Android Developers Backstage

Adarsh Fernando, a Product Manager on the Android Studio team, and Arif Sukoco, a specialist in testing features, dive into the exciting advancements in Android testing. They discuss automated test snapshots that allow developers to analyze failures efficiently. The new Test Matrix tool improves testing across multiple devices, while Gradle-managed virtual devices streamline workflows. They also tackle the challenges of UI testing and the importance of robust testing strategies, emphasizing how innovation is revolutionizing the testing landscape for Android developers.

In our ongoing mini-series on Jetpack Compose, Nick and Romain talk to Clara Bayarri and Matvei Malkov about Compose’s support for Material Design. They discuss how Compose supports Material Components and Material Theming out of the box, how you can customize these to your needs or how Compose makes it easier to build your own design system. They also share insights into building reusable components with slot APIs and when to use CompositionLocals and look to the future with Compose’s planned support for Material You. Hosts Romain and Nick with Clara and Matvei.   Material components reference docs Compose Theming guide Compose Theming codelab Build beautiful Material Design apps with Jetpack Compose Google I/O talk Compose Learning Pathway Clara: @clarabayarri Matvei: @matvei_jj Romain: @romainguy Nick: @crafty

In this second episode of our mini-series on Jetpack Compose (AD/BC) Nick and Romain are joined by Anastasia Soboleva, George Mount and Mihai Popa to talk about Compose’s layout system. They explain how the Compose layout model works and its benefits, introduce common layout composables, discuss how writing your own layout is far simpler than Views and how you can even animate layout. Hosts Romain and Nick are joined by Anastasia, George and Mihai and producers Daniel and Jessica 👋   Compose Layouts guide Compose Layouts codelab Layout composable Layout modifier Foundation Layouts & Modifiers (Row, Column, Box etc) Intrinsic size example Compose Learning Pathway   Anastasia: @nastia_05 George: @georgemount1 Mihai: @mihaipopa12 Romain: @romainguy Nick: @crafty

In this episode, Chad and Jeff from the Android Security team join Tor and Romain to talk about… security. Chad and Jeff explain what the platform does to help preserve user trust and device integrity, why it sometimes means restricting existing APIs, and touch on what apps can do or should worry about.   App security best practices Security tips Security with HTTPS and SSL   Chad: @chadbrubaker__ Jeff: @jeffvanderstoep Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye

In this episode, Chet and Romain welcome Hunter and Nick from the Material Design team. Material Design was originally introduced when Android 5.0 came out and has come a long way since then. Our guests will give you an overview of some of the recent additions and improvements to the Material Design Component libraries: transitions, motion theming, Compose, large screens support and guidance, etc.   Material Design website Material You What’s new with Material at I/O Material Design Components for Android Material Motion with MDC   Hunter: @hunter_stich Nick: @ricknout Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy

This episode is the first in the new mini-series “ADBC” on Jetpack Compose, hosted by Nick Butcher, in which we will dive deep into different topics in Android’s future UI toolkit. This time, Nick and Chet talked with Adam Powell and Leland Richardson about the Compose compiler, the runtime, data flow, and that nifty feature where Compose knows when to call your Composable based on changes in data state.   Also check out: Thinking in Compose Compose State Guide Compose State Codelab Lifecycle of composables Side-effects in Compose Compose Learning Pathway   Adam: @adamwp Leland: @intelligibabble Nick: @crafty Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye

In this episode, we talk with Nat Duca and Sumir Kataria from the Android graphics team about the graphics stack -- covering shaders, GPUs, Vulkan, OpenGL, ANGLE, drivers, blur, pixels and of course Chet's favorite topic; colors.  Hosts Tor, Chet and Romain on the top row and guests Nat and Sumir on the bottom row   If you're ever wanted to know how to pronounce "hwui", tune in!   Sumir: @SumirKodes Nat: Link Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye

Cowardly abandoned by Chet and Romain, Tor faces three guests alone. Jeffrey van Gogh, Ting-Yuan Huang, and Yigit Boyar join Tor to talk about Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP), a new, faster, and better tool to replace annotation processors. You will learn how KSP works, what it can do, why it was created, and how it is used in the Room Jetpack library. Tor, Ting-Yuan, Jeffrey, and Yigit, all looking amazingly happy to discuss annotation and symbol processing   KSP announcement KSP GitHub project How to get started with KSP Libraries with KSP support Jetpack Room   Jeffrey: @jvgogh Yigit: @yigitboyar Tor: @tornorbye

This time, Tor, Chet, and Romain talked with Rohit Sathyanarayana and Florina Muntenescu about the DataStore library. DataStore is the replacement for SharedPreferences, being better for many reasons (it's asynchronous and avoids blocking the UI thread, it is type-safe). It not only has a similar/simple key-value pair API like SharedPreferences, but also has more powerful API as well. It's currently in alpha, but look for it to be the recommended approach soon as it approaches stable. Florina, Romain, Chet, Daniel (ADB audio producer, in person!), Tor, and Rohi Article: Using DataStore in Kotlin Serialization Docs: Docs Codelab: Preferences Datastore codelab Codelab: Proto Datastore codelab Florina: @FMuntenescu Rohit: @rohitsat123 Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye

In this episode, Romain, Chet and Tor sit down with Brian Carlstrom and Nicolas Geoffray to discuss their work on ART (the Android Runtime). Brian and Nicolas describe the early prototypes and bringup of ART, getting it production ready, as well as recent developments such as cloud profiles. Chet, Brian and Romain on the top row, and Tor and Nicolas below Brian: https://carlstrom.com Chet: @chethaase Romain: @romainguy Tor: @tornorbye