Episode 40: Material World

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 download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Material Design
Zombo

Nicholas: google.com/+NicholasJitkoffJ, @alcor
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Thanks to continued tolerance and support by our audio engineer, Bryan Gordon.

Episode 39: MIDI

Chet, Phil, and Tor. And a lot of totally professional sound baffles

This 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 talk about MIDI (history as well as Android implementation), electronic music, and other audio-related topics.

Bryan said it was his favorite episode so far. But then Bryan's an audio engineer, so he might be slightly biased.

Android MIDI: It's music to our ears.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Android MIDI
MidiSynth Example
More Examples
HMSL
Larry Polansky

Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Thanks to continued tolerance and support by our audio engineer, Bryan Gordon.

Episode 38: Fingerprint

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 Wizard, widgets, notifications, and greasy chicken parts.

"UIs, like fingerprints, are all unique."

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Fingerprint Authentication
FingerprintManager
Fingerprint Dialog Example
Fingerprint and Payments APIs (Video)

Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Thanks to continued tolerance and support by our audio engineer, Bryan Gordon.

Episode 37: Webview

Richard, Chet, Ben, and not Tor in the spacious London studio

In 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 the original WebView to the new Chromium WebView widget, about some of the new features and APIs in recent releases, and about cute kitten bitmaps.

Tor didn't have much to say, about kittens or anything else.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Beta Channel for Android WebView
Google+ Beta Channel Community
Bug Tracker
Chrome Dev Tools
WebView API


Ben Murdoch: google.com/+BenMurdoch, @ksasq
Richard Coles: google.com/+RichardColesGoogle
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Also, thanks to continued support by Bryan Gordon, our audio engineer who puts this stuff together every time.

Episode 36: UX Rules

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 podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Material Design Spec
Android Design for Success (Google I/O 2012)
Don't Make Me Think (Steve Krug)
The Inmates are Running the Asylum (Alan Cooper)

Rachel: google.com/+RachelGarb, medium.com/@rachelgarb, @rachelgarb
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Episode 35: Data Bound

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 Studio.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Data Binding Guide

George Mount: https://plus.google.com/+GeorgeMount007
Yigit Boyar: https://plus.google.com/111851968937104436377, @yigitboyar
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Episode 34: Really Nearby

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).

Favorite bits: "beeps and boops" (a technical term), "acoustical chamber" (sounds a lot cooler than it probably is), and the three most important things about Nearby: proximity, proximity, proximity.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Nearby Product Overview

Andrew: google.com/+AndrewBunner
Akshay: google.com/+AkshayKannan
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 33: Permission Mission

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 2015)
M Preview Permissions Overview

Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 32: Leak Canary

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 other topics he's interested in -- presenting, dependency injection, and crash reporting.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.


Relevant links

Leak Canary blog post
Leak Canary Github project
MAT (Memory Analyzer Tool)
Dagger2

Pierre-Yves Ricau: twitter.com/Piwai
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 31: Graphics Performance

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, performance-testing tools and graphics performance issues.

Listen in to learn about graphics performance tips, tricks, and tools.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
Systrace
Framestats
Android Performance Patterns
Glide

Chris:
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 30: Android Design Library

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 podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
Chris's blog
Android Design Library Demo
Android Design Support Library (Android Developers Blog)

Chris: google.com/+ChrisBanes
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 29: Tor vs. Chet

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 Android series of articles.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
What's New in Android (I/O talk)
What's New in Android Development Tools (I/O talk)
Android M Permissions (I/O talk)
Android M Developer Preview
M Developer Preview Bug Feedback
Android Studio (latest)
Developing for Android (Introduction + Contents)

Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 28: Chiu-Ki Chat

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 room temperature water, mix cold water and hot water."
"Bust out that paper."

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
Fit Cat
Technically Speaking newsletter
Android Custom Components
Advanced Android TextView
Monkey Write
Key promoter (Intellij plugin)
Watch face samples
https://github.com/googlesamples/android-WatchFace
https://watchface-codelab.appspot.com

Chiu-Ki: https://twitter.com/chiuki
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 27: A Couple of Tools

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 Studio, we talk about lots of tools and then some.

