What’s new in Android
Google I/O 2019
One of the most amazing things about Google I/O is the livestream/video portion of the event. It’s great if you can make it in person to the event, especially because we get to talk to you to see what problems or questions you have. But not everyone can get a ticket, or travel, or take the time away from their code. So we live-stream nearly all of the content and publish recordings of all of the technical sessions to make sure that everyone everywhere can see the presentations and get the highlights of the conference and the current state of Android.
In recent years, the production team has gotten so good at their job that the videos are posted very soon after the talks are done. One of these years, they’ll be posting the recordings sooner than the actual presentations, which would be a lot less effort for the speakers.
But the problem, I’ve found, with so much video content is… there’s so much video content. If I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for in the various YouTube playlists, it’s going to take a while to find it, or I might just give up and go back to watching cat videos. (They’re so cute, amiright?)
So I thought I’d take a run this year at trying to curate a playlist for Android developers, to try to categorize what we presented at the conference to help you find what things you might want to watch, linking in other related content where appropriate. Maybe I’m late to the game, with I/O now two months over, but hopefully it’s still useful to those procrastinators (or even amateur crastinators) among you that haven’t gotten around to your I/O watching yet.
If this is helpful, we can try to do this in the future. If not, maybe I’ll keep doing it for my own playlisting pleasure; I’m going to wade through the list of videos anyway, I might as well try to understand what’s where for future viewing and popcorning.
So here it is, my 2019 Android I/O Playlist, categorized. Some sessions show up multiple times, where their content overlapped categories or I just couldn’t make up my mind. Some session have descriptions where I felt like they were needed, but most sessions have titles which suffice.
Playlists
- Google I/O 2019 All Sessions
For those developers that aren’t just about Android - Android & Play at Google I/O 2019
All of the Android sessions
Keynotes
- Google Keynote
Internally, we call this the Consumer Keynote - Developer Keynote
Developer highlights for Android… and everything else
Overviews
Usually, you want the technical details from deeper dives, but overview sessions help explain the Big Picture of what’s going on, and where to look for those detailed bits.
- What’s New in Android
I try not to miss this one, especially since my co-speakers would be very upset if I did.
We try to give a really broad overview of most of the things developers should care about in the platform and Jetpack libraries, complete with links to related talks and other resources. - What’s New in Android Development Tools
There are many Tools sessions (below), but this one gives a broad overview of the new features. - What’s New in Google Play
Various policy changes and distribution features, like in-app updates.
Jetpack
Jetpack offers compatibility APIs that allow new functionality to work on older releases without those pesky API checks, and introduces new libraries for development that work as far back as API level 14. These sessions include talks on architecture components and other utility libraries, along with general Jetpack architectural guidance.
- What’s New in Architecture Components
So many things are happening with Architecture Components: Lifecycles, Room, Paging, Navigation, WorkManager, …. It’s good to have an overview to get things straight, especially for some of the pieces not covered in dedicated sessions. - Android Jetpack: Understand the CameraX Camera-Support Library
CameraX is a new library (currently in alpha) to make camera app development much easier, and works consistently back to version Lollipop. - Jetpack Navigation
Navigation went 1.0 this year; this is a good overview for using the API and tool. - Build a Modular Android App Architecture
This session isn’t specific to Jetpack or Architecture Components, but is rather a guide to modern android app architecture (using some of the pieces that Jetpack provides along the way). - Improving App Performance with Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a new Jetpack library that you can use to help test and improve performance in your app.
Tools (AndroidStudio)
An IDE is the front line of development. These sessions talk about improvements in Android tools as well as ways you can improve your use of the features the tools offer.
- What’s New in Android Development Tools
- What’s New in Constraint Layout
- What’s New in Android Studio UI Design and Debugging Tools
- Build Bigger, Better: Gradle for Large Projects
- Android Studio: Tips and Tricks
- What’s New in the Android Studio Build System
- Best Practices in Using the Android Emulator
Kotlin
Android announced Kotlin as a supported language two years ago and we’re increasing our investment in Kotlin training and APIs; it might be time to check out that new language and see how it works.
