Droidcon NYC 2016

I’ve just got back from Droidcon NYC were I gave a talk on MV* architecture, a topic we also started on the blog. While there, but also via the live stream, we got the chance to see more than sixty top developers from some of the most renowned companies, sharing their knowledge on the most interesting topics in Android today. Talks on subjects like performance, Material Design, architecture, deep understanding of different types of Views and war stories were all gathered at Droidcon NYC in two intense days. Here are some of the talks, tips or libraries that we considered the most interesting. Some of the videos are already available on Droidcon NYC’s website for ticket holders. Until all videos are posted publicly, we’re providing the links to the slides, where available.

For an app like upday, that is pre-installed on Samsung devices, the cold start time is very important. Vikram Bodicherla from Yahoo gave some good tips about how to measure the startup time: using SystemClock.elapsedRealTime(); how to analyze the stack trace but also on what you can do to improve it: apply the Most important pixel first rule - display the most important area first.

Since we are currently starting to adopt RecyclerView in our app, there were two talks to help with it: ListView -> RecyclerView from Benjamin Jaeger, Facebook; and Lisa Wray’s talk on Radical RecyclerView. These two talks complement each other perfectly and give you the basics of what you need to know to start using RecyclerView. Two libraries on this topic are worth checking out: Genius’s Groupie and Airbnb’s epoxy.

If you and the ConstraintLayout are not friends just yet, then David Smith’s talk on ConstraintLayout, Inside and Out is a must see.

Dan Lew gathered some great tips about writing Efficient Android Layouts. Check them out! Apply them, as soon as the video is out!

You have probably been implementing some of your own custom views and most likely you have been doing some things wrong. Huyen Tue Dao tells you everything you need to know about Measure, Layout, Draw, Repeat: Custom Views and ViewGroups in an interesting and easy to follow talk.

We’ve mentioned before how much we love RxJava, so there is no wonder that Jake Wharton’s talk on RxJava 2.0 is high on our ‘must-see’ list. The slides can be found here

Even if RxJava is not your thing, there are some things that are a must to know about multi-threading, concurrency and async on Android and Erik Hellman shared them.

Wrap-Up

We loved Droidcon NYC 2016 and we are extremely honored to be part of it, alongside so many other great developers. We have learned a lot from the talks that we attended or seen via the live stream and we are sure you will too. Looking forward to Droidcon NYC 2017!

Send us a tweet at upday Dev and tell us what your favorite talk was!

upday will also be present at Droidcon London 2016, with a lightning talk on optimising the performance of VectorDrawables. We are hoping to see you there!