Android Backstage, a podcast by and for Android developers. Hosted by developers from the Android engineering team, this show covers topics of interest to Android programmers, with in-depth discussions and interviews with engineers on the Android team at Google. Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 205: Time for Playtime
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk with Aurash Mahbod from the Play Games team at Google -- covering trends in mobile games, challenges for Android games developers, console games, and more! Chapters: Intro (00:00) What’s Aurash working on currently? (02:40) How much is Play store providing users with content based on previous interests? (05:29) Longstanding games vs new games (08:34) Mobile gaming vs console (10:07) Are there stats on what type of games people are playing? (18:07) Difficulties and solutions for transitioning games from various devices (21:14) Movie corner - War Games (25:15) How does Play console help devs optimize engagement? (26:23) What is the breakdown of tools that devs actually use for games? (27:53) Reducing the backend costs for devs (30:18) Where does loyalty content surface? (34:28) Balancing add load (35:16) Cloud saves (38:18) Aurash’s history with Play store (42:18) Wrap up (42:58) Romain: @romainguy, threads.net/@romainguy, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: threads.net/@tor.norbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase, threads.net/@chet.haase, and chethaase@androiddev.social Aurash: https://twitter.com/aurash - @aurash Catch videos on YouTube → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast
Episode 204: Fan’otations
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk about one of Tor’s favorite topics: Lint! Specifically, we talk about Lint checks and the annotations that use them to enable better, more robust, and more self-documenting APIs. Lint: It’s not just for pockets anymore. Chapters: Intro (00:00) Lint checks for annotations (01:50) Lint checks in Android (05:38) Logic checks (07:34) Color representations (10:01) How does lint know the type of integer? (14:40) Kotlin annotations (17:19) Unsigned (20:10) HalfFloat (22:25) Thread annotations (25:12) @CallSuper (28:18) LayoutOpt (30:26) Lint checks in AndroidX (32:00) Restrict to annotation (36:45) Writing your own custom Lint checks (39:51) Lint testing framework (43:26) Kotlin buildList Lint check example (45:25) @Discouraged (48:15) Wrap up (50:08) @Deprecated Chet (50:50) Romain: @romainguy, threads.net/@romainguy, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: threads.net/@tor.norbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase, threads.net/@chet.haase, and chethaase@androiddev.social Catch videos on YouTube → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 203: (W)rap
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk about some of the many things that happened this year in the world of Android development, including new devices and form factors, tool improvements, AndroidX features and libraries, and Jetpack Compose releases. And any tech podcast would be remiss without mentioning AI/ML, so we talk about that too. Tor, Romain and Chet Chapters: Intro (00:00) Google engineers vs Android (00:57) Big changes of 2023 intro (3:03) AI (3:38) Programming with AI (5:08) Writing with AI (8:52) New devices from Android - Pixel fold (12:31) Pixel watch (18:50) Bard (19:37) Changes in device release times (20:23) Major changes in devices vs incremental updates (21:42) Camera (22:40) Platform developments - mainline modules (24:03) More testing for Android (25:12) Flaky tests (26:55) Jetpack compose features (32:32) RTO (38:00) Shapes library and KMP (42:42) Final thoughts on big events of 2023 (45:03) Studio build improvements (46:43) Baseline profiles (49:21) Listener mail (50:45) Where has Chet been? (52:46) Metalava question (55:46) Wrap up wrap up (57:00) Romain: @romainguy, threads.net/@romainguy, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: threads.net/@tor.norbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase, threads.net/@chet.haase, and chethaase@androiddev.social Catch videos on YouTube → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 202: AndroidX, Gradle and Metalava
In this episode, Tor and Romain chat with Aurimas Liutikas from the AndroidX team. Topics include performance tuning the AndroidX Gradle builds using configuration caching, local caching and remote caching, as well as tracking API compatibility using the Metalava tool. Aurimas, Romain and Tor Romain: @romainguy, threads.net/@romainguy, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: threads.net/@tor.norbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Aurimas: androiddev.social/@Aurimas and www.liutikas.net/blog-posts Catch videos on YouTube → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 201: Firebase in Android Studio
In this episode, Tor and Romain chat with Greg Baker and Joe Baker-Malone about exciting new Android Studio features made possible by Firebase integration. Physical device streaming allows you to connect remotely to physical devices hosted in Google’s secure data centers and use them for all your development needs. We also explore other time saving features like the ability to go from a crash report directly to the correct line of code, even across git branches. Tor, Romain, Joe, Greg Links: Android Device Streaming from Android Studio feedback form App Quality Insights and Firebase Crashlytics Romain: @romainguy, romainguy@threads, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: tor.norbye@threads and tornorbye@androiddev.social Greg: @bakergo@fosstodon.org
Episode 200: WebGPU
In this episode, Chet and Romain speak with Ken Russell and Corentin Wallez from the WebGPU team. WebGPU is a new API that brings modern GPU rendering and compute functionality to web and other platforms (including Android!). We talk about the genesis and capabilities of WebGPU, WGSL (WebGPU’s new shading language), the state of WebGL (the predecessor API for web GPU rendering), and lots of other fun related graphics topics. Ken, Romain, and Chet (not pictured: Corentin, who is on the monitor behind the photographer) Links: Samples (and its github repo) Google I/O Codelab Google I/O presentation Introducing WebGPU (and associated blog post) Series of articles teaching WebGPU and WGSL Series of articles of WebGPU Best Practices Draft specs for WebGPU and WGSL Dawn from Google/Chromium wgpu from Firefox Romain: @romainguy, romainguy@threads, romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: tor.norbye@threads and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase, chet.haase@threads, and chethaase@androiddev.social Ken: @gfxprogrammerCorentin: @DaKangz and @DaKangz@mastodon.gamedev.place Catch more from ADB → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 199: Compose performance
