for the latest entry in our ddir2 series, we spoke to andrew roe, founder of roebotx, about his upstart watch face business and his problem-solving approach to design. how did you first get into developing watch faces? i started my career working as an automation and robotics programmer for a local investment firm. from there, i realized if i just focused on solving simple or complicated problems through software, i would be able to make a go at it on my own. that led to the launch of my small business, making applications which enable people to have more productive lives. i had the idea for my first watch face while sitting in traffic on my way to go snowboarding. i was thinking, “boy, if my watch had traffic updates built into it, i would have known to turn left instead of going straight." from there, i started researching the parts to make it happen. tell us about your top performing watch face. why do you think this one has been such a success? gps traffic map watch face is my top downloaded app. i built off google maps – it’s a watch face that implements traffic data. the watch will center on your location when the screen becomes active and drops a breadcrumb, so you can see the path you traveled. i think it’s successful because it serves a purpose. it is a tool. it’s great, too, for those who like to bike and hike. what are the biggest technical/design hurdles when designing a watch face? the biggest challenge is getting the best user experience on such a small form factor. there is not a lot of room for interaction and you can’t display a large amount of information, so the watch face needs to be simple, to the point and perform a function. too much information will kill the ux and with too little information, the app becomes useless. it’s about finding the right balance between the two and that takes the most time to solve. you must try it out and use it. i’ve found that some of my best ideas on paper really ruin the ux and i need to change it. what were the biggest kinks you had to iron out when you first started your watch face business? getting those around me to see my vision. my wife saw my watch face business as an excuse for me to play on my new toy, which in all honesty, it kind of was. from where do you draw your inspiration, and how do you define success? i was my first customer. for all three apps i have made, i went to the app store with an expectation and when i saw a gap in the marketplace, i decided to make it. success for me is seeing people realize they can have great productive lives when they trust technology to free up their day, which leads to spending more time with their friends and family doing what they love, and less time sitting in traffic. do you have any advice for a designer starting out and looking to create a successful watch face business? find a problem to solve, because surely someone else is facing the same dilemma you are and could use your solution. draw a picture to work towards, then try it out and see if it works. and then change it 50 times, fail fast and move on. you attended the samsung developer conference last year. what was the biggest takeaway for you? it was nice to see a big picture view of where technology is going. i spent a lot of time in college contemplating an autonomous house, so seeing the pieces that are already available was exciting. networking and meeting other colleagues in the industry was invaluable. talking to some of them really got me thinking about what else i could do, and how i could code differently. and, getting to meet stan lee really sealed the deal on how much i love what i do. how has samsung helped grow your business? my business didn’t grow until i started working with samsung. at the samsung developer conference, the badge button was recommended to me, so i integrated it into the free version of my watch face. since then, the samsung team has been available – and patient – in answering any questions i had on a one-on-one basis. they see the marketplace on a greater scale than i do, and can give me perspective and recommendations on how to improve functionality. thanks to andrew for sharing his thoughts with us. make sure to like us on facebook so you don’t miss any of the great interviews we’ll be posting in the coming weeks. we’re excited to see how these designers are doing it right!

hackers' playground, the first hacking experience event at the samsung developer conference (sdc), was held during sdc19 in san jose. the security team at samsung research hosted this event to help developers learn about the importance of security and how to protect their own code. the event was open to any software developer or security researcher. many developers, from newbies to masters, attended the event to learn or show off their hacking skills. hackers' playground featured two programs, hacking 101 and open ctf. hacking 101 hacking 101 was a hacking tutorial zone where developers could learn hacking skills such as attack, defense, and reversing. the security team prepared fascinating examples with their own step-by-step guide, and the skilled engineers from the team assisted the attendees. in addition, attendees had a chance to get cool souvenirs after the tutorial. open ctf among hackers, capture the flag (ctf) is a well-known hacking competition. the security team prepared jeopardy-game-show-style challenges in five categories: attack, defense, reversing, crypto, and coding. at the end of each session, there was an awards ceremony and a drawing. the winners of each category received brand new samsung products such as a portable ssd or jbl bluetooth speakers. the winners received the latest galaxy watch active ii as well as serious bragging rights. many attendees stayed in the event zone for hours and were eager to find and fix security vulnerabilities. they left review comments such as “it was nice to be able to think of code from an attackers' point of view, not a developers'” and “i want to participate in this event again in next sdc.” samsung takes security very seriously and is involved in a variety of security-related activities. among the various activities, the 3rd samsung security tech forum (sstf) ended with unprecedented success in seoul, south korea.

