Why You Should Prioritize Your API Strategy Before its Design

An API can be an integral part of a mobile application or service, and they aren't something you should just throw together without thinking things through, as detailed as the results could be. While the design of your API is important, it's probably best that you think about the overall strategy first. Once that has been laid out, then you can let the design of the API fill in the gaps. Thinking about the design first can lead to a lot of wasted time and resources, so as Brandon West from ProgrammableWeb believes, one should focus on the overall strategy first.

If you start working out the details of the implementation of your API before you figure out how many dependencies it will create, then you're going about it the wrong way. There are a number of tools and frameworks available to help you build an API the optimal way, so you should utilize the tools that are available for your project before you dive in head first. You should definitely start planning some things out before you even begin.

As West's article says, a few questions you should ask yourself before you begin working on the API is how things will pan out in the long run. Think about who will write the documentation, who will support it to make sure it's running, what are your plans for if/when you have to scale it up from your product or service going viral. You'll also want to plan out who will be handling the support requests from your users, how will you monitor the latency of the API and how you can educate your sales and marketing team about the advantages your API can offer.

In the long run, it's generally better to deliver a poorly designed API that is useful to your users than a well designed API that isn't offering your users as much value. As mentioned, this decrease in value can be from high latency issues, poor support, etc. So plan out your strategy before you dive in and are unable to keep things optimized and running properly!

Read the insightful thoughts of ProgrammableWeb by clicking here!

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Suhide Updated to Bypass SafetyNet Update

XDA Senior Recognized Developer Chainfire's suhide app has been updated to v0.54 to bypass latest SafetyNet update that broke root hiding mechanisms.

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Amazon Offers up to a $2.5 Million Purse for a Year-Long Alexa Competition

Amazon does not mess around when it comes to their Alexa assistant. Since the company launched the Echo, they have poured a lot of money and resources into the product. We're seeing new skills added all the time, and the Echo recently surpassed 1,000 skills earlier this year for people to set it up with. Amazon is keeping the momentum rolling with a newly announced year-long competition for a socialbot.

Amazon has laid out the rules here, so be sure to check those out if you are interested. The competition started on September 28th and will be concluded sometime in November of next year. It's broken up into 8 phases and we're currently in phase 1 right now. Phase one is the participation application process so you'll want to send in your application if you plan on being part of this hackathon. Phase 1 will end on October 28th at 11:59 PM PT.

The goal here is to use the Alexa Skills Kit to create the best socialbot you can. The socialbot will need to hold a conversation for 20 minutes and the team with the best socialbot will be awarded a $500,000 cash prize. The winning team's university will also receive a $1 million research grant, thanks to Amazon, but it doesn't stop there. If the socialbot is able to hold a "coherent" and "relevant" conversation for the entire 20 minutes, then Amazon will pay up another $1 million.

This brings the total purse for the Alexa hackathon up to $2.5 million and makes it the highest paying hackathon to date. The previous record was set at $1 million and was awarded by Salesforce during Dreamforce back in 2013. Amazon will be narrowing down the participants into 10 teams and will be providing all of the technology, cash, and travel expenses that are necessary to bring them to all competition-related activities. The finals of the competition will take place at the Amazon Web Services' Re:Invent Conference next year.
Source: ProgrammableWeb

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Report Says There are 12 Million Mobile Developers

Mobile usage has been surging for years, and some reports suggests we're just now starting to see the industry hit a plateau when it comes to smartphone shipments. Whether or not this stagnation continues or not, we'll have to wait and see, but there are a lot of people and businesses investing money and time into the mobile space right now.

The web used to be the go-to environment for aspiring new developers, this attention has been shifting over to the mobile industry as well.

A new report from Evans Survey tells us there are now 12 million developers who are currently working on mobile in some form or another. This can mean developers who are working on the backend of an application, developers who are working on the front end of an application, and those who are working on the design aspect of mobile apps. Of course, this also includes developers from our very own forum, who are contributing day in and day out to the Android community.

The report from Evans Data says the entire worldwide developer population sits around 21 million people. This number helps to put things into perspective as this suggests over half of all developers are working on mobile applications. Of those 12 million mobile developers, this report says 5.9 million target Android first, while 2.8 million target the iOS platform first. With Google's Play Store being so open and accessible, it's easy to see why this is the case.

