Android Developers Backstage

By Android Developers

What's Android Developers Backstage about?

Android Backstage, a podcast by and for Android developers. Hosted by developers from the Android engineering team, this show covers topics of interest to Android programmers, with in-depth discussions and interviews with engineers on the Android team at Google.

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Android Developers Backstage episodes:

03.26.2024
Episode 205: Time for Playtime
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk with Aurash Mahbod from the Play Games team at Google -- covering trends in mobile games, challenges for Android games developers, console games, and more! Chapters: Intro (00:00) What’s Aurash working...
02.21.2024
Episode 204: Fan’otations
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk about one of Tor’s favorite topics: Lint! Specifically, we talk about Lint checks and the annotations that use them to enable better, more robust, and more self-documenting APIs. Lint: It’s not just...
12.21.2023
Episode 203: (W)rap
In this episode, Tor, Romain, and Chet talk about some of the many things that happened this year in the world of Android development, including new devices and form factors, tool improvements, AndroidX features and libraries, and Jetpack Compose releases....
11.01.2023
Episode 202: AndroidX, Gradle and Metalava
In this episode, Tor and Romain chat with Aurimas Liutikas from the AndroidX team. Topics include performance tuning the AndroidX Gradle builds using configuration caching, local caching and remote caching, as well as tracking API compatibility using the Metalava tool....
09.21.2023
Episode 201: Firebase in Android Studio
In this episode, Tor and Romain chat with Greg Baker and Joe Baker-Malone about exciting new Android Studio features made possible by Firebase integration. Physical device streaming allows you to connect remotely to physical devices hosted in Google’s secure data...
08.15.2023
Episode 200: WebGPU
In this episode, Chet and Romain speak with Ken Russell and Corentin Wallez from the WebGPU team. WebGPU is a new API that brings modern GPU rendering and compute functionality to web and other platforms (including Android!). We talk about...
07.18.2023
Episode 199: Compose performance
This time, Romain, Tor, and Chet talk with Leland Richardson, George Mount, and Chuck Jazdzewski from the Jetpack Compose team about performance. The team has been looking at performance issues recently and discusses what they’ve found, what gotchas lie in...
06.26.2023
Episode 198: Location location location, revisited
Since our original episode on location nearly nine years ago, a lot has happened in the location support for Android. In this episode, Wyatt Riley and Roy Want answer all of Tor's questions about how it works and cover recent...
05.17.2023
Episode 197: Studio Bot
You saw it at Google I/O - now you can hear about it in the comfort of your own headphones! Tor, Romain, and Chet talk with Siva Velusamy and Sandhya Mohan from the Android Studio team about the just-launched Studio...
03.22.2023
Episode 196: Android Studio, behind the scenes
Raluca Sauciuc joins Tor and Romain to talk about what goes on behind the scenes in Android Studio. Raluca takes us through the tools and workflows used by the Android Studio team to improve performance and memory usage, and avoid...
02.15.2023
Episode 195: Mainlining
Chet and Romain talk to Jeff Hamilton and Anton Hansson from the Mainline team about "modular system components", and the new SDK extension framework which lets developers access them. Anton Hansson top right, and Jeff Hamilton bottom left, with...
01.17.2023
Episode 194: Subtext
This time, Tor, Romain, and Chet were joined by Siyamed Sinir and Sean McQuillan from the Android Text team to talk about, well, text. Which, it turns out, is a very deep, complicated, and constantly evolving technology. The conversation covered...
12.22.2022
Episode 193: Kotlin
In this episode, James Ward joins Chet, Tor, and Romain to talk about Kotlin. We talked about Kotlin Multiplatform (both KMP and KMM) and what’s coming for Kotlin in 2023, especially the new K2 frontend. James, Tor, Romain, and...
11.21.2022
Episode 192: The Path Forward
This time, Romain and Chet ditched Tor so that they could geek out about graphics, talking about paths, Bézier curves, morphing, and more. Romain and Chet alone in the recording Studio. Links: V9: Vector 9-patches Pathway: Path...
11.11.2022
Episode 191: Compose Lazy Layouts
We recorded episode 191 from the studio in the London office, where Rebecca Franks from the developer relations team joined Chet as a guest host. We talked with Andrei Shikov, Matvei Malkov, and Andrey Kulikov from the Jetpack Compose engineering...
11.04.2022
Episode 190: Performance Review
In this episode, Tor and Chet learn some more about performance from Carmen. Carmen works on the Android Platform Performance team and is an expert on everything related to performance. This is the perfect episode for you if you ever...
09.22.2022
Episode 189: Video Conference
In this episode (the first in-studio-with-guests recording since early 2020!), Tor and Chet spoke with Marc Bächinger, Toni Heidenreich, and Andrew Lewis from the Android Media team, where they work on video technologies and APIs like ExoPlayer. We talked about...
09.01.2022
Episode 188: Android 13
It’s our first episode back in the studio, and in a new, shiny studio too! In this episode, we talk about some of our favorite new features and changes of the new version of Android, both for users and developers....
07.25.2022
Episode 187: System UI: A Retrospective
“Our job isn’t to remove complexity, but to manage it”- Glen Murphy (as remembered by Dan) In this episode, we talk with Dan Sandler and Adam Cohen from the SystemUI team. We dip into a bit of history, talking about...
06.08.2022
Episode 186: Live Edit
In this episode, we talk with Alan and Esteban from Android Studio about the new "Live Edit" feature recently launched at Google I/O in the Electric Eel canary build. We dive into the technology -- how it works, what the...
05.03.2022
Episode 185: Play Store
In this episode we chat with Jon and Andrew from the Play team about the Play Store app. The Play Store recently went through a major refactoring of their app, and Jon and Andrew will guide you through the reasons...
04.05.2022
Episode 184: Skia and AGSL - Shaders of Things to Come