at the samsung galaxy unpacked 2018 event on august 9th, we announced many new products that i think you, our ecosystem of developers and creators, will be very excited about. want to get your hands on the new galaxy note9 or galaxy watch? both products will be available to developers located in the united states through our developer discount program once the products are in market. the note9 will also be available in our cloud device farm, which allows you to remotely test your android apps on a real device, in the next few weeks as well. now, on to the specific product news! the galaxy note9 first, the galaxy note9. from the all-day battery to the signature s pen, this device is packed with features. check out both the s pen remote as well as the pen.up sdk which provides a creative social network service for digital arts. the note9 also comes with dex support built-in. just plug-in an hdmi cable and you’re good to go. optimize your apps for dex to allow for greater user productivity. existing theme designs that support android oreo will be compatible with the note9, so keep on designing. if you are a current samsung themes developer, we’ve also updated the samsung mobile theme editor. want to become a themes developer? our next application cycle will open the 3rd week of september. stay tuned to @samsung_dev on twitter for more details. galaxy watch we also announced the new galaxy watch, available in 2 sizes. developers can build watch faces using the galaxy watch designer (formerly known as gear watch designer) or watch app using the tizen sdk. the new tizen 4.0 will also be made available as a mr to the gear s3 and gear sport watches. again, these devices are available through the developer discount program. bixby at today’s event, we also showed off the new bixby which is more conversational and personal. there were live demos on the note9 as well as the introduction of the new galaxy home speaker. developers interested in building for bixby can apply for the bixby private beta. we’ll share more about our expanding ecosystem of intelligent devices at this year’s samsung developer conference, november 7-8 in san francisco. registration will open soon, stay tuned for updates. missed unpack? check out the samsung newsroom for more on today’s announcements. extra bonus: check out the fortnite beta on android on your galaxy device.

the latest edition of samsung galaxy unpacked was held on february 20th in san francisco, and the event certainly did not disappoint. i know you’re all excited to learn what unfolded during the presentation, so let’s take a look at what's new and discuss what it means for developers and designers. galaxy fold first up was the galaxy fold, which was previewed last november at the samsung developer conference. this time everyone got to see the revolutionary device in action. we demonstrated three apps simultaneously sharing the large main display, and also showed how easily apps moved from the cover display to the main display when the device is unfolded. developers can easily improve how their apps work with the galaxy fold’s new display abilities by following the steps in this tutorial. and don’t forget: ensure app continuity for your apps to live in perpetuity. taking the time to implement app continuity will be the key to a delightful customer experience. as new tips and tricks become available, we’ll update the developer site. if you have any immediate fold-related thoughts and queries, you can now post about the galaxy fold in our developer forums. for those of you who'd like to learn about how the fold will handle games, samsung and google are co-presenting a session on optimizing games for the galaxy fold next month at the game developers conference in san francisco. galaxy s10 next, we celebrated 10 years of galaxy innovations with the new galaxy s10. can you believe that more than two-billion galaxy devices have been sold in the last 10 years? the newest galaxy s device does not disappoint with its enhanced cameras, in-screen fingerprint sensor, gorgeous bezel-less display, and top-of-the-line performance features. the s10 is also the first mobile device that is optimized for games built using the unity platform and their adaptive performance features. as the device runs android pie and our latest one ui update, your apps and content will work as is. designers can create galaxy themes for the s10 and customers will have full access to android apps via both google play and the galaxy store. want to remotely test your apps on an s10? once devices are in market, you’ll be able to do so via our cloud device farm. excited to experience all the new features yourself? pre-order and reserve your device today. for those of you in europe, bixby now supports additional dialects and languages: british english, german, italian, and spanish. download the bixby developer studio and get started building capsules for bixby today. both the galaxy fold and the galaxy s10 are compatible with samsung dex. we have great tips on how to ensure your apps are compatible with our desktop-like dex experience. galaxy watch active the last announcement of interest to developers and designers was the galaxy watch active, the latest in our wearables product line. like the galaxy watch series announced last fall, the galaxy watch active runs tizen 4.0. the biggest change that impacts developers is that the device has no bezel. apps and watch faces will work as-is unless they rely on the bezel for navigation. check out our user-interface guidelines on how to support both bezel and touch in your apps. if you didn’t catch unpacked live, check out the samsung newsroom for more on the day’s announcements.

