Top 5 podcasts on the future of mobile observability and the impact of OpenTelemetry

OVERVIEW

In this episode of the The Stack Overflow Podcast, Austin Emmons, Lead iOS Engineer at Embrace, sits down with Ryan Donovan and Eira May to discuss the nuances of mobile observability. Austin shares his experiences and insights on how mobile observability differs from backend observability, the importance of open standards like OpenTelemetry, and the future of mobile observability.

“In the mobile environment, the difference is that you have less control. These devices are running on battery power, could have shattered screens, and are dealing with spotty networks — yet your users still expect top performance. That’s where mobile observability comes in, to help you understand and mitigate those edge cases.”

Austin Emmons, Lead iOS Engineer

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Backend vs mobile observability: Unlike backend systems where environments are controlled, mobile observability must account for a wide range of hardware configurations, network conditions, and user behaviors. These factors can dramatically affect app performance and are difficult to predict and monitor effectively.
• Importance of network requests: Austin highlights the critical role of network requests in mobile apps, emphasizing that ensuring these requests are handled efficiently is key to maintaining app performance. Observing these interactions can help developers identify and mitigate potential bottlenecks.
• Privacy concerns: With mobile devices, developers must be vigilant about privacy, as seemingly innocuous data, like available disk space, can be combined with other information to potentially identify users. The conversation underscores the need for developers to carefully manage and limit the data collected.
• Adoption of OpenTelemetry: Embrace’s adoption of OpenTelemetry is highlighted as a significant step towards standardizing mobile observability. This move allows for greater flexibility and interoperability, enabling developers to avoid vendor lock-in while still gaining deep insights into their apps’ performance.

Listen to the full interview here

OVERVIEW

In Episode 264 of the “What the Dev” podcast by SD Times, Andrew Tunall, Head of Product at Embrace, shares insights into the evolving landscape of mobile observability and the critical role OpenTelemetry is beginning to play in this space. Hosted by Jenna Barron of SD Times, the podcast discussion explores the challenges faced by mobile engineering teams in adopting modern observability practices and how Embrace is contributing to the OpenTelemetry community by developing open source SDKs for mobile.

“We believe that while mobile observability hasn’t fully adopted OpenTelemetry yet, OpenTelemetry is the future, and the two will inevitably converge.”

Andrew Tunall, Head of Product at Embrace

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Unified observability across the stack: Andrew emphasizes the growing expectation that mobile apps should be monitored with the same rigor as backend services. OpenTelemetry’s standardized approach allows for consistent observability across both mobile and non-mobile environments, making it easier for SRE and DevOps teams to maintain end-to-end visibility.
• High-cardinality data and complex user flows: Mobile apps present unique challenges due to the diverse environments in which they operate. Andrew discusses the importance of capturing high-cardinality data to effectively monitor the myriad device types, OS versions, and network conditions. OpenTelemetry’s flexible data collection capabilities are crucial for understanding and optimizing user experiences at scale.
• Modernization of observability practices: Andrew highlights a critical gap in mobile observability practices — many mobile engineering teams have yet to fully adopt modern observability techniques. He stresses the importance of teaching these teams to integrate OpenTelemetry into their workflows, enabling proactive issue detection and faster resolution times.
• Embrace’s OpenTelemetry SDKs: For mobile engineers, Embrace’s contribution to the OpenTelemetry community is significant. The Embrace Android and iOS SDKs, designed specifically with mobile observability in mind, allow for detailed user-centric monitoring. 

Listen to the full interview here

OVERVIEW

In Episode 72 of o11ycast, Hanson Ho, Android Architect at Embrace, joins hosts Charity Majors, Jessica Kerr, and Austin Parker to discuss the unique challenges of mobile observability. This episode offers insights into the complexity of data collection in mobile environments, the role of OpenTelemetry, and the need for updated observability strategies that account for the unpredictable nature of mobile environments.

“The problem with opening up a mobile crash dashboard is it’s never going to be empty. There’s always going to be issues, so it’s an infinite list of things to handle. So what is important, what is not important? Performance kind of gets pushed in the background unless you intrinsically care or somebody tells you that you should care, and we clearly want to build up the intrinsic part.”

