Android Developers Backstage

Android Developers Backstage

111: Emulator Snapshot

Mar 20

Romain, Frank and Tor in the StudioIn this episode, Romain and Tor chat with Frank from the Android Studio team. Frank works on the Android emulator and in this episode he explains the differences between a simulator and an emulator, how snapshots work,…

110: It’s all about the Treble

Mar 8

Chet, Iliyan and Tor in the StudioIn this episode, Chet and Tor chat with Iliyan Malchev from Project Treble. We already covered this a year and a half ago back in episode 75, but this time we dig deeper and also cover the progress made since then. Tune…

109: Jazz Hands

Feb 22

Michael, Tor (not pictured), Romain (not pictured), and Chet (not even present). Some podcasts are conversations. Some are more like interrogations in a café.In this episode, Tor and Chet Romain talked with Michael Wright from the Android Framework team.…

108: Instant Re-run

Feb 6

Esteban, Romain, Chet, and Tor in the Android Studio.Our guest-scheduling failed once again but we managed to find a guest at the very last minute! In this episode Esteban de la Canal tells us everything about Apply Changes, a new feature in Android…

107: Dave Burke

Jan 24

Romain, Chet, Dave and Tor in the Android Studio.In this episode, we talk to Dave Burke, VP of Engineering for Android. How are features chosen for the next version of the operating system? And what is Dave’s favorite feature in Android P? Tune in to find…

106: WorkManager & Navigation

Jan 8

Tor, Romain, Sumir, Ian, and Chet pose for a candid picture far from the recording studio, when they finally realized they’d forgotten to take a picture in the studio earlier. You’d think they’d have this process nailed by now, wouldn’t you? I mean, 106…

105: Telephony

Dec 13, 2018

Tor, Romain, Robert, and Chet. Note the winter coat; the temperatures in California had plummeted that week all the way down into the lower 60s (F). Brrrr!Tor, Romain, and Chet talk with Robert Greenwalt from the Android Telephony team about how the phone…

104: Android Dev Summit

Nov 29, 2018

Tor and Romain working hard in the studio while Chet enjoyed the scenery in MontereyOur guest-scheduling failed a second time in a row, but on the heels of the Android Dev Summit we had a lot to talk about! Chet was traveling, so it’s just Romain and Tor…

103: Tor, Romain, and Chet Talk about Stuff

Nov 21, 2018

Tor, Romain, and Chet, caught in a totally candid and unexpected photo while working hard in the recording studio.Tor and Romain and Chet completely failed to get a guest for this show. But fortunately, there was a bunch of stuff happening that they…

102: ML All the Things!

Nov 15, 2018

In this episode, Chet and Tor Romain Guy talk with Ben Murdoch and Matej Pfajfar from the Android ML team to talk about… ML! We talk about ML Kit, Adaptive Battery in Android 9 Pie, TensorFlow Lite, building and using ML models, and machine learning in…

101: Prefetch and Paging

Oct 31, 2018

In this episode, Chet and Tor Yigit Boyar talk again with Chris Craik from the Android Toolkit team about RecyclerView prefetch and the new Paging library. This is Part 2 of a much longer conversation that started in Episode 100, in which Chris talked…

100: Android Rendering

Oct 22, 2018

In this episode, Chet and Tor Yigit Boyar talk with Chris Craik from the Android Toolkit team about graphics and the evolution of the UI renderer on Android. By the way, THIS IS EPISODE 100, PEOPLE! WE MADE IT! AND THEY HAVEN’T EVEN CANCELED US YET! Sure,…

99: Accessibility Time

Oct 3, 2018

Chet, Phil, Tor, and Phil’s topical t-shirtIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Phil Weaver about accessibility on Android. We talk about accessibility services, TalkBack, Switch Access, testing, and general approaches for developers to make…

98: Filament

Sep 19, 2018

Romain, Chet and Tor posing behind a giant poster rendered with FilamentIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Romain about Filament, a real-time physically based rendering engine for Android (and Windows, Linux and macOS.) We talk about graphics,…

