Android Dev Summit 2019 – my recap

Android Dev Summit 2019 – my recap

I was attending Android Dev Summit 2019 in Sunnyvale and I’d like to share my thoughts after the event. It’s my small recap of my experience. But let’s start from the beginning.

Android Dev Summit and Google I/O. Why do we need two Android events from Google?

You can’t compare these two events. They are completely different. I’m starting from this because I know that in #androiddev community it’s not obvious why do we have Android Dev Summit and why it’s not a part of Google I/O.

I’ve also been to Google I/O so I can tell the difference from my own experience.

Google I/O is probably the developer conference (especially if you are into Google’s technologies) but it’s more like a festival. I can’t compare this event to any other event I’ve been to but if you are a developer and you are focused around Google’s technologies – it’s like being at the best music festival with your favorite lineup.

If you are Android developer – Google I/O is important, but it’s focused on announcements. Of course you’ve got access to Googlers (networking is another best thing I can think of) but it’s not focused only on Android and it’s future.

Android Dev Summit is a conference focused only on Android, its framework and future. It’s organised by people directly involved in the Android development. You’ve got access to Googlers directly working on Android and all its parts (Jetpack, Play Store, Android Studio, Android for Cars…). It’s 2-day event and the goal here is to invite Android developers and give them deep technical talks about platform and coming changes to the platform. Also it’s the right moment to get feedback from them. This is important, I was surprised how all teams are open here and waiting for your feedback (greetings to Ian Lake)

For almost two days you’ve got access (Office hours) to all Android teams waiting for your questions.

If you are not attending the event in person – don’t worry – keynote is live streamed on YouTube and all other talks are shared on YouTube few days after the event. It’s one week since the event and you can already watch them here (all Android Dev Summit 2019 sessions)

Networking

Just like at Google I/O – it’s a good place to meet (new) people know only from the internet. A lot of GDEs (Google Developer Experts) and people working in companies located in Sillicon Valley area.

Breaks between talks were also really awesome – it was a perfect moment to share and exchange your thoughts with others about the topic.

Let’s get back to the main topic – Android

My favorite points from Android Dev Summit 2019

This part is especially for Android developers. I’ll skip keynote here but I think you should start watching talks from ADS from keynote to have a better overview.

If you are Android Developer, make sure to watch this:

  • Jetpack Compose
    I think everyone is following this topic and if you are Android developer you should know it’s the future. It’s good to know about upcoming changes here
  • Preparing for Scoped Storage
    This is a really big change in Android. I’m not sure why it is ignored by many Android developers. Make sure to watch this video and think how you should change your app to be ready for this.
    In my opinion it’s one of the biggest changes coming to Android. I don’t feel comfortable here with new APIs and I hope Google will give us more examples how we should use it and which API (this is my main concern).
  • LiveData with Coroutines and Flow
    I feel Flow will be trending topic on Android’s dev conferences.
  • Motion Layout
    Make sure to watch to this session (“What’s New in Android Studio Design Tools”). I think this is huge!
  • Understanding Compose
    Interesting, deep technical talk I didn’t understand when I was there. I needed to watch it again and probably I’ll do it again.
    I think it can be a game changer and we’ll see more talks about it on Android conferences.
  • Developing Themes with Style
    Crash course in themes and styles. And if you know it’s made by Nick Butcher and Chris Banes – you know it’s gonna be good. And it was it. One of my favorites.
  • What’s new in Android Studio 4.x
    I think it’s important to watch this session. Probably you are not using canary versions in Production but make sure you watch this to see what new tools you’ll get it.
  • An Opinionated Guide to Dependency Injection on Android
    OK, maybe it wasn’t real deep technical talk but you’ll learn here what’s the future of DI in Android and why you should still stick with Dagger. This is a good thing. I was waiting for this.
    TL;DR: Google knows dagger.android wasn’t the best thing they made for Android and in future they’ll try to give us better solution here. No details. I think we need to wait a while for more detailed info.
    PS. There is new codelab from Google for Dagger
  • Fragments: Past, Present, and Future
    More changes coming to Fragments. Be sure to watch it.

I was also pleasantly surprised with these talks:

If you are into Android development make sure to watch sessions from this event. Simply start from the keynote.

Report bug, use official issue tracker

This is something I also learned there. Google is listening to your feedback and there’s no better way of reporting it than official issue tracker.

If you think they are not reading it – you are wrong! It’s reporting issues on Twitter that is not working 😉

Android Auto / Android for Cars

I was looking forward to see some news regarding Android Auto / Android for Cars. Unfortunately, no news here. There was no Android Auto team present. There was only Android for Cars team presenting latest version of Android for Cars in Volvo XC40. But still the platform is closed for third party apps (other than multimedia and instant messaging).

You can see short presentation here: How to Build Media Apps for Cars (Android Dev Summit ’19)

I hope this situation will change in near future. For us, it’s the only one closed mobile platform for our navigation (Apple opened this gate before Google).

 

Some photos from the event