Android Developers Backstage

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.ne

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@androidd

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 h

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  

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  

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.

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:

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

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 

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 

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, Tor and Chet learn some more about performance from Carmen. Carmen works on the Android Platform Performance team and is an expert on everything related to performance. This is the perfect episode for you if you ever wanted to learn more about R8, perfetto, baseline profiles, custom performance tracing, power metrics, etc.  Tor, Carmen, and Chet   Links: Perfetto Android’s guide to app performance Baseline profiles Benchmarking with Microbenchmark and Macrobenchmark Jetpack Tracing library Jetpack JankStats library Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye   Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs

In this episode (the first in-studio-with-guests recording since early 2020!), Tor and Chet spoke with Marc Bächinger, Toni Heidenreich, and Andrew Lewis from the Android Media team, where they work on video technologies and APIs like ExoPlayer. We talked about the evolution of ExoPlayer and platform media capabilities as well as ongoing and near-future features. Back: Chet and Tor, Front: Mark, Toni, and Andrew   Links: Introduction to Media3 ExoPlayer on GitHub  Guide for migrating to Media3  Jetpack Media3 on GitHub Subscribe to Android Developers → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs    Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye

It’s our first episode back in the studio, and in a new, shiny studio too! In this episode, we talk about some of our favorite new features and changes of the new version of Android, both for users and developers. More importantly, the audio quality of this episode is much better thanks to the amazing work from the media production teams at Google. Tor, Romain, and Chet happy to be back in a studio with proper audio equipment Links Android 13 for developers API diff Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs

“Our job isn’t to remove complexity, but to manage it”- Glen Murphy (as remembered by Dan) In this episode, we talk with Dan Sandler and Adam Cohen from the SystemUI team. We dip into a bit of history, talking about where things were at when they joined the team (2009-10), and how things have developed in the many years since, including how these projects and teams scaled from a single person working on it part-time to now having much larger teams doing many more things. Which kind of describes software development in general.  We also talk about how to expose (or not) gestures and features in a UI system. Related: there are some bonus pro-tips on using some hidden features of System UI, as a prize for careful listeners and podcast hosts. Top: Tor & Adam, Bottom: Dan, Dan’s book cover illustration, & Chet Links: xkcd: Workflow Dan: @dsandler Adam: adam-cohenChet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye Subscribe to Android Developers YouTube → https://goo.gle/AndroidDevs

In this episode, we talk with Alan and Esteban from Android Studio about the new "Live Edit" feature recently launched at Google I/O in the Electric Eel canary build. We dive into the technology -- how it works, what the technical challenges are, and its current state. Chet with Esteban and Alan on the top row, Romain and Tor below   Links: https://goo.gle/3QmMVPV    Alan: @acleung Esteban: @estebandlc Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye