BILL LUAN: Shanghai GDG is a very
interesting developer community.
SUSANNAH RAUB: I'm glad somebody
has asked this question.
RETO MEIER: This is where the magic happens.
JENNY MURPHY: This is primarily a question and
answer show, so if any of you out there
would like to ask questions.
NICK BUTCHER: We have a recording.
NICOLAS GARNIER: We should try to be very serious.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Yeah.
NICOLAS GARNIER: Yes, so I--
[LAUGHTER]
IDO GREEN: So we're here in GDL IL, episode number
[INAUDIBLE], we'll see.
Later, in the future, we will edit it.
So I guess--
NICK BUTCHER: It'll be a loud voice editor.
Four!
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Yes, exactly.
IDO GREEN: So we are lucky to have with us people from the
Android team and Drive team.
Maybe we kick off with each and every one of you just
presenting yourself?
NICOLAS GARNIER: Sure.
I'll start.
I'm Nicolas Garnier.
I'm a Developer Advocate working on Google Drive, and
I'm based in Zurich, Switzerland.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Hey.
I'm Richard Hyndman, a Developer Advocate for
Android, based in London.
NICK BUTCHER: I'm Nick Butcher, also an Android
Developer Advocate from London.
IDO GREEN: Great.
And for the ones that didn't know, I'm Ido Green, Developer
Advocate working now here in Google Israel.
So maybe you want to ask the people about what we're doing
here, why you came--
took the long, long flight to Israel.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: --like four hours.
How did we survive that?
NICOLAS GARNIER: Yeah.
So what are we doing here?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Why would Android and Drive
be in a room together?
NICK BUTCHER: Exactly.
NICOLAS GARNIER: We came here, and we're doing, actually a
bunch of different things.
The first thing is we're meeting local companies.
And personally, I'm meeting companies that are potentially
going to integrate with Google Drive.
And I'm trying to see if they need assistance.
Or trying to show them what are the features, and how they
could use and integrate Google Drive in their products.
I guess you guys'll do the same, right, with a bunch of
different people?
A lot of the awesome start-ups here in Israel that have been
working at the hackathon turned up at the Afeka College
of Engineering, where we're based for this couple of days.
IDO GREEN: So you came, basically for a GDG event that
we had yesterday.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: So first we met people.
And yesterday, there was this nice event organized by the
GDG Tel Aviv, right.
IDO GREEN: Yeah.
NICOLAS GARNIER: And the college here, Afeka.
What's the full name?
Afeka--
IDO GREEN: Afeka College.
NICOLAS GARNIER: Afeka college.
Good.
IDO GREEN: It's easy.
And I did a one-hour presentation basically about
Google Drive SDK, and Google Drive itself.
Just explaining how it works technically,
what are the features.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: It was supposed to be a one-hour
presentation.
Really [INAUDIBLE] one hour thirty-some-odd presention.
NICOLAS GARNIER: It was suposed to be 45 minutes.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: [INAUDIBLE], he was like, this is when my
presentation's supposed to finish.
I'll take another half an hour.
You guys?
Psh.
NICOLAS GARNIER: I was like, oh shit.
I'm overdue over time.
I'm in the middle of my presentation.
Well, screw it, I'm just going to [INAUDIBLE]
IDO GREEN: Well guys, just bear with me.
[INAUDIBLE]
slides.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Slide 29 of 100.
NICOLAS GARNIER: Drive is so interesting, though.
You can't stop.
You just can't.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: The audience was silent the whole time.
Just engaged.
Following that, we had a little talk about Android.
I did the talk, and so did Nick.
I was talking about Android 4.1--
JB, API level?
NICK BUTCHER: 16.
IDO GREEN: Wow.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Testing.
Testing.
16.
API level 16.
And Project Butter.
Went into a bit of detail about some of the new APIs in
Android 4.1.
The media codec.
All that lower-level media API stuff, so you can inspect
media files.
You can encode and decode using the hardware.
It's not so much fuss than previous versions.
NICK BUTCHER: And after Richard's low-level technical
goodness, I went completely in the other direction, and
talked all about UI, and much more fuzzy, hand-wavey topics.
So I talked about some of the things that we see lots of
developers not doing so great.
Like, say, how to make an application that's responsive
and friendly to use, easier to use.
And especially how to make an application feel Android-y.
How to make it feel right at home on the Android, and not
carry over conventions from other platforms.
And I talked in depth about some new patterns that we're
seeing emerge.
So things like how to build swipe-to-dismiss, which you
might have seen on your phones, with the
notifications.
How to do rich notifications.
How to do some tricks with scrolling, to make most of
your small area.
And I also talked about the mindset you need to be an
Android developer.
Like how to think mobile.
How to design for the vast array of small, large,
medium-size devices.
It was a great, great audience.
They asked some really good questions, and seemed to
really enjoy the content.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: I thought you were going to say, it was a
great, great talk.
NICOLAS GARNIER: It was really awesome.
NICK BUTCHER: No, I'm not going to say that.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: I really think you would.
IDO GREEN: I did an amazing job, and everybody liked it.
NICK BUTCHER: But it might as well be online [INAUDIBLE].
It was a good audience.
It was like 140 people turned up for the GDG event.
There was a huge [INAUDIBLE].
IDO GREEN: It was actually very surprising, because we
had about 170, 180 that registered.
And then usually, it's like 60%, 50%.
And then the show-up was really impressive.
NICK BUTCHER: [INAUDIBLE]
partly the falafel.
I think word's got out that the falafel is very good.
NICOLAS GARNIER: [INAUDIBLE]
IDO GREEN: That's actually--
Michael did a really, really wonderful job just organizing
everything.