this year’s samsung developer conference (sdc18) may still be a few weeks away, but the excitement is already building for samsung’s showcase of technologies that will help developers and creators build the software and services of tomorrow. we've just announced some of the "can't miss sessions" for sdc18. read on to learn more about some of the exciting sessions that will make sdc18 an event where now meets next. and for a limited time, get 50% off with promo code sdc18-dev50! spotlight session the spotlight session headlining day two of sdc18 will cover some of the tech industry’s most interesting topics. hear from thought leaders in gaming and ai as they discuss exciting news, and reveal their respective outlooks on the future. samsung will also share insights into its gaming strategy during the session, and spotlight innovations encompassing artificial intelligence, the s pen, and much more. speakers include sarah bond, xbox/microsoft’s head of global gaming partnerships and development; tim sweeney, founder and ceo of epic games, the studio behind the wildly popular fortnite; and john hanke, founder and ceo of niantic labs, makers of pokémon go. also included in the spotlight session is president and ceo of wacom, nobutaka ide, who will discuss the power of digital pens and what the future holds for digital ink. bixby sdc18 features a variety of sessions that demonstrate how samsung’s intelligence, bixby, is shaping the landscape for ai platforms. spanning lectures, panels and interactive activities, the sessions, including those listed below, offer attendees the insights they need to develop seamless user experiences for a wide range of devices and services. bixby and the new exponential frontier of intelligent assistants - in this session, key business and technical leaders from the bixby team will explain the ins and outs of the technology, outline bixby’s vision for a new kind of open ecosystem for developers, and discuss how and why to get involved. teaching bixby fundamentals: what you need to know - learn how to access bixby’s development tools, including bixby sdk and ide, to create a bixby experience for your business and prepare it for launch within the bixby ecosystem. smartthings last year at sdc, samsung unveiled smartthings, a new platform for connecting and controlling smart devices. this year, the company will discuss smartthings’ latest enhancements and demonstrate ways to implement the intuitive platform into more devices. highlighted sessions include: smartthings 101: new to smartthings - this session will discuss topics such as which kinds of smartthings api integrations can be built, as well as how to quickly create and integrate with the smartthings api. streamlining iot systems: smartthings cloud-to-cloud device integration - this session will introduce a new developer workspace for integrating cloud-connected devices with smartthings. the workspace will feature new apis and tools that will streamline development and go-to-market processes. devices that are integrated with smartthings will be controlled by bixby and other voice assistant platforms, as well as a full ecosystem of automation and service integrations. and much more additional details on these and other sdc18 sessions may be found here. for more information on this year’s conference, including registration details, please visit sdc18’s official website. and don’t forget to follow @samsung_dev on twitter and keep an eye on the hashtag “#sdc18” for the latest news and updates.