In this episode we chat with Derek and Brian from the Skia team about Skia, pixel shaders, and the new “AGSL” API that lets you provide pixel shaders for advanced graphics effects, which was recently added to the preview release...
02.25.2022
Episode 183: Baseline Profiles
In this episode we chat with Rahul and Leland from the Android toolkit team about "baseline profiles", a new mechanism which lets applications ship with profiling metadata used at application install time to make it start faster. We discuss how...
02.01.2022
Episode 182: Large screens are a big deal
In this episode, Clara (Android Toolkit), Florina (Android Developer Relations), and Daniel (Android Product Management) join your usual hosts to talk about large screens, what they are and what they mean for app developers. You will also learn about the...
01.11.2022
Episode 181: Architecture → Fewer bugs at the end
In this episode, we chat with Yigit Boyar (again!) from the Android Toolkit Team and Manuel Vivo from the Developer Relations team about application architecture. The team has released new architecture guidance, and we talk about that guidance here, as...
12.16.2021
Episode 180: Kotlin Magic Platform
In this episode, we chat with Yigit Boyar from the Android Toolkit Team about Kotlin multi platform, while Romain provides light background music on his piano.Yigit: @yigitboyar Romain: @romainguy Chet: @chethaase Tor: @tornorbye Subscribe to Android Developers...
11.30.2021
Episode 179: Flibberty Widget
In this episode, Chet and Romain talked with Nicole McWilliams and Petr Čermák from the London engineering office about their work on App Widgets and Digital Wellbeing. Romain: @romainguy Chet: @chethaase Tor: @tornorbye Nicole: @nicolelaure Subscribe...
11.15.2021
Episode 178: Hosts 3, Guests 0
In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor sit down to chat about the Android DevSummit, and in particular all the new features arriving in Android Studio, along with a few other topics like Chet's new jank stats library, the Android...
10.18.2021
Episode 177: Honor every photon
In this episode, Bart Wronski takes Tor, Romain, and Chet through the camera pipeline that powers the Pixel phones. We talked about how cameras capture images, and how the algorithms responsible for Pixel’s beautiful images work. If you’ve ever wondered...
09.27.2021
Episode 176: Android 12 - S stands for System UI
In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor have a chat with Selim, Vadim and Lucas from the Android system UI team, discussing many of the new features in Android 12's user interface. Top row: Vadim, Selim and Romain. Bottom...
09.14.2021
Episode 175: Lottie
In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor have a chat with Gabriel Peal from Tonal, well known for his contributions to the Android community on projects such as Mavericks and Lottie. We talked about Lottie and how it helps designers...
09.09.2021
Episode 174: Compose tooling
In this episode, Tor and Nick are joined by Chris Sinco, Diego Perez and Nicolas Roard to discuss the features added to Android Studio for Jetpack Compose. They discuss the Compose preview, interactive preview, animation inspector and additions to the...
08.26.2021
Episode 173: More benchmarking
In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor talk with Chris Craik and Rahul Ravikumar from the toolkit performance team. We talk about the recently released the macrobenchmark tool+library, in addition to other interesting bits like how the benchmark libraries...
08.09.2021
Episode 172: Privacy features in Android 12
In this episode, Chet, Romain and Tor talk with Sara N Marandi, Fred Chung and Erik Wolsheimer about the new privacy features in Android 12, such as the privacy dashboard, and the camera and microphone usage indicators. Guests Eric,...
08.02.2021
Episode 171: Compose Testing
In this episode, Nick and Romain are joined by Filip Pavlis, Jelle Fresen & Jose Alcérreca to talk about Testing in Compose. They discuss how Compose’s testing APIs were developed hand-in-hand with the UI toolkit, making them more deterministic and...
07.20.2021
Episode 170: Jetpack Compose Graphics & Animation
In this episode Nick and Chet are joined by Dois Liu and Nader Jawad to discuss Compose’s Animation and Graphics systems. They cover their goals to make both systems easier to understand, more consistent and simpler to work with. They...
07.05.2021
Episode 169: Testing
In this episode, Romain and Tor are joined by Adarsh Fernando, Arif Sukoco and Yahan Zhou from the Android Studio team, covering the recent improvements to support for testing. This includes automated test snapshots, where the emulator captures a snapshot...
06.28.2021
Episode 168: Material Composition
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...
06.14.2021
Episode 167: Jetpack Compose Layout
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...
06.08.2021
Episode 166: Security Deposit
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...
06.02.2021
Episode 165: Material Witnesses
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...
05.27.2021
Episode 164: Jetpack Compose Compilation
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...
05.24.2021
Episode 163: Novel Graphics
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,...
04.28.2021
Episode 162: Kotlin Symbol Processing
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...
04.21.2021
Episode 161: DataStories
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)....
04.13.2021
Episode 160: ART History
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,...
03.24.2021
Episode 159: Interview with Chris Lacy
Chet and Romain host Chris Lacy, a long time independent Android developer. In this episode, Chris explains how he decides what apps to build, how he used various platform APIs to create innovative applications like LinkBubble, and what challenges...
03.15.2021
Episode 158: Jetpack Compose... C'est bêta !
Chet, Nick, Clara, Leland, Tor, Adam, and Romain. So many guests! This time, Tor, Romain, and Chet chatted with a few people on the Jetpack Compose team,...
03.03.2021
Episode 157: Audio feedback
What does a podcast look like? We don't know, so here's a picture of the podcast's website We want to hear from you! In this episode, Tor, Romain,...
02.20.2021
Episode 156: Android Runtime Classic (Dalvik)
It's history time! Or even [pre-]ART History time! We didn't take a picture this time. Please imagine what we looked like. This time, Tor, Romain,...