We love coming to Israel because the developer audience
is really, really super, super sharp.
The questions you get when people are pitching topics to
do in a hackathon.
There's some real smart groups.
And some are really keen to make things and ship stuff.
So it's really awesome to come here and see that.
IDO GREEN: Cool.
That's actually really interesting.
I wanted to ask--
I spoke with Nicolas before about maybe you could
highlight two or three companies that you worked with
that were impressive, and why.
What they did right, what they could improve.
NICOLAS GARNIER: You mean today, or in [INAUDIBLE]?
IDO GREEN: Yeah.
Just speak.
NICOLAS GARNIER: OK.
Anybody?
IDO GREEN: Yeah, sure.
NICOLAS GARNIER: So Microsoft, they're really--
[LAUGHTER]
IDO GREEN: Netflix.
I like the service, but--
NICOLAS GARNIER: --you're doing everything wrong.
I'm joking.
I love you, Microsoft.
Actually, right here, I've met with [? Majisto ?]
and also [? Powtuns ?]
who are local companies here in Israel.
And they are actually integrating with
Google Drive today.
So we haven't sat down already.
But there's a hackathon going on today, where people are
trying to build Android and/or Drive apps.
And these two companies have started integrating with
Drive, and they're making good progress.
It's actual products, with lots of users already.
And they're integrating today.
Actually, [? Majisto ?] was super-advanced already.
They have something pretty much working.
So it's nice to get real companies
engaged when you come.
And we actually met them yesterday, right?
For example, [? Powtuns. ?]
And we showed them what the Drive integration was like.
And they were like, cool.
We'll integrate.
We'll start tomorrow in the hackathon.
And boom, they're doing it.
NICK BUTCHER: That's philosophy.
RICHARD HYNDMAN: We've met with a whole load of partners.
A lot of them have been asking for UI reviews.
So you've got a niche speciality there.
Especially partners who have their
apps live in the Android--
well, in Google Play.
It was the Android market at the time.
I don't need to [INAUDIBLE], because it is valid.
They had it in the Android market before we launched our
design guidelines.
So it was still there.
And obviously, the one UI review-- because they had
their app launched before our design guidelines came out.
And now we have design guidelines.
They just want to know how to really ship their app across
to make it into the new Android look and feel.
And the ones that have done well have already read the
design guidelines.
And they've come in, and just said, this is what we're
thinking about for our design.
And that makes our lives a whole lot easier.
It's very, very nice to see.
They just come back with something that's
looking great already.
IDO GREEN: Yeah.
That's really cool.
And actually, we should mention.
We put all the links in the show, so people could jump on
and see exactly what we have where.
Sure.
IDO GREEN: Because of resources.
Yeah, absolutely.
IDO GREEN: Great.
Any other thing you'd like to talk about?
The event, or new stuff that we're going to have in the
near future?
I know that usually, we're not making a spoiler-breaker.
But things that are we can share with--
RICHARD HYNDMAN: Well, when's this going to be broadcast?
IDO GREEN: Two weeks from now.
So it's live.
NICK BUTCHER: We haven't got any announcements tonight.
But some of the cool stuff I highlighted is, for me, in the
Android world, I love the open source contributions.
So many people take the patterns we've introduced,
like on our design site.
And implements them [INAUDIBLE]
and so on, so that they can share them.
Like I said, I'll give a link to the slides of the
presentation, which has more links to a bunch of open
source implementations of stuff, as well as a couple of
new things which came out in the last couple of
days which I like.
Which is a few online style generators.
One of the things I talk about when I talk is how to take the
Android style, the hollow themes we call it.
And customize it.
Use it as your base, and marry that with
your product's branding.
So a few cool tools have come out, like some online style
generators.
So you put in the colors and look and feel that you want.
And it'll generate all the image [? drawables ?]
and XML files that you need to put into your Android app, to
make it have that look and feel.
So those are some cool tools to check out.
If you're following my Google + profile, I've posted slides.
IDO GREEN: Great.
[INAUDIBLE].
Excellent.
Drive?
Drive had an announcement, right?
I saw a [INAUDIBLE]?
I would just say there was just [INAUDIBLE]
some quick start sample code--
Cheers.
NICOLAS GARNIER: --that we've added.
Yes, well.
We do that every day.
That's perfect [INAUDIBLE].
[? I'm sure that's ?]
[? normal. ?]
So [INAUDIBLE] there's actually quite a few
things coming up.
My boss has already leaked it on [INAUDIBLE], so I can
totally talk about it.
So we're working on adding push notifications to our API,
so you'll be able to register a callback.
Whenever a file changes on Drive, we'll let you know.
And you don't have to--
the other method was to pull every minute or every hour.
So I could now sync between my Android devices
using Google Drive?
Because every time I'd change it on one device, sync that to
Drive, then Drive will then invoke a
callback to push it through--
NICOLAS GARNIER: Yeah.
NICK BUTCHER: --somewhere else.
NICOLAS GARNIER: Then Drive will broadcast a callback to
other subscribers, and they will know
that your file changes.
And the other big thing that we're doing--
I can't go into many details there--
But we're working on and improving a lot, and changing
a lot the experience about discoverability of Drive apps.
And making it way easier for users to find Drive apps.
A lot of Drive apps exist for us.
And it will allow the developers also to get more
visibility-- a lot more visibility, I expect--
for the app on Drive.
I see.
That, hopefully, will come in the next couple months.
Two, three months.
Some big changes there.
IDO GREEN: Great.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
That was very good.
We'll catch you later, on the [INAUDIBLE].
We'll do the next episode.