3 strategies to make your NativeScript apps feel all the feels!

Boost Your Apps' Emotional Intelligence

Jen Looper

Progress

Senior Developer Advocate

Who am I?

@jenlooper

Let's talk about NativeScript

@jenlooper

NativeScript is…

an open source framework for building truly native mobile apps with JavaScript. Use web skills, like TypeScript, Angular and CSS, and get native UI and performance on iOS and Android.

@jenlooper

NativeScript is the best tool for cross-platform native app development 🎉

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1

Rich, animated, “no compromise” native UI

(with shared UI code)

Search for

“Examples NativeScript”

in the iOS App Store or Google Play to try this app out for yourself.

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2

Maximum code and skill reusability 

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Ease of doing native-y things

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NativeScript modules

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NativeScript modules for UIs

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Reuse existing native Android and iOS libraries

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NativeScript Marketplace

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Vibrant and growing community 💖

4

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NativeScript community Slack channel

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Supported by a major software company vested in your success 👨‍💼👩‍💼

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Help!

My apps are stupid and boring

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Turn your app into a personal assistant with one plugin

Try two machine learning APIs

Let's fix that!

Talk a little about what's possible next

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Make your apps "smarter"

"smart" = more human

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QuickNoms: a smart recipe app

Powered by Firebase & NativeScript

Submit your recipes on the web!

QuickNoms.com

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Mobile App Features:

Algolia search

Firebase Remote Config marquee

Text-To-Speech

goal: empathetic apps

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Your app as a personal assistant: use plugins!

@jenlooper

Try a plugin like Text-To-Speech

speak(text: string){
        this.isSpeaking = true;
        let speakOptions: SpeakOptions = {
            text: text,
            speakRate: 0.5,
            finishedCallback: (() => {
                this.isSpeaking = false;
            })   
        }
		this.TTS.speak(speakOptions);
    }

pass a string to the plugin to leverage native text-to-speech capability

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demo

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Add some Machine Learning

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ML is easy

not

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What even is machine learning?

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a way to give “computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed.”

Machine Learning is:

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"A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some class of tasks T and performance measure P if its performance at tasks in T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” (Tom Mitchell, 1997).

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How to make a machine learn*

Gather a lot of data (images, sounds)

Divide that data into a training set and a test set

Use an algorithm to train a model with the training set by pairing input with expected output

  • The training set is categorized (sorted by hand or by machine)
  • The test set is uncategorized

*"supervised learning"

Use the test set to test the accuracy of the training

rinse & repeat

@jenlooper

Good uses of ML

StitchFix combines ML + human curation

Formulas to pick out clothes based on customer input

Formulas to pair a shopper with a stylist

Formulas to calculate distance of warehouse to customer

Algorithms to search and classify clothing trends to recommend

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Scary uses of ML

install a ton of surveillance cameras

get really good at ml-powered facial recognition

match faces to IDs

monitor emotions...and manipulate them

push ads at people based on age/gender

invisibly track location

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good and bad?

MIT students used an algorithm to optimize school bus routes

50 superfluous routes eliminated

$3-5 million saved

50 union bus drivers out of work

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with great power

comes great responsibility!

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DIY Machine Learning is hard

you need a lot of firepower & skillz

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Use a third party with pretrained models

@jenlooper

Specialists in image analysis

Took top 5 awards in 2013 ImageNet challenge

Innovative techniques in training models to analyze images

Offer useful pre-trained models like "Food" "Wedding" "NSFW"

Or, train your own model!

@jenlooper

"Does this dish qualify as a QuickNom?"

Use Clarif.ai's pretrained Food model to analyze images of plates of food for inspiration

probably not!

might be!