“connected thinking” is the theme of this year’s samsung developer conference, and it is at the core of samsung’s strategy to create intelligent platforms that connect samsung devices to deliver unique and seamless user experiences. internally at samsung, this focus on connected software and services triggered the need to rethink how samsung uses cloud infrastructure to power these connected experiences. how can the data that is the strategic foundation of many of these services be securely controlled and shared? how can connectivity and portability between key cloud providers be achieved? and, as cloud usage increases, how can cloud costs be controlled? just over one year ago samsung acquired joyent to be the cornerstone of a new, connected cloud strategy designed to allow samsung to drive down its cloud costs, control strategic data, and enable portability across cloud providers. this post highlights two key elements of samsung’s connected cloud strategy: how samsung is leveraging triton private regions from joyent to take control of its data and lower its object storage costs. patterns for using containers and container scheduling tools like kubernetes to enable portability of software and services across cloud providers. taking back control of data, while lowering storage costs historically, samsung has leveraged public cloud object storage services to hold the data that many of the enhanced user experiences samsung is building depend upon. this creates two problems. first, as the amount of data being stored grows the cost of storing that data in a public cloud simply becomes too expensive. a more cost effective solution is needed. second, because connected data is at the foundation of samsung’s integrated platforms, that data is a strategic asset. securely controlling it is a requirement. to solve these two challenges samsung turned to joyent to build and run for them triton private regions around the world to support a hybrid cloud architecture where object storage is placed in private regions, while unpredictable compute workloads continue to run on a public cloud. an example: samsung cloud samsung cloud allows users to backup and sync photos as well as content from apps such as samsung notes, calendar and contacts across their devices in accordance with their preferences. before the move to triton private regions, all the compute, storage and mobile backend services that make up the samsung cloud application were deployed on a single public cloud provider’s infrastructure. by leveraging triton private regions to provide object storage for samsung cloud, a new connected cloud architecture is now being deployed. migrating to a connected cloud architecture, where samsung cloud’s object storage needs are served by triton private regions, while its computing and mobile backend needs are served by a public cloud vendor, significantly reduces overall costs and gives samsung back control over its data. if it had continued to push data into a public cloud vendor’s object storage service, the size and gravity of this application’s data would have effectively locked samsung cloud into a single provider and an unsustainable cost structure. creating cloud portability once a long term solution to samsung’s data storage requirements was defined, the team’s attention turned to finding a way to enable applications and application components, like the mobile back end services referenced in the samsung cloud example, above, to be easily moved between cloud providers. creating this kind of portability is essential to support a connected cloud where independent development teams can operate in harmony with each other, and to enable each team to chose the cloud environment that best fits their application’s needs. an example: containers and kubernetes what are containers? with vms, one installs applications on a host using the operating system package manager. this entangles application executables, configuration, libraries, and lifecycle with each other and with the host os. one could build immutable vm images for predictable rollouts, but they are heavyweight and non-portable between different cloud vendors. containers on the other hand, use os-level virtualization rather than hardware virtualization. containers are isolated from each other and from the host: they have their own filesystems, they can’t see each other’s processes, and their computational resource usage can be bounded. they are easier to build than vms. the most popular and robust container platform is docker. what is kubernetes? kubernetes (k8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. it groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. k8s was designed with microservices in mind. microservices architectures are common in mobile and iot applications. in simple terms, a microservices architecture decouples a traditional multi-function/tier service into a single-function/tier service. these microservice units are best deployed on containers due to their lightweight runtime. the problem, however, is that you can end up with 1000s of microservices in place of the 10-100 legacy services you had earlier. this makes orchestration and scaling very complex. enter kubernetes, which provides a framework for running 1000s of microservices at scale. kubernetes provides a full set of container specific services like networking, auto-scaling, self-healing, load balancing, authentication and application level grouping of resources among it’s many cloud like features. how do you get started with kubernetes? at joyent, we created a 100% open source quickstart experience for developers to rapidly deploy production ready kubernetes clusters. here is a demo of the solution and link to the github project. the solution provides a highly resilient container management system with built in clustering and ha. under the hood, the solution uses open source projects like docker, kubernetes, rancher, terraform, ansible and packer to deploy and manage a large scale kubernetes cluster. the following diagram explains the architecture of kubernetes on triton solution. how containers and kubernetes solve the portability issue because containers are small and fast, one application can be packed in each container image. this one-to-one application-to-image relationship unlocks the full benefits of containers. with containers, immutable container images can be created at build/release time rather than deployment time, since each application doesn’t need to be composed with the rest of the application stack, nor married to the production environment. this concept of build local, run anywhere enables a consistent environment to be carried from development into production. also kubernetes is evolving to be the standard way everyone orchestrates containers and applications deployed on them. as containers are decoupled from the underlying infrastructure and from the host filesystem, they are portable across clouds and os distributions. it works on premises on your own hardware and also on every major cloud provider. this makes porting your application workloads across clouds very easy, as long as you containerize and orchestrate them following standards. the power of a connected cloud putting all of these pieces together allows us to do things we couldn’t before. as an example, we can create a blueprint for a common iot application pattern that can connect multiple devices into a seamless experience for a user, which can easily be deployed on any cloud. if you want to give it a try yourself, dig into this open source project that will give you a working iot dashboard connected to a smartthings iot hub and devices. you can use it to monitor iot devices, but it's really designed as an example of how to build containerized microservices applications in node.js. joyent is the official cloud provider of the samsung developer conference. come visit us at booth 201 in the pavilion on the second floor to see how triton private regions can benefit your organization.