This time, Romain, Tor, and Chet talk with Leland Richardson, George Mount, and Chuck Jazdzewski from the Jetpack Compose team about performance. The team has been looking at performance issues recently and discusses what they’ve found, what gotchas lie in wait for library developers, what tools and compilers can magically handle for you... and what they can’t. Tune in to learn about why we worry about autoboxing (and why you probably shouldn’t). Foreground: Romain, Tor, George, and Chuck Background (on the monitor): Chet, Leland, and Cody (audio engineer/producer), plus another view of the Studio with Romain, Tor, George and Chuck again, for your recursive pleasure. Links: Jetpack Compose Android Studio Memory Profiler Macrobenchmark Baseline profiles Kotlin bytecode decompilation Romain: @romainguy and romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: tor.norbye@threads and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase and chethaase@androiddev.social Leland: @intelligibabble George: @georgemount1 Chuck: @chuckjaz Catch ADB on YouTube → https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 198: Location location location, revisited
Since our original episode on location nearly nine years ago, a lot has happened in the location support for Android. In this episode, Wyatt Riley and Roy Want answer all of Tor's questions about how it works and cover recent developments like indoor location, elevation, and some tips for developers. Wyatt, Roy and Tor. Links: Getting started guide Precise indoor location Wi-Fi Alliance(WFA) : Wi-Fi Location(TM) demonstrated at a recent WFA member event Android Developer resources for Wi-Fi RTT (IEEE 802.11mc) Location Google Play Store has three apps that demonstrate Wi-Fi RTT (IEEE 802.11mc) capabilities for devices with 11mc support. WifitRttLocator (phone positioning in a building with 11mc capable Access Points) WifiRttScan (Phone to Access Point ranging) WifiNanScan (Phone to phone ranging) Catch ADB on YouTube→ https://goo.gle/adb-podcast Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 197: Studio Bot
You saw it at Google I/O - now you can hear about it in the comfort of your own headphones! Tor, Romain, and Chet talk with Siva Velusamy and Sandhya Mohan from the Android Studio team about the just-launched Studio Bot. This new AI-powered assistant enables conversational queries in the IDE to help with coding, commenting, confusion, or if you just need a friend. Chet, Tor, Romain, Sandhy, and Siva in the Sunnyvale studio Studio Bot: https://goo.gle/3BBEKZI Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 196: Android Studio, behind the scenes
Raluca Sauciuc joins Tor and Romain to talk about what goes on behind the scenes in Android Studio. Raluca takes us through the tools and workflows used by the Android Studio team to improve performance and memory usage, and avoid future regressions. She also explains how the team adopts new versions of the IntelliJ IDE and platform, and how they can deal with massive code merges. Raluca, Romain, and Tor Romain: @romainguy and romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: @tornorbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase and chethaase@androiddev.social Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 195: Mainlining
Chet and Romain talk to Jeff Hamilton and Anton Hansson from the Mainline team about "modular system components", and the new SDK extension framework which lets developers access them. Anton Hansson top right, and Jeff Hamilton bottom left, with Romain and Chet Blog post: https://goo.gle/3S1c3g4 AndroidX convenience constants, e.g. T_EXTENSION_INT: https://goo.gle/3lEJwRx Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 194: Subtext
This time, Tor, Romain, and Chet were joined by Siyamed Sinir and Sean McQuillan from the Android Text team to talk about, well, text. Which, it turns out, is a very deep, complicated, and constantly evolving technology. The conversation covered everything from the fundamentals of the text stack on Android to the capabilities and implementation of text in Jetpack Compose to internationalization to fonts to emojis to performance to.... you get the idea. There was a lot of stuff to talk about. And so much subtext. Romain, Chet, Sean, Tor, and Siyamed (using RTL support: Siyamed, Tor, Sean, Chet, and Romain) Links: Text In Compose Compose Variable Fonts ComboBreaker ColrV1 Fonts i18n & Text in Android 13 Text is hard! Rendering & Editing Compose Downloadable Fonts Romain: @romainguy and romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: @tornorbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase and chethaase@androiddev.social Siyamed:@siyamed Sean: tech.lgbt/@objcode Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 193: Kotlin
In this episode, James Ward joins Chet, Tor, and Romain to talk about Kotlin. We talked about Kotlin Multiplatform (both KMP and KMM) and what’s coming for Kotlin in 2023, especially the new K2 frontend. James, Tor, Romain, and Chet. Links: Kotlin Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM) Jetpack Multiplatform Libraries Compose Multiplatform by JetBrains Romain: @romainguy and romainguy@androiddev.social Tor: @tornorbye and tornorbye@androiddev.social Chet: @chethaase and chethaase@androiddev.social James: @_jamesward Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs
Episode 192: The Path Forward
This time, Romain and Chet ditched Tor so that they could geek out about graphics, talking about paths, Bézier curves, morphing, and more. Romain and Chet alone in the recording Studio. Links: V9: Vector 9-patches Pathway: Path data querying Android Path Shape Shifter Bézier Primer The Beauty of Bézier Curves Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy
Episode 191: Compose Lazy Layouts
We recorded episode 191 from the studio in the London office, where Rebecca Franks from the developer relations team joined Chet as a guest host. We talked with Andrei Shikov, Matvei Malkov, and Andrey Kulikov from the Jetpack Compose engineering team about layouts, especially the lazy ones, which are the Compose equivalent of RecyclerView. Rebecca, Chet, Andrei, Andrey, and Matvei, in the London recording studio. Links: Layouts in Compose Compose Custom layouts ADB 167: Jetpack Compose Layout Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye Rebecca Franks: @riggaroo Andrei Shikov: @shikasd_ Matvei Malkov: @matvei_jj Andrey Kulikov: @and_kulikov