Android Developers Backstage

Tor and Chet talk with Raph Levien from the Android UI Toolkit team, who works on font technology for Android. The conversation wanders freely into areas such as Raph's creation of the Inconsolata font, his work on Ghostscript, and tinkering he's done with audio latency and Android synthesizer apps. Oh, and we also talk about fonts, including some big improvements to font support in the Android 5.0 Lollipop release. We also learned some new terminology along the way: glitch (the audio equivalent of jank in the graphics and UI world) and pangram (a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet). So, bonus points for educational content. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Inconsolata: http://levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html Ghostscript: http://www.ghostscript.com/ Roboto: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto Noto fonts: https://www.google.com/get/noto/ Synthesizer App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levien.synthesiz

Tor and Chet talk with Tim Kilbourn from the Android TV team. Learn about developing apps for this new platform and hear about exciting things in the TV world like "overscan" and "D-pads". Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: TV Leanback API: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v17/leanback/package-summary.html Android Style Guide: http://developer.android.com/design/style/index.html Nexus Player: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_player Gamepad for Nexus Player: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_player_gamepad Tim: google.com/+TimKilbourn Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

In another exciting departure from ancient ADB tradition, Daniel Sandler takes over the podcast in a [mostly] bloodless coup and interviews Chet and Tor. This results in a very varied conversation about tech presentations, Tools (yay Android Studio 1.0!) and easter eggs. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Oh, and this is the picture that Dan proposed for Android Studio auto-fix hints. Imagine that popping up when you're trying to get some code written. Relevant Links: Big Android BBQ: http://www.bigandroidbbq.com/ Droidcon London: http://uk.droidcon.com/2014/ Devoxx: http://www.devoxx.be/ (recorded talks: https://parleys.com/channel/5459089ce4b030b13206d2ea/presentations) Speechless: http://speechlesslive.com/ Android Studio: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html Flappy Droid bug: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=79650 Dan: google.com/+DanSandler Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Chet and Fake Tor* are joined in this podcast episode by Chris Banes, an engineer in the Android Developer Relations group. Chris works on the AppCompat library, and other elements of the Android support library such as the new Palette utility, and talks about those things. And other things. Oh, and we talk about "Shimming around a widget," which is a great phrase if nothing else. * Tor was not available for this recording. He was probably elsewhere, writing code. The part of Tor will be played in this evening's performance by Richard Hyndman (not pronounced "Hindman," of course. Everyone knows that), also from the Android Developer Relations group. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Chris’s blog: https://chris.banes.me/ AppCompat v21: https://chris.banes.me/2014/10/17/appcompat-v21/ Palette: https://chris.banes.me/2014/10/20/palette-v21/ Theme vs Style: https://chris.banes.me/2014/11/12/theme-vs-style/ Material (and other Lollipop) samples: http://develop

Tor and Chet are joined in this podcast episode by Chris Wren, from the Android System UI team. Chris works on (among other things) notifications and talks about some of the latest notification capabilities in the Android 5.0 Lollipop release (among other things). Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Notifications overview: http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/notifications.html What's New in Android (Google I/O 2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TtVsy98ces (Notifications overview starting at 21:52) ADB Episode 6 (System UI, with Dan Sandler): http://androidbackstage.blogspot.com/2014/03/android-developers-backstage-episode-6.html Chris: google.com/+ChrisWren Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Tor and Chet are joined in this podcast episode by Marc Stogaitis, the lead of the Android location client team. Join us to hear the exciting and mysterious term "urban canyon" and also about the three most important things in location services: location, location, location. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Fused Location Provider API: https://developer.android.com/reference/com/google/android/gms/location/FusedLocationProviderApi.html Geofencing API: https://developer.android.com/reference/com/google/android/gms/location/GeofencingApi.html Activity Recognition API: https://developer.android.com/reference/com/google/android/gms/location/ActivityRecognitionApi.html Beyond the Blue Dot (Google I/O 2013): https://developers.google.com/events/io/sessions/325337477 Location History dashboard: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/ Marc: https://plus.google.com/107675566661349240635/posts Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Tor and Chet are joined in this podcast episode by Alan Viverette from the UI Toolkit team. Alan is passionate about accessibility. He also works on themes, attributes, styles, widgets and, well, lots of UI stuff. So we talk for a while, as we tend to do. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: TalkBack: https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/6007100 AccessibilityNodeInfo: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/accessibility/AccessibilityNodeInfo.html WebVTT: http://dev.w3.org/html5/webvtt/ Adding Captions on YouTube: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796?hl=en Alan: google.com/+AlanViverette Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

In this superstitiously numbered episode 13, Tor and Chet talk with Adam Powell of the UI Toolkit team about the Android support library, AppCompat, ListView, RecyclerView, and all sorts of other toolkit-related niceties. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Android Support Library: http://developer.android.com/tools/support-library/index.html ActionBarSherlock: http://actionbarsherlock.com/ Adam: google.com/+AdamWPowell Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