97: Bluetooth

Aug 29, 2018

Tor, Andre and Chet in the studioIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Andre Eisenbach from the Device Connectivity Team about Bluetooth — Bluetooth Classic, Bluetooth BLE, profiles, compatibility challenges and more. Subscribe to the podcast feed or…

96: Location: It’s Where It’s At

Aug 8, 2018

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk talks with Patrick Robertson from the Location team about… location! We wax poetic about fine-grained location using Wifi routers (among other mechanisms), the Fused Location Provider API for apps that need location…

95: The New News Thing

Jul 2, 2018

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk talks with Kyle Lampert from the Google News team about… News. Kyle is the lead of the Android app for News and discusses how the team created a rich, smooth UI experience for the reincarnation of this new News thing.…

94: TV Time

Jun 20, 2018

Chet, Isaac, Virgil, and Tor, in stark black & white, because it’s so totally artistic, and not because the studio lighting made us look like human-shaped blue jello. In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Isaac Katzenelson and Virgil Dobjanschi from the…

93: WorkManager

Jun 1, 2018

Tor, Sumir, Tor, Chet, a spiral notebook (blank), and TorIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Sumir Kataria about the new WorkManager library that was announced at Google I/O (and released in early form). WorkManager makes it easier to schedule…

92: Navigation Controller

May 18, 2018

Tor, Chet, Joe, and Ian (in reverse order)In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Ian Lake and Joe Baker-Malone about the new Navigation Architecture Component and Navigation Editor, which were recently released in alpha form. This new architecture…

91: KTX

May 11, 2018

Chet, Romain, Jake, and TorIn this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor talk with Jake Wharton about Android KTX, a set of Kotlin extensions for Android development. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links: GitHub repository for…

90: Spanspanspanspan

May 4, 2018

Florina, Chet, and Clara (Chet is the one sporting the highly-collectible and terribly elegant Android Toolkitty team swag jacket)In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Florina Muntenescu from Android developer relations and Clara Bayarri from the…

89: Upon Reflection

Apr 13, 2018

Chet, Brian and Tor issuing a green screen challengeIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Brian Carlstrom from the ART team about the new restrictions on non-SDK interfaces in Android P. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.…

88: Autofill

Mar 15, 2018

Chet, Felipe and TorIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Felipe Leme from the Android Framework team about Autofill, a framework in Android 8.0 and later which provides assistance with completing forms such as passwords and credit card numbers.…

87: ARrrrrrrr

Feb 22, 2018

Dushan, Romain, Chet, and Tor position themselves in correct order for the caption to make senseIn this episode, Romain, Chet, and Tor talk with Dushan Leska from the Daydream team, which works on immersive computing. His team is currently focused on AR…

86: It’s gr8!

Jan 26, 2018

Tor, Chet, and Jeffrey admire the pristine beauty of the recording studioIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Jeffrey van Gogh from the Tools team. Jeffrey works on R8 and D8. D8 (available in Android Studio 3.0, but off by default) is the replacement…

85: Focus on Audio

Dec 20, 2017

Romain, Jean-Michel, and Tor. Chet is in the distant background (~2,500 miles west of the studio.)In this episode, Romain and Tor talk with Jean-Michel Trivi from the Android audio team. Tune in to learn about hardware speaker design, ducking and…

84: Instant Apps

Nov 29, 2017

Tor, Chet, and PatrickIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Patrick Baumann from the Instant Apps team. We cover everything from Instant to Apps. Links: AIA docs: http://g.co/instantappsDeveloper stories:…

83: The Deal of the ART

Nov 15, 2017

In which Chet and Tor Romain Guy talk with Nicolas Geoffray from the ART team about runtime performance, including various optimizations in the Oreo release. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links Performance and Memory…

82: Tooling Around

Nov 8, 2017

Tor, Chet and Romain discussing studios In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor discuss the recently released Android Studio 3.0, the upcoming 3.1 preview release, KotlinConf, and whatever else happened to be on their mind last week. Subscribe to the…

