastic sleeve…
…and here’s the back:
Finally, I hit the bottom layer, which contained the AC adapter, a USB-C to USB-A charging/data cable, and a USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone adapter:
I knew that the RedMagic 6R came with a basic soft gel case, I decided to spend an extra 15 bucks for the hard case, which came in this box:
Here’s the case:
This may be my favorite Android unboxing experience of all time. It’s certainly a good deal more photogenic than the 3rd-gen Moto G unboxing experience:
Here’s your weekly list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events — plus a little area tech news — for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, August 9 through Sunday, August 15, 2021.
This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!
This list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:
I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
From St. Pete Catalyst:
San Francisco-based fintech startup Fast, an online checkout company, is expanding to Tampa.
Fast announced the plans on Tuesday during an event in partnership with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, NASCAR driver Parker Kligerman and other local athletes at Sparkman Wharf.
Fast CEO Domm Holland will lead the efforts to expand in Tampa and name it the company’s East Coast hub. Holland co-founded the company with former Uber operations executive Allison Barr Allen.
“I’ve been asked by many Silicon Valley friends why Tampa? One of the biggest reasons is Mayor Jane Castor,” Holland said, crediting her understanding of his business needs and how Fast fits into the city’s goals of bolstering the tech sector.
“I wanted to be in an area brimming with innovative energy and stocked with skilled talent,” Holland said.
Want to know more about Fast? Check out this article in protocol, Fast has a plan to reinvent online shopping. And then kill the password as well as this interview from episode 1103 of This Week In Startups where Jason Calacanis interviews Domm Holland:
From That’s So Tampa:
Here in Tampa Bay, a not-so-quiet tech boom was already underway. From Oldsmar and Clearwater to Tampa and St. Pete, more and more tech companies were choosing to move to – or get their start in – the area. So when the world transitioned from hard copy to the cloud, the region was well-prepared to step into the role everyone needed: help figuring all that stuff out.
Perhaps the best example is Blue.cloud, a cloud-only digital transformation company that got its start in Tampa Bay. Having already been in operation for more than 15 years, Blue.cloud (formerly Bluenet, founded in 2004) was one of the industry leaders in a perfect position to leap to the rescue last March.
Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!
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