Observability into mobile native applications presents unique challenges, from capturing real user interactions to dealing with network constraints and battery efficiency. In this episode of OpenObservability Talks, we explore the special characteristics of client-side telemetry, and how OpenTelemetry helps generate mobile client telemetry for real user monitoring (RUM), enabling deeper insights into performance and user experience.
We host Hanson Ho, Android architect at Embrace and an approver on the OpenTelemetry Android SDK. Hanson brings a wealth of experience from Twitter, Salesforce and SAP. He will share his expertise on instrumenting mobile apps, the evolution of OpenTelemetry for Android, and best practices for collecting and analyzing mobile telemetry. Tune in to learn how to bring OpenTelemetry-powered observability to your mobile applications!
The episode was live-streamed on 17 March 2025 and the video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIid85wO8gc
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Show Notes:
00:00 - Intro
01:42 - the unique characteristics of mobile env
03:39 - Android presents additional challenges
05:41 - observability in everyday frontend dev
12:01 - observability for business metrics in mobile apps
18:28 - collecting telemetry in constrained mobile devices
23:03 - Twitter scale observability into mobile apps
29:01 - how mobile monitoring used to work before OpenTelemetry
33:37 - OpenTelemetry expansion from server-side into client-side telemetry
44:09 - OpenTelemetry Android SDK working group
50:53 - Embrace’s journey into OpenTelemetry
1:00:04 - Outro
Resources:
OpenTelemetry Android SDK: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-android
OpenTelemetry Client SDK and Instrumentation SIG board: https://github.com/orgs/open-telemetry/projects/19/views/1
Adding client-side support to OpenTelemetry: https://medium.com/p/a389144f3812#2fcf
Socials:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenObserv
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@openobservabilitytalks
Dotan Horovits
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Twitter: @horovits
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/horovits
Mastodon: @horovits@fosstodon
BlueSky: @horovits.bsky.social
Hanson Ho
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanson-ho/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/bidetofevil.wtf