81: Gradle Sync

Nov 6, 2017

Tor, Alex, and Chet in the Android-related StudioIn this episode, Chet and Tor sync with Alex Ruiz on Gradle, and in particular, the IDE integration of Gradle into Android Studio, past and upcoming performance work, the project structure dialog, APK…

80: Crash Talk

Oct 31, 2017

In which Chet and Tor Dan Sandler talk with Andrea Falcone and Matt Willis from the Crashlytics team about (wait for it…) Crashlytics! Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links Crashlytics for Android Andrea: @asfalcone…

79: Picking Up Garbage

Oct 18, 2017

David, Mathieu, and ChetIn this episode, Chet talks with David Sehr and Mathieu Chartier from the Android Runtime (ART) team, primarily about garbage collection as well as other recent ART improvements in O. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the…

78: Notification Explication

Sep 28, 2017

In this episode, Chet and Tor Dan Sandler talk with Julia Reynolds from the Android System UI team about Notifications: channels, Do-Not-Disturb, Dots, … it’s all here. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links Notification…

77: Android Internals with Effie Barak

Sep 11, 2017

Tor, Effie, ChetIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Effie Barak from Pinterest about Android internals and about measuring and improving app performance. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links Android in Tanenbaum’s…

76: Kotlin-n-stuff

Sep 1, 2017

Romain, Chet, Jake!, and TorIn this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor talk with Jake Wharton about his new role as an engineer on the Android team at Google, and about Kotlin in particular. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.…

75: Project Treble - for the HAL of it

Aug 17, 2017

Iliyan, Romain, Chet, and a complete lack of Tor.In this episode, Chet and Romain (no Tor in sight. Anyone seen Tor? He was on the calendar appointment, totally expected him to show) talked with Iliyan Malchev from the Treble project. Treble was…

74: Graphics

Aug 4, 2017

Chet, Romain, Mathias, and Tor (not pictured) in the very fancy and highly-decorated recording studioIn this episode, Chet and Tor Romain talk with Mathias Agopian, who has worked on (or been the entirety of) the Android graphics team since before Android…

73: Architecture Components 2 - Persistence

Jul 18, 2017

Sergei, 3D Chet, Tor, 2D Chet, and Yigit.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk [more] with Yigit Boyar and Sergei Vasilinetc about the new Architecture Components project that was announced at Google I/O. In particular, we talk about Persistence. This is a…

72: Architecture Components 1 - Lifecycle

Jun 30, 2017

Yigit, 2D Chet, Tor, 3D Chet, and Sergei.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Yigit Boyar and Sergei Vasilinetc about the new Architecture Components project that was announced at Google I/O. In particular, we talk about the Lifecycle part of…

71: Things

Jun 23, 2017

Chet, Lee, Ari, and Tor, in repose.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Lee Campbell and Ari Hausman-Cohen from the Android Things team about that project and IoT in general. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links…

70: Color

Jun 19, 2017

Chet, Romain, and Tor in the totally professional recording studioIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Romain Guy about color, spanning topics from how color works (on devices and in our eyes) to specific color technologies/specifications like sRGB and…

69: IO IO

Jun 5, 2017

Dan, Chet, Chiu-Ki, Chris, Huyen, Mark, Corey, and KaushikIn this episode, Chet and !Tor talked with a veritable mob of Android app developers about interesting stuff from Google I/O 17 and in the Android O preview release. Subscribe to the podcast feed…

68: Profiler

Jun 2, 2017

Tor, Esteban and Chet in the Studio.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Esteban de la Canal about the new profiling tools in Android Studio 3.0. Join us to hear about the CPU profiler, the memory profiler, the network profiler, allocation tracking,…

67: Fontastic

May 24, 2017

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk talks with Clara Bayarri and Alan Viverette about downloadable fonts, fonts in XML, EmojiCompat, and other new features in the v26 beta 1 release of the Android Support Library. All of these features were revealed and…

66: Kotlin!

