I was lucky enough to get the entrance ticket to Google Developer Conference this year. As a Google fan, I really cherish this opportunity. This post is a transcript of the conference and a tour of Google Developer Conference 2019 from the Android developer’s perspective.

This article has a lot of pictures, if you are not too concerned about the scene, you can just drag it to the end to see my brief summary of the conference.

The entrance

Admission begins at 8.30am and a canvas bag containing the conference guide and a hat is handed out after check-in.

Wait for the next opening speech.

Google growth Plan

Google launched the “Grow with Google” growth program in China, and a small program called “Google Growth Guide”, you can scan the code to experience.

TenserFlow

TensorFlow 2.0 RC was introduced by Google engineers at the conference. By the way, the engineer gave the whole speech in Chinese, which was very impressive.

Android

Now comes the Android part.

This is probably the longest part of the talk, and as an Android developer I’ll say more.

Android 10

Of course, the big story is Android 10, which was released last week. Of the many improvements, here are the ones we’re looking at most:

  • Support 5 g
  • The dark theme
  • Privacy and Security
  • Gestures to navigate
  • Folding screen support

Kotlin

Google is stepping up its efforts to promote Kotlin, announcing that more than 50% of developers now use Kotlin, making it the fastest growing language by far.

Google went to great lengths to get us to use Kotlin. In China, many projects don’t work. Kotlin’s not that developers don’t use them, but that management hasn’t allowed them. Later in the keynote, Google even taught us how to convince management to let us develop with Kotlin.

Android Jetpack

On the development side, Google recommends using the Android Jetpack development kit, and will continue to enrich the kit’s components, such as the recently added Camera processing library CameraX, to make camera development easier.

60% of developers are currently developing with Android Jetpack.

AndroidX

AndroidX is a collection of support packages. With AndroidX, we no longer need to focus on the project version number.

In the future, support package maintenance will be abandoned, so the migration to AndroidX can be said to be a matter of time. Developers are advised to take a break from development and move to AndroidX at the right time.

Android Studio 3.5

Android Studio 3.5 is already available to many people. Android Studio 3.5 doesn’t have many new features, but mostly fixes a lot of bugs and improves performance.

Flutter

Next comes the other big thing, Flutter.

Strong growth

How is Flutter currently evolving? Let the data speak for itself.

What’s more, Flutter has become a mainstream cross-platform development framework since almost all big factories in China have projects using Flutter.

Flutter 1.9

Flutter 1.9 was released at the conference.

Flutter web version

The branch of Flutter web version is now incorporated into the main branch of Flutter.

As a mobile developer, Flutter support for the web version brings a particularly useful scenario. Many projects will develop an H5 page with basically the same interface as the APP to give users without the APP experience. Developed with Flutter, the APP interface can be almost identical to the H5 interface and requires only one set of code, reducing development costs while providing a consistent user experience.

Arts and Culture

Google has a lab called Arts & Culture, which conducts research on art and Culture around the world by means of technology. They have an APP of the same name that allows you to view art and culture works from around the world. Now Google has launched a Chinese version of the project, “View Wonderful China,” which you can download and try out.

The conference also introduced a new project of the lab called “Wisdom drawing oracle bones”, which can identify corresponding oracle bones based on strokes, similar to last year’s “Guess painting Little song”.

other

The conference also covered the following topics, which I won’t go into.

  • Chrome
  • Firebase
  • Wear OS
  • ARCore
  • Google Play

exhibit

There are booths for each theme of the conference, where I can communicate with Google engineers. I talked to one engineer and gave me a small gift when I left.

The most prominent part of the exhibition area is the “Jie e oracle-bone exhibition,” where people write oracle bones on the screen and the strokes are displayed on the big screen like animals.

Google party

There’s a Google party in the evening, with arcade, buffet, and A DJ.

gift

Finally, some of the spoils of the convention, haha.

conclusion

Google is currently promoting TenserFlow, Android and Flutter in China.

AI is the accepted future, and TenserFlow should be the best choice for machine learning development.

On the Android side, Kotlin and Android Jetpack are highly recommended for new projects. For our existing projects, it’s time to start working on Android 10 adaptation, especially in terms of privacy permissions, dark themes, folding screen adaptation, etc.

As for Flutter, I personally believe that its development speed is beyond expectation, and it will continue to develop and improve rapidly in the future. If you have time to learn about Flutter, you will be able to use it quickly once it becomes a trend.

On another note, one might wonder why Google Play is being talked about in China. Revenue from Chinese developers on Google Play has grown by 70 percent in the past year. At present, many companies, including many large factories, have overseas projects. The Market of India and Southeast Asia is just like China a few years ago, and the Internet market is in a period of rapid development and dividend.

Released Google growth plan, promoted new technology in China, and now many projects have official Chinese documents. The biggest takeaway from this developer conference is that Google is taking Chinese developers more seriously.

Finally, I wish everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival! (^ – ^)