In a startling and electrifying break with ancient tradition (born of laziness rather than policy), Tor and Chet are joined in this podcast by external developer (i.e., non-Googler) Jake Wharton. Jake has worked on and with many important Android open source libraries. We talk with Jake about these projects and various other aspects of Android development in general. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links: Retrofit: http://square.github.io/retrofit/ Picasso: http://square.github.io/picasso/ Dagger: http://square.github.io/dagger/ OkHttp: http://square.github.io/okhttp/ Butter Knife: http://jakewharton.github.io/butterknife Robolectric: http://robolectric.org/ Espresso: https://code.google.com/p/android-test-kit/ AssertJ Android: http://square.github.io/assertj-android Jake: google.com/+JakeWharton Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

In this continuation of the previous gripping and suspenseful episode known as Episode 10, Tor and Chet hear more from Anwar Ghuloum from the Android Runtime team. This time is all trash-talk. Tune in to hear more about garbage collection and how allocation and collection performance is much faster with ART (and, more interestingly, why it's faster). Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. ARTicles: Introducing ART: http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/art.html Verifying App Behavior: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/verifying-apps-art.html Video: The ART Runtime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBlTzQsUoOw Other Resources: Systrace: http://developer.android.com/tools/help/systrace.html Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Tor and Chet may not know ART, but they know what they like. In this episode, the first in a two-pART series, they talk with Anwar Ghuloum from the ART, or Android Runtime team. ART is the new runtime for Android, which came online in the KitKat release as an alternative to Dalvik. Now ART is not only enabled by default: it’s the only runtime. We’ll talk about what it is, how it works, why it’s better, and the future and very meaning of ART in modern society. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. ARTicles: Introducing ART: http://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/art.html Verifying App Behavior: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/verifying-apps-art.html Google I/O 2014 Session: The ART Runtime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBlTzQsUoOw Other Resources: Systrace: http://developer.android.com/tools/help/systrace.html Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Tor and Chet make a startling break with ancient tradition and talk to a real, live designer in this episode: Christian Robertson from the Android User Experience team. Tune in to hear about the Roboto font that Christian created and about font design in general, plus design tips for layout, visual rhythm, and other Android designities. Design: It's the new Develop. Relevant links: Android Design: https://developer.android.com/design/index.html Android Style Guide: http://developer.android.com/design/style/index.html Android Asset Studio: http://romannurik.github.io/AndroidAssetStudio/ Roboto: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto Christian: https://plus.google.com/110879635926653430880/posts Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase Subscribe to the podcast in your favorite player or at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AndroidDevelopersBackstage Or just download the mp3 directly: http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/android_developers_backstage/Android%20Developer

In this episode, the second in a bizarrely and completely unplanned series on Play Store technology, Tor Norbye and Chet Haase are joined by Ficus Kirkpatrick from the Play Store team (and from many other Android projects from the early days). Listen in to hear what Volley is for and how you can use it to simplify your network requests and bitmap download/caching code. Relevant links: Volley: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/volley/ Volley email list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/volley-users Gson adapter for Volley: https://gist.github.com/ficusk/5474673 Subscribe to the podcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AndroidDevelopersBackstage. Or download directly at http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/android_developers_backstage/Android%20Developers%20Backstage%20Ep%208%20Volley.mp3

In this gripping episode, Tor Norbye and Chet Haase are joined by the pixel-pushing Kirill Grouchnikov from the Play Store team. Kirill works on UIs for this large data-driven app that runs on a wide variety of releases, devices, and form factors. We talk about what that actually entails... and talk about other stuff along the way. Relevant links: Android resources: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/providing-resources.html Activities: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html Alpha/Beta testing and staged rollouts: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/3131213 Kirill: google.com/+KirillGrouchnikov Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/AndroidDevelopersBackstage Episode download: http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/android_developers_backstage/Android%20Developers%20Backstage%20Ep7%20AppsWorkEverywhere.mp3

In this episode, we delve into the world of the Android System UI, including tangents on notifications new and old, status bar icons, implementing user experience designs, and Android logos. Click here to download the Podcast directly!

Chet Haase and Tor Norbye are joined by Tim Murray from the RenderScript team. In this episode, we dive into RenderScript and talk about compute, parallel processing, GPUs, and architecture-independent, high-performance pixel processing. It's intrinsically interesting. To download the podcast click here.

Tor Norbye and Chet Haase are joined by Jeff Hamilton from the Google Play services team. In this continuation of the mini-series with Tall Engineers Named Jeff (starting with episode #2 with Jeff Sharkey), this episode goes in-depth into the Google Play services library, which provides easier, Android-friendly access to various Google APIs, such as authentication and mapping. Download the podcast at this link. 

Chet Haase, Tor Norbye, are joined by Adrian Ludwig on the third episode of Android Developers Backstage. Adrian is stalwart member of the Android team focusing on all aspects of security. Learn about the various ways that Adrian and his team help to make Android better for users. Click here to download the podcast

Chet Haase, Tor Norbye, are joined by Jeff Sharkey on the second episode of Android Developers Backstage. Jeff is a longtime engineer on the Android Framework team responsible in large part for one of the exciting new features in Android 4.4 KitKat, the Storage Access Framework. Learn about that new feature along with other random Android things that happened to come up in the conversation. Click here to download the podcast

Get an overview of the new features in Android 4.4 KitKat presented by members of the Android team. Chet Haase and Tor Norbye cover many of the new features including Transitions, Storage Access Framework, Immersive Mode, Printing API, and Closed Captioning. Click here to download the podcast