Hanson Ho, Android Architect at Embrace

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The challenge of mobile observability: Unlike traditional backend systems, mobile apps operate on a wide array of devices with varying network conditions and hardware capabilities. Hanson discusses how this diversity leads to data collection challenges, such as delayed or lost telemetry, which can obscure critical insights into app performance.
• OpenTelemetry for mobile: OpenTelemetry is highlighted as a vital tool for mobile observability, enabling teams to capture and analyze data across different devices and environments. Hanson explains how Embrace’s use of OpenTelemetry allows for more accurate monitoring of user experiences, even under less-than-ideal conditions like poor network connectivity or outdated hardware.
• The importance of contextual data: In mobile observability, understanding the context in which data is collected is essential. Hanson emphasizes the need to gather detailed information about the operating environment, such as network status or CPU throttling, to accurately diagnose and address performance issues.
• Real-world impact of observability: Hanson shares insights on how improving mobile observability directly correlates with better user experiences and, ultimately, business outcomes. He underscores the importance of not just monitoring crashes or errors but understanding how these issues affect key metrics like user retention and app engagement.

Listen to the full interview here

OVERVIEW

In this Open Source Friday episode, Austin Emmons, Lead iOS Engineer at Embrace, sits down with Andrea Griffiths, and shares an insightful demo of how Embrace’s open source iOS SDK and integration with OpenTelemetry can be used to monitor and optimize mobile app performance.

“We’re not just interested in how things work when they’re perfect. We want to see how they behave in the wild, where anything can happen. Whether it’s a bad network connection or a user throwing their phone, our tools help you monitor and react to real-world conditions to keep your app running smoothly.”

Austin Emmons, Lead iOS Engineer  at Embrace

KEY HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DEMO:

• Swift package setup: Austin begins by walking through the setup of the Embrace SDK within a SwiftUI project. He demonstrates how to declare package dependencies, initialize the SDK, and customize it to suit different environments like staging and production. This setup ensures that developers can start collecting telemetry data with minimal friction.
• Instrumentation with spans and traces: A major focus of the demo is on how to implement custom instrumentation using spans and traces. Austin explains how to measure the duration of specific operations within the app, such as user interactions or network requests. By wrapping these operations with spans, developers can gain detailed insights into the app performance.
• Exporting data to Grafana and Embrace dashboard: The demo demonstrates how telemetry data can be exported to both Grafana and the Embrace dashboard. This dual approach provides flexibility for developers, allowing them to view and analyze performance data in their preferred environment. Grafana’s visualization tools complement Embrace’s detailed dashboards, giving developers comprehensive insights into their app’s behavior.
• See it in action: To illustrate these concepts, Austin uses a mini game example within the app. The game measures user reaction times, which are tracked as spans and displayed in Grafana. This playful example underscores how developers can apply similar techniques to track and optimize user interactions in their own apps.

Listen to the full interview here

OVERVIEW

In Episode 39 of DevOps Accents, Hanson Ho, Android Architect at Embrace, joins Leonid Suschev to explore the complexities of implementing observability in mobile environments using OpenTelemetry. Hanson discusses the unique challenges mobile applications face, the importance of production data, and how OpenTelemetry can standardize and streamline observability across diverse ecosystems.

“In mobile observability, you’re not just finding needles in haystacks — you’re often dealing with unpredictability and dirty data. OpenTelemetry helps us bring clarity to this chaos by standardizing how we collect and analyze telemetry data.”

Hanson Ho, Android Architect at Embrace

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

• The role of production data: Hanson highlights the importance of leveraging production data to understand real-world app performance. By capturing detailed context about device states, network conditions, and user interactions, teams can diagnose issues more effectively and improve Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR).
• Optimizing data collection for cost-effective observability: As data volumes grow, managing costs becomes a priority. Hanson discusses strategies for optimizing data collection, such as using structured logs and context-rich events. OpenTelemetry’s open standard also allows teams to switch between vendors more easily, reducing the financial burden of data processing.
• The future of observability: Hanson envisions a future where observability tools are more context-aware and tailored to mobile use cases. By advancing open standards and fostering collaboration between mobile and backend teams, the industry can create a more integrated observability ecosystem, leading to faster recovery times and more resilient systems.
  

Listen to the full interview here