samsung developer conference is coming up fast! from october 29 - 30, the industry’s top tech leaders will cover topics from ai to iot to blockchain. we just announced the first wave of sessions! check out some highlights below: secure your decentralized app with samsung blockchain keystore samsung blockchain keystore on the galaxy s10 addresses the vulnerabilities of using blockchain tech on your phone. during this session, learn about blockchain from the most innovative industry thinkers, and dive into samsung blockchain keystore's overall architecture and security features. haven’t used the blockchain keystore sdk before? no problem. this session walks you through how to integrate it into your app. explore progressive web apps and the evolution of the web building and distributing apps using web tech just got easier. progressive web apps (pwa) leverage new capabilities to better integrate your app into the os. learn about new features and tools during this in-depth session, and hear from samsung experts and partners about how pwa can benefit from webapk, oneui css, and more. optimize your mobile game with vulkan during this session, hear from the galaxy gamedev team as they share tips and tricks about vulkan optimization. plus, explore case studies and best practices from past and present game partner collaborations. dive into knox partner program and knox dev tools learn about the knox partner program and how samsung's mobile enterprise partner program supports partners and devs with the right resources and b2b dev tools such as emm, mobile threat detection, remote control, and secure voice. discover the next phase of iot engagement and growth there are lots of exciting things in store for the smartthings iot business platform. explore future services and offerings, and find out how to join the smartthings community. this session presents improvements made to the iot environment to improve business growth for partners and devs. these are just five sessions of many. check out the rest on the sdc19 website and stay tuned for more coming soon! in the meantime, register today and save $150 with early bird pricing.

sign up for the game developer newsletter introduction galaxy smartphones make up the world's largest mobile gaming platform. even a number of major game engine companies, publishers and studios are already collaborating with samsung, we announced the galaxy gamedev program at the 2016 samsung developer conference, where we extended our support beyond major players in the games industry to any developers creating games for galaxy devices. new technologies are essential to creating high fidelity, high performance gaming experience in mobile devices. samsung is committed to bringing new technology to our suite of galaxy products, such as; 64bit, multi-thread rendering and the new generation graphics api - vulkan. samsung's galaxy gamedev team has engineers located in five strategic global locations to cover game developers from all over the world. we ensure that our partners have the engineering support they need to launch the best gaming experiences on galaxy devices and strengthen the android ecosystem. galaxy gamedev provides a variety of technical support options to assist developers. there are 4 key areas:. gpu drivers : gpu driver optimization and streamlining driver updates is a key area to making the most of hardware capabilities and maintaining optimized performance of a gpu. samsung collaborated with google and the major gpu vendors like arm and qualcomm to develop and ship the new android feature game driver. game driver provides the new way of updating gpu driver by store and this delivers more stable and better performing gpu driving for the target games. now this functionality started with the limited number of major galaxy models and continues to scale with more devices soon. tools & sdks : samsung develops and supports its own tools & sdks like gpuwatch and galaxy gamesdk which help game developers to find resource bottlenecks and solve performance issues in real-time. sdks are integrated with major game engines too like unity adaptive performances to guide developers with easy way of use. developer support : our gamedev engineers are available to support developers in multiple ways, from answering general day-to-day development questions all the way to on-site engineering collaboration. a deep engagement with on-site support is available to developers who have signed a confidentiality agreement with samsung. game engines : supporting the optimization of game engines is key to wide distribution of optimization. samsung’s gamedev team are focused on supporting game engines, which ensures that games released through the engine's ecosystem achieve the significant optimizations that would normally be delivered into just one game. partners samsung keeps working closely with more than 50 partners including game studio, publisher, tool developers, game engine companies and gpu vendors.

