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Andrew Charkin (acharkin@tripadvisor.com)

Mobile Engineer

TripAdvisor, LLC

Mobile is the New CoolHJUG - Wednesday March 30th, 2011

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

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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

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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

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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?

Andrew Charkin (acharkin@tripadvisor.com)

Mobile Engineer

TripAdvisor, LLC

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“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)