What's Android Developers Backstage about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Android Developers Backstage episodes:

Episode 205: Time for Playtime

Episode 204: Fan’otations

Episode 203: (W)rap

Episode 202: AndroidX, Gradle and Metalava

Episode 201: Firebase in Android Studio

Episode 200: WebGPU

Episode 199: Compose performance

Episode 198: Location location location, revisited

Episode 197: Studio Bot

Episode 196: Android Studio, behind the scenes

Episode 195: Mainlining

Episode 194: Subtext

Episode 193: Kotlin

Episode 192: The Path Forward

Episode 191: Compose Lazy Layouts

Episode 190: Performance Review

Episode 189: Video Conference

Episode 188: Android 13

Episode 187: System UI: A Retrospective

Episode 186: Live Edit

Episode 185: Play Store

Episode 184: Skia and AGSL - Shaders of Things to Come

Episode 183: Baseline Profiles

Episode 182: Large screens are a big deal

Episode 181: Architecture → Fewer bugs at the end

Episode 180: Kotlin Magic Platform

Episode 179: Flibberty Widget

Episode 178: Hosts 3, Guests 0

Episode 177: Honor every photon

Episode 176: Android 12 - S stands for System UI

Episode 175: Lottie

Episode 174: Compose tooling

Episode 173: More benchmarking

Episode 172: Privacy features in Android 12

Episode 171: Compose Testing

Episode 170: Jetpack Compose Graphics & Animation

Episode 169: Testing

Episode 168: Material Composition

Episode 167: Jetpack Compose Layout

Episode 166: Security Deposit

Episode 165: Material Witnesses

Episode 164: Jetpack Compose Compilation

Episode 163: Novel Graphics

Episode 162: Kotlin Symbol Processing

Episode 161: DataStories

Episode 160: ART History

Episode 159: Interview with Chris Lacy

Episode 158: Jetpack Compose... C'est bêta !

Episode 157: Audio feedback

Episode 156: Android Runtime Classic (Dalvik)