@jenlooper

Take a picture

takePhoto() {
        
        const options: camera.CameraOptions = {
            width: 300,
            height: 300,
            keepAspectRatio: true,
            saveToGallery: false
        };

        camera.takePicture(options)
        .then((imageAsset: ImageAsset) => {
            this.processRecipePic(imageAsset);
        }).catch(err => {
            console.log(err.message);
        });
    
    }

@jenlooper

Send it to Clarif.ai via

REST API call

    public queryClarifaiAPI(imageAsBase64):Promise<any>{
        return http.request({
            url: AuthService.clarifaiUrl,
            method: "POST",
            headers: {
                "Content-Type": "application/json",
                 "Authorization": "Key " + AuthService.clarifaiKey,
            },
            content: JSON.stringify({
                "inputs": [{
                    "data": {
                        "image": {
                            "base64": imageAsBase64
                        }
                    }
                }]
            })
        })
      .then(function (response) {
          return response
        }
      )}

@jenlooper

Analyze returned tags

.then(res => {
   this.loader.hide();
      try {
          let result = res.content.toJSON();
          let tags = result.outputs[0].data.concepts.map( mc => mc.name + '|' + mc.value );
          let ingredients = [];
          tags.forEach(function(entry) {
              let prob = entry.split('|');
              prob = prob[1];
              let ingred = entry.split('|');
                 if(prob > 0.899){
                    ingredients.push(ingred[0])
                 }
                                    
              });
            //there should be between four and eight discernable ingredients                     
            if (ingredients.length >= 4 && ingredients.length <= 8) {
               alert("Yes! This dish might qualify as a QuickNom! It contains "+ingredients)
            }
            else {
               alert("Hmm. This recipe doesn't have the qualifications of a QuickNom. 
                    Try again!")
            }
       }

if between 4 & 8 ingredients are listed with over .899 certainty,

it's a QuickNom!

QuickNom dishes have a few easy-to-see, simple ingredients

demo

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"What can I make with an avocado?"

Use Google's Vision API to match images with recipes

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Do it all with Google!

Leverage its consumption of millions of photos via Google Photos with Cloud Vision API

  • Label Detection
  • Explicit Content Detection
  • Logo Detection
  • Landmark Detection
  • Face Detection
  • Web Detection (search for similar)

@jenlooper

takePhoto() {
        
        const options: camera.CameraOptions = {
            width: 300,
            height: 300,
            keepAspectRatio: true,
            saveToGallery: false
        };

        camera.takePicture(options)
        .then((imageAsset: ImageAsset) => {
            this.processItemPic(imageAsset);
        }).catch(err => {
            console.log(err.message);
        });
    
    }

Take a picture

@jenlooper

public queryGoogleVisionAPI(imageAsBase64: string):Promise<any>{
        return http.request({
            url: "https://vision.googleapis.com/v1/images:annotate?key="+AuthService.googleKey,
            method: "POST",
            headers: {
                "Content-Type": "application/json",
                "Content-Length": imageAsBase64.length,
            },
            content: JSON.stringify({
                "requests": [{
                "image": {
                "content": imageAsBase64 
                },
                "features" : [
                    {
                        "type":"LABEL_DETECTION",
                        "maxResults":1
                    }
                ]                      
            }]
        })
      })
      .then(function (response) {
          return response
        }
      )}

Send it to Google

this.mlService.queryGoogleVisionAPI(imageAsBase64)
    .then(res => {
        let result = res.content.toJSON();
        this.ingredient = result.responses[0].labelAnnotations.map( mc => mc.description );                                                               
        this.ngZone.run(() => {
            this.searchRecipes(this.ingredient)
        })
    });

Grab the first label returned and send to Algolia search

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demo

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Looking forward

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DIY machine learning

made a little easier!

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Machine learning on device

What if you don't want to make a bunch of REST API calls?

What if you need offline capability?

What if you need to reduce costs? (API calls can add up)

What if you need to train something really custom?

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Machine learning on device

Just landed in iOS 11: Core ML

Train a model, let Core ML process it for your app on device

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Machine learning on device

TensorFlow Mobile

Designed for low-end Androids, works for iOS and Android

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Google Translate (realtime text recognition)

demo:

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TensorFlow on iOS

demo:

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