This Weeks Links

Fragmented Podcast Episode 042: Google IO 2016 (Part 1)
In Part 1 of our Google IO special we talk to a whole bunch of amazing AndroidDev. We go around asking them a few simple questions. Questions, that you probably thought to ask when you saw them in person, but just forgot to. By popular demand we added some extra specials at the very end so make sure to listen all the way through 🙂

Fragmented Podcast Episode 043: Google IO 2016 (Part 2)
In Part 2 of our Google IO special we continue asking some simple questions to the best AndroidDev today. This concludes our IO special for this year. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Search at I/O 16 Recap: Eight things you don’t want to miss
With 7,000 developers descended upon Mountain View for this year’s Google I/O, there are many new and exciting things Google has announced. Here is a recap of the top eight!

First Impressions of Android’s new ConstraintLayout
The new layout container and tool named ConstraintLayout (CL) was an exciting and significant announcement at the Google IO conference. Although currently only available from the Canary channel of Android Studio, it is likely this tool will mature quickly, so take a look at this overview of what to expect.

Android ConstraintLayout & Friends
ConstraintLayout from the Constraint Support Library is currently an alpha build, but that is not going to stop Mustafa Ali giving us some insights into LinearConstraintLayout and TableConstraintLayout in this post.

How to build a material design prototype using Sketch and Pixate – Part Three
Sketch and Pixate are great tools for mocking up simple designs and prototypes. Sketch is a design app that is easy and simple to use, while Pixate is a prototyping from Google. If you have an idea, but lack of time of clarity is holding you back this may be a great place to get started. The Part 3 finale steps it up a notch to produce a more detailed prototype.

RxUi: Talking to Android View layer in a Reactive way
Ever want to go a step further and apply RxJava everywhere, even the View layer? This post will provide a solution to help you to overcome the 3 main problems you are going to face when talking to the View Layer in a Reactive way.

Google Cloud Messaging and Firebase
Google will continue to support Google Cloud Messaging on Android, iOS and the Web. Google understands you have applications using previous SDKs to handle notifications, so despite the switch to Firebase Cloud Messaging, the support will remain intact. Check out details you need to know on the integration.

FlexboxLayout – Part 3
This series is taking a look at FlexboxLayout, an Android layout manager, to try and gain some insights into how it works. Part 3 of this article looks at displaying content in tabular form, which isn’t quite as straightforward as it may first appear. Take a look at the layout_flexBasisPercent solution.

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Bringing virtual cats to your world with Project Tango
Project Tango, brings anything from new living room furniture to a full-sized dinosaur into your physical world through augmented reality (AR). This tutorial describes how to use some of the APIs to associate virtual objects with real world objects.

Testing with Dagger
This document explores some strategies for testing applications built with Dagger by helping you to replace bindings for functional/integration/end-to-end testing and organize modules for testability.

Exploring Realm on Android
In comparison to SQLite, Realm is a still taking its first steps on Android but Chris Ripple chose Realm for an app over SQLite. In this post he shares an in depth look into why that was.

Saving data in Android using Realm
Shared preferences/User defaults, files and databases are the 3 ways you can save your mobile applications data. This article takes a look at the advantages of using a Realm database and getting started.

App Store Optimization: 9 Tricks to Design a Captivating App Icon
An application icon has the potential to lure in users to your app. But how much is too much? And what should you avoid? This guide will provide some basic rules that should be followed when designing or choosing your icon.

Android Developer Story: Vietnamese games developer Divmob finds more users with localized pricing on Google Play
Games developer Divmob has 40 million downloads across its various titles and it has therefore needed to grow it’s original team of five people to 40 employees, since it was founding, three years ago. Here is a short article and video of how Ngo Van Luyen, CEO & Founder at Divmob, increased their number of paying users threefold with the introduction of sub-dollar pricing in various markets.

AnDevCon AMA with Yash Prabhu on Material Design
Yash Prabhu of DramaFever, shares her perspectives on Material Design and how she thinks developers could improve their app’s look and feel following the guidelines.The article also provides some useful resources to help you get started with Material Design.

5 Ways to Increase Earnings and Retention with Firebase
Firebase brings new ways to segment and reach out to an app’s audience. This post provides five tips to help you use Firebase to reduce friction and increase earnings by keeping users engaged and sharing your app.

5 Success Stories: Messenger App
Success stories of Instant Messengers are older than the touch screens itself. In this post we will find out what the creators of some of Android’s messaging apps have done to help make their apps become so popular.

Videos

Caster.IO Episode 73: AutoValue – Part 2: Creating objects with Builders
A look at AutoValue’s Builders, which make object creation easier and provide flexibility for updating objects.

In this episode you will learn:

• How Builders provide a modern, easy to use API
• How to make AutoValue create a Builder object for your value types
• How to use AutoValue’s builders to update existing objects

Caster.IO Episode 74: Testing Activity Views with Robolectric 3 – Part 2
In this episode you will learn:

• How to test common views and attributes, such as EditText and Button
• How to create a helper for type based view fetching.

Caster.IO Episode 75: AutoValue – Part 3: Using Extensions
An introduction to AutoValue Extensions, including the AutoValue: Parcel Extension

In this episode you will learn:

• How to get more out of your value types
• How to add extensions to your project
• How to use extensions with your AutoValue types
• How AutoValue generates extension code, and how that impacts your use.

Caster.IO Episode 76: Retrofit 2 – Issuing DELETE Requests
In this lesson you’ll learn how to use the DELETE HTTP Verb with Retrofit 2 in order to delete resources on a remote REST API endpoint.

In this episode you will learn:

• What is a DELETE request
• When you should use a DELETE request
• How to provide an @Path variable with a DELETE request
• How to ignore the contents of the DELETE response

Open Source

Multibackstack
Implementation of the multiple back stacks. Using this library allows implementation of persistent bottom navigation like in instagram.

SpeechRecognitionView
“Google Now” style animation for Speech Recognizer.

Android-Security-Reference
This is a work in progress reference guide for all things Android Security.