on august 26-29, the samsung ocean research and development center in manaus at the mouth of the amazon river brought together developers, entrepreneurs and researchers to challenge each other about ways to enhance the amazing growth of and discuss the latest trends in iot and artificial intelligence (ai). recent advances in ai and machine learning have created a paradigm shift in every sector of the tech world. everyone who attended the event was excited about the future and encouraged by all possibilities in this evolving technology landscape. samsung was well represented at the amazonas state university school of technology (est / uea) where the event took place. our samsung smartthings developer relations team was there along with 300 developers, students, entrepreneurs, investors and educators. smartthings lead for developer marketing champions voice and iot alison wise, smartthings developer marketing, spoke about “finding our voice in iot.” her presentation highlighted the journey of smartthings which began as a kickstarter project in 2012 and was acquired by samsung in 2014. the talk focused on the new resources and tools available to developers in the smartthings ecosystem, and looked ahead to the future opportunities for integrating voice capabilities with iot devices, building a truly personalized home that “speaks” with you daily. the voice assistant marketplace has grown 1000% to 7.8 billion in just the last five years. with this phenomenal growth there comes new and compelling possibilities when voice is integrated with iot. with smartthings app pre-loaded into millions of devices users can begin “working with smartthings” easily, and developer innovations for new devices can be readily introduced into homes. more about samsung ocean the venue for the talk was a great place to discuss iot and ai. samsung ocean, with headquarters in são paulo and manaus, brazil is an important part of samsung’s global initiative to encourage developing mobile technology solutions using samsung platforms and tools. the program is dedicated to supporting the creation of new technology based startups. their technology training center features the newest, most advanced infrastructure in the region for free technical training, research, and the fostering of entrepreneurship. samsung ocean provides free online and in-person courses, training and workshops. in 2019, the sessions that were most in-demand were on artificial intelligence (ai) and augmented reality (ar). smartthings developer events smartthings developers will be on site in krakow, poland at the 2019 mobiconf on october 3-4. and mark your calendars now to join us october 29-30 at the samsung developer conference in the san jose convention center. looking forward to meeting you!

tizen .net was introduced at samsung developer conference 2018, held in san francisco on nov. 7 and 8. samsung hosted three tizen .net booths and one session held by vincent kwon. tizen .net overview tizen .net information and experiences were presented at the sdc 2018 booths: real-world tizen .net sample applications for both galaxy watch and smart tv were introduced. hands-on experiences for developing tizen .net. tizen .net was adopted to the tizen platform to provide an enhanced experience to developers. visual studio and c# language, including .net standard apis, were used to develop tizen .net. tizen .net supports xamarin.forms, the cross-platform ui framework. xamarin.forms extensions tizen circular ui and tizen tv ui controls were introduced. all source code related to tizen .net is open in github. tizen .net for galaxy watch - booth 1 - visitors experienced tizen .net applications, such as voice memo, alarm, and xstopwatch, running on galaxy watch. - the development environment for the watch was introduced. tizen .net for samsung devices - booth 2 - visitors experienced tizen .net in many different device profiles, such as a watch, tv, and refrigerator. - the sample application tmdb, registered in the us tv store, was introduced. - xamarin.forms sample applications and third-party library samples running on the watch and the tv were introduced. tizen .net sdk - booth 3 development environments for both windows and macos were presented, allowing visitors to experience actual sdks, tools, and guides. all types of tizen emulators for wearables, tvs, and mobile devices, as well as different platform emulators for android and ios, were used to run sample applications. visitors could easily write a simple video player demo and run it on several different emulator platforms. session what's new in tizen .net vincent kwon, who is responsible for the tizen .net framework, led the "what's new in tizen .net" session. tizen .net was adapted to samsung tv products last year and provides a convenient way to develop applications on samsung tv devices. this year, the new galaxy watch products have added tizen .net for its new application model. developers can now benefit from the same productive development environment and useful apis especially designed for galaxy watch devices. in this session, we will live-update the tizen .net framework and sdk for the third-party application developers for samsung galaxy watch and tvs. review we were delighted to introduce and share tizen .net with the many people who visited the booths. thanks to all partners who showed interest in tizen .net.