May 18, 2017

Tor, Yigit, Chet, and Romain, in our very fancy ADB recording studioIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Romain Guy and Yigit Boyar about Kotlin, Android’s new officially supported language. Join us to hear a free-ranging discussion about various…

65: Emulator

May 4, 2017

Chet, Huan, Jamal and TorIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Jamal Eason and Huan Ren from the Android tools team about the emulator. Tune in learn whether you should use the 32 bit or the 64 bit system images, and more. Subscribe to the podcast feed…

64: Gradleweiss

Apr 17, 2017

Chet, Jerome, Xav, Tor, and Gradle (not pictured).In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Xavier Ducrohet and Jerome Dochez from the Android Studio team. We talk about gradle, gradle, and gradle. And then some more about gradle, rounding out the dicussion…

63: Dagger

Feb 22, 2017

Chet, Gregory and Tor in the darkIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Gregory Kick from the Java Core Libraries team at Google about Dagger, as well as Auto, AutoValue and Guava. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links…

62: It Depends

Feb 7, 2017

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Alan Viverette and Chris Banes about random things about the Support Library: releases, AppCompat, drawables, Night mode, gradle, support lib modularization, and more. Will it answer all of your Support Lib…

61: Kernel Panic

Jan 13, 2017

In this episode, Chet speaks with Rom Lemarchand from the Android Systems team. Tune in to hear about the new A/B system updates, kernel patches and much more. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links A/B system updates…

60: Huyen Tue Dao

Dec 16, 2016

In this episode, Chet goes Tor-less and speaks with Huyen Tue Dao, an Android developer at Trello, about conferences, learning new things in Android, and Constraint Layout. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links Loving…

59: Buncha New Stuff

Dec 1, 2016

Chet and Tor. Just Chet and Tor. Nobody else.In this episode, Chet and Tor find themselves without a guest so they spend the episode talking about three new releases: Android N MR1, support library, and Android Studio 2.3 Canary. Subscribe to the podcast…

58: Quick Settings

Nov 10, 2016

Chet, Jason, and Tor, not necessarily in that order. You can see, in the background, the beautifully appointed high-tech recording studio where the magic happens.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Jason Monk from the System UI team about various…

57: Espresso Test Recorder

Oct 21, 2016

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Stas Negara from the Firebase team about the Espresso Test Recorder, a feature in Android Studio which lets you easily record Android UI tests. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.…

56: In The Beginning

Oct 5, 2016

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Ficus Kirkpatrick about the early days of Android. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Ficus: google.com/+FicusKirkpatrick, @ficus Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase Tor:…

55: Glide

Aug 31, 2016

Chet, Sam and RomainIn this episode, Chet and Romain talk with Sam Judd from the Google Photos team about Glide, an image loading and caching library, and its use in the Photos app. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Links:…

54: AAPT

Aug 10, 2016

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Adam Lesinski from the Android framework team. Adam works on aapt (Android Asset Packaging Tool), which compiles the resources used by the framework and for apps. Listen in to learn more about how it works, as well…

53: ADB on ADB

Jul 20, 2016

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Elliott Hughes from the native tools and libraries team. He and his team work on ADB, the NDK, and a host of other important low-level Android tools. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file…

52: Multi Window of Opportunity

Jul 6, 2016

Rob, Chet, and Tor in our totally professional recording studio with sophisticated sound baffling equipment.In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Rob Carr from the window manager team about… Multi-Window! We also talk about application lifecycle,…

51: Swisstem UI

Jun 24, 2016

Chet, Tor, Jorim, Selim and AdrianIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Jorim Jaggi, Selim Cinek and Adrian Roos from the System UI team about all the “math-gic” behind the animations in Lollipop, Marshmallow and N. Favorite quote: “Hopefully works…

50: Constraint Layout

Jun 2, 2016

Chet, Tor, Romain, Nicolas and John (mysteriously shadowed)In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Romain Guy, Nicolas Roard and John Hoford about the new ConstraintLayout library and layout editor. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file…

49: What’s New in N

May 20, 2016

Chet, Romain, and Tor (mysteriously shadowed)In this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Romain Guy about some of the new features in the Android N preview release. Favorite feature: “San Jose French” Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file…

