Alaska Legislature

iPhone &

Android Apps

National Association of Legislative Information Technology Madison WI. October 2012

curtis.clothier@legis.state.ak.us shay.wilson@legis.state.ak.us

Mobile Device News & Rumors

• Half of U.S. adults now have a mobile connection through a smartphone or tablet, up sizably from a year ago (Pew Research Center 10/1/12).

• Apple to unveil 'iPad Mini' Oct. 17, start sales Nov. 2(?)

• Microsoft has revealed the Windows 8 Phone release date is November 2012 (Nokia and HTC).

• Microsoft building their own Windows Phone?

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Alaska Legislature Mobile Devices* (Approximately 500 users)

iPhones 217 Devices

iPads 162 Devices

Blackberry 29 Devices

Android Phones and Tablets 76 Devices

Windows Phones 5 Devices

As of 9/30/2012

iPhone/iPad App Development

• Early 2011, we saw what the New York Senate had done.

• One of our programmers ‘volunteered’ for the project.

• We purchased a Mac for development ($1,500).

• We registered as Apple Developers ($99/year). – (it took about a week to complete the process).

• We downloaded Appcelerator’s Titanium product (free).

• We purchased a Support Contract to assist with development issues.

• Updates take between 4 – 10 days to be published with the App Store.

iPhone/iPad Timeline

• IOS development started in March 2011 (on a part-time basis, during legislative session).

• We began testing in July 2011

• App released in August 2011 • We’ve had 3 major updates.

• Over 2,000 downloads, including from China, Indonesia, Tunisia, India, Thailand, Australia, Taiwan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Macedonia, UK, South Africa, Portugal, Brazil, and ‘others’.*

• *9/30/12

Development Software

• Alaska used Appcelerator’s Titanium Platform

– Works for Apple, Android, Safari, Linux, Windows platforms

• http://www.appcelerator.com/showcase/

• Free!

• iPhone SDK 10.6

• JavaScript, HTML, CSS

What our iOS App does

Home Screen - Displays House and Senate Schedules and Calendars.

Meetings Screen – Shows 10 days of scheduled meetings and locations.

Streams Screen – Shows live web streams of committee meetings.

Moving Bills Screen – Links to Bills that have had activity in the past 10 days.

Other Screen –Legislator Contact Information, Committee Member info, Meeting minutes and audio, documents, and ‘other’ material.

Todays Documents – Shows documents submitted for todays meetings. (IOS only)

iOS Changes and Updates 2011 - Version 1 2012 – Version 1.5

Significant Updates to iOS App (Version 1 – Version 1.5)

New Updated

Today’s Meeting Documents

‘Other’ Items

2011 Current Version

iTunes Connect

iTunes Connect

iTunes Connect

Alaska Legislature Android App

Our Android Project

Android Development ‘Issues’

• Android Marketplace (Play Store) was fairly easy to use (a little easier than iTunes).

• Used 80% of code base from our iPhone app. • Document handling (opening) is different

between IOS and Android. (Tab for ‘Today’s Documents’ still missing).

• Apple Emulator is robust, the Android Emulator not so much.

• Resolution across hardware and operating systems was an issue…..

A few of our User’s Android Devices* (Running Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice cream Sandwich, & Jellybean)

* Android Marketplace report 9/28/12 ** Most popular Android device using our App

Acer Picasso Asus Nexus 7 (grouper) HTC Desire (bravoc) HTC Desire HD (ace) HTC EVO Shift 4G (speedy) HTC Hero (heroc) HTC Lexikon HTC Incredible 2 (vivow) HTC One X (evita) HTC Sensation 4G (pyramid) HTC Wildfire CDMA (bee) Lenovo Thinkpad (Indigo) LG Optimus 2 AS680 LG Optimus 2 AS855 LG Optimus 2X LG c729

Motorola Driod 4 (Maserati) Motorola Droid Bionic (cdma_targa) Motorola Droid RAZR (cdma_spyder) Motorola Droid X (cdma_shadow) Motorola Droid X2 (daytona) Motorola Edison Motorola Photon 4G (sunfire) Motorola XOOM (wingray) Primoc (A jailbroken Android) Samsung Galaxy Nexus (maguro) Samsung Galaxy Nexus (toro) Samsung Galaxy Player Samsung Galaxy S (GT-I9000) Samsung Galaxy S (SCH-I500) Samsung Galaxy S (SGH-I897) Samsung Galaxy S2(GT-I9100)** Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket Samsung Galaxy S3 (SGH-I727) Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Samsung Infuse 4G Samsung SCH-R760 Samsung SGH-I777 Sony Tablet S (nbx03) Toshiba AT100 (tostab03) ZTE V9

Our To-Do/Status List (updated from 2011)

• Develop version for iPad.

• Facebook – Social Networking links on Legislators pages.

• Train another programmer for Android App.

• Bi-Monthly updates to App over the next year.

• We’re investigating IOS Management platforms for iPhone and iPad deployment and support.

• Sensitive to the fact that we continue to make our ‘regular’ website ‘mobile friendly’ (CSS).

Summary • The iPhone project was started with ‘Alaska Residents’

as customers, and to also address Legislators desire for better access via Apple products.

• After the release of the App, Legislative Staff input led us in new directions including: – iPad development,

– Android development,

– Paperless initiative (Today’s Documents),

– Customized searches (in ‘Other’, tab)

– and better screen interfaces (sliding screens).

• Take a look at the ‘Open States’ IOS app for your legislative body.

Questions?