Android Developers Backstage

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%20Developers%20Backstage%20Ep9%20Design.mp3

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.