48: ExoPlayer

May 10, 2016

Oliver and ChetIn this episode, Chet visits the Google’s Android office in London and chats with Oliver Woodman about ExoPlayer, an application level media player for Android. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant…

47: That Syncing Feeling

Apr 21, 2016

In this episode, Chet and Tor talk to Chris Tate from the Android framework team about cloud sync and backup, alarms and scheduling jobs. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Chris: google.com/+ChristopherTate Chet:…

46: Softwear

Mar 30, 2016

In this episode, Tor and Chet* talk with Zak Cohen from the Android Wear team in London about his work on watch faces, graphics, and many other Android projects he’s been involved with such as the movie editor, voice search and Goggles. *: Chet was not…

45: State of the ART

Mar 17, 2016

Tor, Brian, Anwar and ChetIn this episode, Chet and Tor talk with Brian Carlstrom and Anwar Ghuloum about Android N preview, and in particular the new features in ART, the Android Runtime. Listen in to find out about the changes to the JIT and AOT…

44: Power On

Mar 7, 2016

Chet, Ashish, Meghan, and Tor wait uncomfortably for the photograph to be takenIn this episode, Tor and Chet talk with Ashish Sharma and Meghan Desai from Project Volta, an initiative starting in the Android Lollipop release to improve Android battery…

43: Keyboard Input

Feb 12, 2016

In this episode, Tor and I talk with Shumin Zhai of Google Research. Shumin has worked for years in the area of language processing, specifically around user input on keyboards. Some of his work ended up in the Gesture Typing feature of the Google…

42: Tool Time

Jan 28, 2016

The fancy ADB recording studio, with our featured guest.In this episode, Tor and I talk with… each other. This episode is all about Android Studio. In particular, we talk about the latest features and massive performance improvements in the Android Studio…

41: RecyclerView

Jan 19, 2016

In this episode, we recycle our guest list to bring back a former guest, Yigit Boyar, this time to talk about the RecyclerView widget. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant Links RecyclerView Animation talk from the…

40: Material World

Dec 11, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet talk with Nicholas Jitkoff from the Material group about… Material Design. And design in general. And engineering. And splash screens. And other stuff. Favorite words: Materiality. Skiamorphic. Subscribe to the podcast feed or…

39: MIDI

Nov 19, 2015

Chet, Phil, and Tor. And a lot of totally professional sound bafflesThis time, Tor and Chet get all musical with Phil Burk from the Android Audio team. Phil worked on the new MIDI feature in the Android 6.0 Marshmallow release, and joins the podcast to…

38: Fingerprint

Nov 11, 2015

In this, er, impressive episode, Tor and Chet talk with Jim Miller from the Android System UI team. We mostly chat about the new fingerprint feature in Android 6 Marshmallow (aka, “Nexus Imprint”). But we also talk about other things like Keyguard, Setup…

37: Webview

Nov 4, 2015

Richard, Chet, Ben, and not Tor in the spacious London studioIn this Tor-less episode, Chet talks with Ben Murdoch and Richard Coles from the Android WebView team. We talk about WebView’s ability to update outside of platform releases, the transition from…

36: UX Rules

Oct 15, 2015

In this episode, we talk with Rachel Garb from the Android User Experience team. Tune in to hear about interaction design and about how the Android system UI (including the new volume slider UI in Android M) is designed and user-tested. Subscribe to the…

35: Data Bound

Oct 15, 2015

In this episode, we chat with George Mount and Yigit Boyar from the Android UI Toolkit team. Yigit and George worked on the new Data Binding feature announced at Google I/O and which is available in the preview release and in recent versions of Android…

34: Really Nearby

Sep 9, 2015

In this episode, we chat with Andrew Bunner and Akshay Kannan from the Nearby team. Nearby is a technology that allows devices that are, er, nearby to communicate in one of several ways (including ultrasonic frequencies, which is just kind of awesome).…

33: Permission Mission

Aug 20, 2015

In this episode, we chat with Ben Poiesz, a product manager on the Android framework about the exciting new Permissions model in Android M. Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly. Relevant links Android M Permissions (Google I/O…

