Annyce Davis

Davis Technology Consulting

The Blerg Podcast Chat

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I was recently a guest on The Blerg podcast. It’s a podcast that focuses on the various technologies in the Android ecosystem, featuring famed developer of Action Launcher, +Chris Lacy.

During our chat, we talked all about Android TV, Google’s solution for streaming devices in your home. We also talked a bit about what we would love to see in the way of additions to Android TV in the future. I spent several years developing for Google TV and Android TV, it was certainly a unique experience from typical Android application development. At any rate, I wanted to share some of the highlights of our chat with you.

Highlights


[02:10]: We briefly mention some of the challenges developing for the older Google TV devices.

[05:00]: Discussing the differences between the Google TV remote and the Nexus Player remote.

[08:35]: Chris talks about his experience with the Sony TV.

[13:00]: My main use case for the Nexus Player is a Chromecast YouTube Party.

[15:25]: We talk about how much I loved the Chrome Browser on the old Google TV devices.

[17:15]: Chris starts discussing the “Recommendations” feature of the Android TV.

[19:00]: We talk about the things we like/dislike about the Android TV Launcher.

[24:50]: I talk a bit about Apple TV and the look-and-feel of the applications.

[29:40]: Learned about a new game that I can play on Android TV, Crossy Road.

[31:10]: Another feature we’d love, suggested/new apps to aid in discoverability.

[33:20]: Shout out to my favorite show, Murder She Wrote, which it watch endlessly on Netflix.

[37:10]: Our take on apps that are installed by default, like Netflix.

[39:10]: I talk about developing for Android TV, huge improvement over Google TV.

[41:10]: The one thing I’d love to see with Android TV is having it integrated with my cable provider.

Hope you enjoyed the episode!

Fragmented Podcast Chat

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I was recently a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, Fragmented. It’s a podcast that focuses on tips and tricks for improving the Android Development experience. 

We talked all about Gradle, the build system that is used for running, testing, and packaging Android applications. I wanted to share some of the highlights.

Highlights


[02:31]: Kaushik attempts to discover if my time at The Washington Post was as exciting as the Spotlight movie.

[04:35]: Talking about my new work at Off Grid Electric.

[06:50]: We starting digging into some of the benefits of the Gradle build system.

[09:15]: We discuss build flavors and how they allow you to have different variations of your application.

[10:20]: Donn asks a question many have wondered: Why do we have some many .gradle files when we start a new Android application?

[12:22]: We discuss how the settings.gradle file is used.

[13:35]: How does the Gradle plugin structure benefit Android developers.

[16:40]: Donn introduces us to Gradle tasks. Then we talk about how they’re connected to plugins.

[24:10]: We do a quick overview of Creating a Custom Gradle Plugin. 

[31:00]: We start talking about improving the Gradle build times. 
Then as an extra bonus, Chiu-Ki Chan, fellow Android GDE, made an awesome Sketchnote of the entire episode.



Talk: Gradle Plugin Goodness

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If you find yourself copying and pasting code from your application’s build.gradle file every time you start a new project, then it’s time you learn about creating Gradle plugins. In this presentation you will learn what it takes to create a custom Gradle plugin for use in your Android/Java applications. 

It covers: Plugin Structure, Key Plugin Components, Testing, and Publishing

Materials

 
If you would like to learn more about creating high quality Android applications, I encourage you to check out my video course.

My 2015

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Looking back on 2015, I’d have to say it was my year of “breaking free”. I finally started to do many of things that I had been only dreaming of for the past several years in my career as a Software Developer. Instead of feeling like I still didn’t know enough, I embraced what I did know and used that to increase my visibility in the Android Community. So here’s a recap of some of the highlights.

Public Speaking

With some encouragement from fellow female developers I submitted my first conference proposal. And I’ve been speaking around the world ever since! Below is a recording of my first conference talk at Droidcon NYC.

 

Appearances

I’ve also had the opportunity to make a few appearances speaking about my passion for Android Development on the Android Dialogs YouTube channel and the CodeNewbie’s podcast. This was a lot of fun and pushed me to “go with flow” in an environment that wasn’t so scripted.

Teaching

I love to share my knowledge with others whether it’s through conference speaking, blog posts, one-on-one, etc. So I was able to try something completely different this year and that was creating my own video course, Developing High Quality Android Applications. This enabled me to learn a new form of engagement through video and I hope to continue to explore this medium in the future.
 

Connections

One thing I never fully anticipated was the number of connections I’d be able to make in such a short time span. Meeting people from different backgrounds has been one of the best parts of this year. I had no idea that there were so many people out there just as passionate about producing quality software as I am, it’s been a great feeling! So I have Twitter to thank for exposing me to so many supportive people that I would have never had the chance to meet.
 
 
So here’s looking forward to what lies ahead for 2016!

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