Favorite quotes:
"How do you learn IntelliJ power commands?"
"You just have to read the source code."

"We have a Lint rule for that."
(This should be Tor's superhero catch phrase if it's not already)


IDE shortcuts: Killing the joy of programming one keystroke at a time.


Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
(Not many links this time; the best way to learn about the various tools is to use them)
Android Studio

Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 26: Fit

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 those APIs provide.

Getting Fit, one step at a time.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:
Google Fit Developer Documentation
Recording Fitness Data
Working with the Fitness History
Google Fit Developers G+ Community
Google Fit Developer Challenge

Gustavo: google.com/+GustavoMouraGoogle
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 25: Espresso

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. And UI testing in general.

Favorite quote:
"What does failure look like?"

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:

Automating UI Tests: https://developer.android.com/training/testing/ui-testing/index.html
Espresso Setup: https://developer.android.com/training/testing/ui-testing/espresso-testing.html#setup
Espresso source: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/testing/+/android-support-test/espresso
Presentation on Espresso from GTAC 2013: https://youtu.be/T7ugmCuNxDU
Presentation on UI Testing from GTAC 2014: https://youtu.be/aHcmsK9jfGU
Info on contributing: https://plus.google.com/wm/1/+StephanLinzner/posts/K32UgdSRYwe
Espresso Cheat Sheet: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/googlesamples/android-testing/master/downloads/espresso-cheat-sheet-2.1.0.png
Espresso Samples: https://github.com/googlesamples/android-testing/tree/master/espresso
Roboelectric: http://robolectric.org/
Unit Testing: http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/unit-testing-support
Hamcrest: http://hamcrest.org/
UIAutomator: https://developer.android.com/tools/testing-support-library/index.html#UIAutomator
Robotium: https://github.com/RobotiumTech/robotium

Thomas: plus.google.com/115763363280582609147
Valera: plus.google.com/+ValeraZakharov
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 24: Roman Holiday

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 Android application design to the FORM conference. I guess he's been busy.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links:

Dashclock: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roman.dashclock
DashClock Code: https://code.google.com/p/dashclock/
Muzei: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roman.muzei
Muzei Code: https://github.com/romannurik/muzei
Android Asset Studio: http://romannurik.github.io/AndroidAssetStudio/
Android Design Preview: https://github.com/romannurik/AndroidDesignPreview
Android Wear Watchfaces: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/watch-faces/index.html
FORM: http://www.google.com/design/form/
Google I/O App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.samples.apps.iosched
Google I/O App Code: https://github.com/google/iosched
Material Design: http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html

Roman: google.com/+RomanNurik
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 23: Re: In Car Nation

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 to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.


Relevant Links:

Android Auto Developer Site: http://developer.android.com/auto/index.html
Consumer Site: http://www.android.com/auto/

Gabriel: google.com/+GabrielPeal8 or on Twitter: @gpeal8
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 22: Wear Wolves

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.

Favorite word:
"Transflective"

Favorite phrase:
"Eventually consistent"

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.


Relevant Links:

Overview of Wear Development: http://developer.android.com/wear
Creating a Wearable App: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/creating.html
Android Wear UI: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/apps/layouts.html
Android Wear Suppor Lib Reference: http://developer.android.com/reference/packages-wearable-support.html
Watchfaces API: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/watch-faces/index.html
Data APIs: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/data-layer/index.html

Griff: google.com/+GriffHazen
Justin: google.com/+JustinKoh
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 21: Material Designification

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 5.0 Lollipop.

Favorite quote:
"It's like redesigning the whole pig"

Least favorite quote:
"Boooongggggg!"
(I really need to learn where the edge of the metal table is when I'm moving a bottle of water. At least after I hit it the first time.)

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.


Relevant Links:

Material Design: http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html
Creating Apps with Material Design: http://developer.android.com/training/material/index.html
Roboto: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto

Kirill: google.com/+KirillGrouchnikov
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 20: Fonts and Audio

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.synthesizer
Synthesizer Source: https://github.com/raphlinus/music-synthesizer-for-android
High Performance Audio on Android (Google I/O 2013): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3kfEeMZ65c

Raph: google.com/+RaphLevien
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase

Episode 19: Android TV

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