Mobile is the New Cool

HJUG - Wednesday March 30

th

, 2011

We Are Hiring

• full time, interns • Relocation compensation, sponsorships, etc • HQ in Newton, MA (outside of Boston)

Proprietary & Confidential

Andrew Charkin ([email protected]) Mobile Engineer TripAdvisor, LLC 1

Who is TripAdvisor? And what’s with the owl?

• TripAdvisor is the world’s most popular & largest travel community with..

• 40 million unique monthly visitors • 20 million registered members • 40 million reviews and opinions • Present in 28 countries • TripAdvisor Mobile Site and Apps • 5 million unique monthly visitors • We hit 1 million unique monthly visitors the month after we launched • Same global coverage • Native apps on a variety of platforms • iOS (iPad app reached #1 in more than 50 countries) • Android • Nokia Ovi • HP/Palm webOS

… and our mobile site only launched 15 months ago (12/7/2009)!

How did we get there so fast?

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What is a Hybrid app?

• Mobile web app • HTML, CSS, JavaScript • Quick to launch and update • No access to low level features (camera, accelerometer, etc.) • Easier to track metrics • Native app • Java (Android) • Higher development cost across multiple platforms • Has access to lower level features • Tougher to track metrics

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What is a Hybrid app?

• Hybrid Apps combine the best of both worlds • Basic building blocks in HTML, CSS, JS displayed in a web view • Build features leveraging those low level APIs natively • Quick(er) to launch & update most features • Easy(er) to track metrics

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Hybrid App Strategy

• With a hybrid app you are free to implement whatever works best • Choose the right tool for the job!

• Use simple HTML, CSS, JS to build the simple stuff • Use HTML5 to build more complicated features and push them out cross-platform • Use native code for the most complicated/low level features Entire page built with HTML & CSS Photo viewer built with DHTML/JS Photo upload built natively

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Photo viewer & Photo upload

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Android Quirks we’ve experienced

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Problem: fragmentation

• Types of fragmentation: • OS version: 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, … 3.0

• Phone carrier: Verizon, Sprint, At&t, etc • Phone manufacturer: HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc • Screen size: ldpi, mdpi, hdpi • Solution: • deviceanywhere.com

• Get different devices

Proprietary & Confidential

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Problem: z-index

• Z index is broken on all android OS’s except for 3.0 Honeycomb • Solution: • Don’t use overlays on web pages • Trigger an onfocus before onclick to block any onclicks behind the overlay

Proprietary & Confidential

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Problem: Won symbol?

• Android has all the currency symbols except for the won • Solution: • Use a W (strikethrough if you’re feeling fancy)

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Questions?

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Andrew Charkin ([email protected]) Mobile Engineer TripAdvisor, LLC 11

“We are hiring!” plug

• Hiring like crazy!

• Lots of interesting mobile projects in the pipeline • Lots of interesting social projects in the pipeline (what could you do with 1.2 billion geographic place pins from our Facebook users?) • If you want to hear more about Facebook and TA come to the talk at Rice tomorrow (6pm Huff house room 107)

Proprietary & Confidential

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