- What’s New in Kotlin on Android, 2 Years In
- Understand Kotlin Coroutines on Android
- Kotlin Under the Hood: Understand the Internals
Not so much how to use the language, but rather how some of the magical features of the language work, and when you should (or shouldn’t) use them.
UI
UI development on Android encompasses everything from the UI Toolkit APIs to System UI to new development libraries aiming to simplify app development.
- Declarative UI Patterns
This presentation is about the declarative paradigm of UI programming used by Jetpack Compose, an in-development API for Android UI programming. - Motional Intelligence: Build Smarter Animations
- What’s New in the Android OS User Interface
Details on System UI features like Bubbles and notifications. - Dark Theme & Gesture Navigation
- Best Practices for Using Text in Android
Platform
These talks are about changes or functionality in the Android core platform, including the framework APIs, the Android runtime (ART), the NDK, and media. There are several important privacy-related changes in the Q preview release; those changes are covered in three different platform sessions.
- Overview of Privacy Changes in Android Q
- Updating Your Apps for Location Permission Changes in Android Q
Privacy-related changes - What’s New in Shared Storage
Privacy-related changes - Understanding Android Runtime (ART) for Faster Apps
- Security on Android: What’s Next
- Sonic Boom! Audio Programming on Android and Chrome
- What’s New in Android C++ Development
Hear about improvements to the NDK. - Android Memory and Games
Memory management can be especially tricky for games; this session talks about how Android memory works and the tools we offer to help. - Android Fireside Chat
Open Q&A on random topics in Android development, platform, and ecosystem.
Accessibility
With so many talks this year on accessibility, a core platform feature, they get their very own category outside of Platform.
- What’s New in Android Accessibility
- Demystifying Android Accessibility Development
- Accessible Audio: Android Hearing Aid Support and the Audio Framework
- Chrome OS Accessibility for Android Developers
Play
These talks are about the features, APIs, and functionality of the Google Play Store, which can be used for better distribution of your applications.
- What’s New in Google Play
Various policy changes and distribution features, like in-app updates. - Improve Your App and Game Quality with Android Vitals
- Customizable Delivery with the App Bundle and Easy Sharing of Test Builds
- New Tools to Optimize Your App’s Size and Boost Installs on Google Play
- App Growth Best Practices and Decision-Making with the Google Play Console
- What’s New with Google Play Billing
- Unleash the Power of Play Store Discovery
Other (non-Phone) Form Factors
Android isn’t just on phones. What about laptops (Chrome OS)? TVs? Auto? ….
- What’s New with Android for Cars
The latest information about Android Auto - How to Build Android Apps for Cars
- Best Practices for Developing on Android TV
- Build Apps for Foldable, Multi-Display, and Large-Screen Devices
- Building Android Apps for the Chrome OS Ecosystem
- Chrome OS Accessibility for Android Developers
Games
There were various talks about games and game development. Some of these cross-over into general Android performance topics, some are specific to game concerns.
- Android Memory and Games
Memory management can be especially tricky for games; this session talks about how Android memory works and the tools we offer to help. - Making High Fidelity Android Games Possible with Vulkan
- Optimizing Android Games Performance
- Adapting Android Games Beyond the Phone
Taking games to different form factors, like ChromeOS and Android TV. - The State of Unity on Android
- Large Scale Multiplayer Gaming with Open Source
- From Systrace to Safetynet: Android Game Development Case Studies
Other
This is my “miscellaneous” bucket, which includes sessions that didn’t fit easily into one of the other categories, probably because they’re the only one in a category (like Testing, or ML).
- Add Serverless Functionality to Android Apps with Firebase
- Best Practices for Using Sign-In for Android Apps
- Improve Digital Wellbeing: Google’s Approach and Tips for Developers
- What’s New in Android Machine Learning
ML Kit, TensorFlow… hear about what’s happening with all of this ML stuff. - Build Apps for the Next Billion Users
- Build Testable Apps for Android
- Android Emergency Location Service: Locating Emergency Calls in a Wireless World
That’s it, that’s all of them. There’s obviously a ton of other great Android developer content to consume as well. But if Google I/O Android sessions were what you were after, these are them. So grab some popcorn and stream some developer talks.
