In the custom adapter below, we are going to adapt text messages for a ListView very much like in the Ribbit app. Let's

import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import java.util.List;

public class MessageAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<ParseObject> {

    protected List<ParseObject> mMessages;

    /*
     * Some code has been omitted for brevity!
     */

    @Override
    public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {

        // Some code has also been omitted from this method

        ParseObject message = mMessages.get(position);
        Date createdAt = message.getCreatedAt();

        long now = new Date().getTime();
        String convertedDate = DateUtils.getRelativeTimeSpanString(CreatedAt.getTime(), now,  
                    DateUtils.SECOND_IN_MILLIS).toString();
        // Code omitted that sets up the view

        return convertView;
    }
}