Observability for Mobile with OpenTelemetry

What this episode covers

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=kIid85wO8gcOpenObservability Talks episodes are released monthly, on the last Thursday of each month and are available for listening on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube.We live-stream the episodes on Twitch and YouTube Live - tune in to see us live, and chime in with your comments and questions on the live chat.⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@openobservabilitytalks⁠ https://www.twitch.tv/openobservability⁠Show Notes:00:00 - Intro01:42 - the unique characteristics of mobile env03:39 - Android presents additional challenges05:41 - observability in everyday frontend dev12:01 - observability for business metrics in mobile apps18:28 - collecting telemetry in constrained mobile devices23:03 - Twitter scale observability into mobile apps 29:01 - how mobile monitoring used to work before OpenTelemetry33:37 - OpenTelemetry expansion from server-side into client-side telemetry 44:09 - OpenTelemetry Android SDK working group50:53 - Embrace’s journey into OpenTelemetry1:00:04 - Outro Resources:OpenTelemetry Android SDK: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-androidOpenTelemetry 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/OpenObserv⁠YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@openobservabilitytalks⁠Dotan Horovits============Twitter: @horovitsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/horovitsMastodon: @horovits@fosstodonBlueSky: @horovits.bsky.socialHanson Ho==========LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hanson-ho/BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/bidetofevil.wtf

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This episode was published on March 27, 2025.

What is this episode about?

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...

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