32: Leak Canary

Jul 31, 2015

In this episode, we chat with Pierre-Yves Ricau (aka @Piwai, for his initials P and Y and for the benefit of non-French-speakers that find “Pierre-Yves” entirely too complicated to pronounce) from Square about his excellent Leak Canary tool, as well as…

31: Graphics Performance

Jul 20, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by Chris Craik from the Android UI Toolkit team. Chris took time out of his busy schedule of writing performance-testing tools and fixing graphics performance issues to talk on the podcast about, well,…

30: Android Design Library

Jul 1, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by Chris Banes (again!) to talk about the new Android Design Library, which was released at Google I/O 2015. Listen in to find out all about CoordinatorLayout, FAB, Snackbar, and more, more, more! Subscribe to the…

29: Tor vs. Chet

Jun 10, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by Chet and Tor when they are once again unexpectedly blown off by a special guest. Fortunately, there was plenty to talk about, including Google I/O, Android Studio 1.3, M Developer Preview, and the new Developing for…

28: Chiu-Ki Chat

Jun 5, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by Chiu-Ki Chan, an external developer and frequent presenter about Android developer. Hear us talk about custom views, watch faces, TextView, learning Chinese, libraries, and other random stuff. Favorite quotes: “To get…

27: A Couple of Tools

May 20, 2015

This time, Tor and Chet are joined by… nobody. Instead, we just talk among ourselves about tools. From Android Studio to performance debugging tools to IDE shortcuts to memory analysis tools to Lint rules to animation debugging tools and back to Android…

26: Fit

May 7, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Gustavo Moura from the Google Fit team. We talk about the Google Fit app, but also about the GMS Core and REST APIs that enable that application and any other application that wants to take advantage of the sensor data that…

25: Espresso

Apr 23, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Thomas Knych and Valera Zakharov from the Espresso team at Google. This episode is all about testing. We talk about how Espresso works, how Espresso came to be, how to use Espresso, and lots of other information about Espresso.…

24: Roman Holiday

Apr 10, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Roman Nurik from the Android Developer Relations team. We talk about Asset Studio to the Muzei wallpaper to Material Design to Android Studio application templates to watchfaces to icons to the Google I/O scheduling app to…

23: Re: In Car Nation

Mar 20, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Gabriel Peal from the Android Auto team. We talk about… cars! And dashboard entertainment systems, and notifications, and navigation, and the Android Auto capabilities available today. Favorite phrase: “Duck the audio” Subscribe…

22: Wear Wolves

Feb 25, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Justin Koh and Griff Hazen from the Android Wear team. We talk about watches, notifications, watch faces, data, apps, services, and All Things Wear. You could say that we wear out the topic. You probably wouldn’t, but you could.…

21: Material Designification

Feb 4, 2015

Tor and Chet are joined by Kirill Grouchnikov from the Play Store team (What, again? Don’t these guys know more than twenty developers?) about various aspects of implementing Material Design in applications, including handling releases prior to Android…

20: Fonts and Audio

Jan 14, 2015

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…

19: Android TV

Jan 6, 2015

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.…

18: Holidaze

Dec 17, 2014

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!)…

17: AppCompat

Dec 10, 2014

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…

16: Notifications

Dec 3, 2014

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…

15: Location, Location, Location

Nov 5, 2014

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,…

14: Accessibility

Oct 8, 2014

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.…

Android Developers Backstage: Episode 13: Support Library

Sep 24, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage: Episode 12: The Jake Show

Aug 27, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage: Episode 11: ART, pART 2 (Trash Talk)

Aug 7, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage: Episode 10: ART, pART 1

Jul 29, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Episode 9: Design

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Episode 8: Volley

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Episode 7: Making Apps That Work Everywhere

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Episode 6: System UI

Jul 28, 2014

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!

Android Developers Backstage- Episode 5: RenderScript

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage- Episode 4: Google Play Services

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Ep 3: Security

Jul 28, 2014

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 Developers Backstage - Ep2: Storage

Jul 28, 2014

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…

Android Developers Backstage - Episode 1: KitKat

Jul 28, 2014

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…