The report also talks about how this number will be expanding in the future. If things continue to stay the course, the Evans Data report believes the number of mobile app developers will increase from 12 million to 14 million in the next four years. Mobile consists of a lot of products though, including smartphones, tablets and wearables, so it's easy to see how there is plenty of room for the ecosystem to grow.

Source: eWeek

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Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Could Face Second Recall as Investigation Continues

Unless you were living under a rock, you already have a fair idea of what is happening with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and its battery explosion incidents. To protect consumers and their safety, the company undertook a recall where it asked users to turn in "older" Note 7 devices and gave them an option to take newer and "safe" Note 7 units.

But problems still continue to arise. A new Samsung Galaxy Note 7, that was marked and marketed as one amongst the "safe" batch of Note 7 devices, had caught fire before a flight, causing the flight to be evacuated. This incident has sparked fresh investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission into the battery explosion issue, with experts pointing that the company could face a second recall.

"If it's the fixed phone and it started to smoke in his pocket, I'm going to guess there'll be another recall. That just doesn't sound right."

Pamela Gilbert, Former Executive Director of the CPSC

CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson declined to comment on what action may be taken, but a decision could be arrived at as early as next week. As Bloomberg mentions, the CPSC and Samsung have a range of options, from a broad new recall if systemic flaws are discovered in the replacement devices to no action if they don't find any broader safety issues. While the safety agency has legal authority to order recalls, that requires court action and could take months. Instead, it almost always operates in collaboration with companies, as it did with Samsung. So a second recall is not as far-fetched, given the gravity of the situation.

To recap, this is not the first "replacement" Samsung Galaxy Note 7 that has caught fire. An earlier report had also originated from China, where another safe Note 7 had caught fire and even caused minor burns to the user.

We hope Samsung manages to pin down the issue and take actions in the consumers best interest and safety.

Source: Bloomberg

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Google Pixel Pre-Orders in USA to Receive Daydream View VR Headset

The Google Pixel duo were amongst one of the most awaited phones of the year. Despite the overall feeling of disappointment after their launch — mainly on the issue of pricing, the devices do have their share of fans who would be eager to pick up the device to see what Google has brought to the smartphone wars.

If you picked up either the Google Pixel or the Google Pixel XL during the pre-order period, Google is throwing in a complimentary Daydream View VR Headset to make the price pinch less. However, this promotion is limited only for customers in the USA as of now. Google will send out a promo code to all customers who pre-ordered from the Google Store (and from Verizon too), and these customers can then redeem the code in the Google Store to receive the Daydream View VR Headset of their choice.

While this move by itself does not make the Pixel duo a purchase of immense value-for-money, this does sweeten the deal and might just be enough for some more customers to jump the gun on a pre-order. We hope Google also extends such promotions beyond the pre-order period and to other markets as well.

Have you pre-ordered a Pixel device? Let us know in the comments below!

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A Replacement Galaxy Note 7 Caught Fire on Southwest Airlines

While this incident doesn't mean the new, replacement Galaxy Note 7 units are having the same issue as before, this certainly doesn't bode well for Samsung. This person on Southwest Airlines says he had his Galaxy Note 7 replaced by AT&T on September 21st. If we remember back, we told you that AT&T had new units of the Samsung smartphone to replace the defective ones on that very date.

The Verge was also able to talk with the owner of this Galaxy Note 7 and was able to get some photos of the device, as well as the box. Samsung told their customers to look for two indicators so they know whether or not their replacement Galaxy Note 7 is safe or not. They said we'll know if the device is safe without even needing to open the box by a big black square on the sticker. Then, we can also tell it's a new unit thanks to the green battery indicator in the status bar.

Sadly, the man's Galaxy Note 7 is burnt up so there's no way of telling that it had the green battery icon in the status bar. The photo of the box does show the big black square though, so again it seems to indicate that his Galaxy Note 7 was indeed a safe unit. Now, just because the device was deemed safe, doesn't mean it wouldn't ever have issues. Sadly this just isn't how things are when it comes to smartphones right now.

The batteries in our mobile devices can be volatile and some cases of exploding batteries are expected to happen. It shouldn't happen at the frequency that we saw when the Galaxy Note 7 was first released, but it's just something that happens because of the batteries we use in our smartphones. There were even reports of at least two iPhone 7 units catching fire last month. These incidents are bound to happen when a company sells millions of devices. Luckily, the result of this instance was mere carpet damage.

Source: WQAD

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