Google Developer Podcast: Android

Dianne Hackborn and Jason Parks are two of the architects on the Android engineering team, and in this podcast they talk to us about the Android platform from a technical perspective.

Dianne and Jason share a background at both Be and PalmSource, and talk about how that experience has been applied to Android. Other topics covered include:

• Some history behind the project
• The high level architecture of Android. For example, how Linux processes handle the VM and manage security (the VM doesn't handle it)
• Details on the Dalvik VM and how it is optimized for small devices
• The architecture: From Intents to Views to Permissions and more
• How XML is slow, but the tools convert the XML to a nicer format for you
• The tooling and steps for building an application on Android
• How so many objects have a URL, and how the environment is like a mini-SOA (Services across processes instead of across the network)
• Thoughts on how you program for small devices, and things to watch out for if you move from the desktop
• The control, or lack of control that you have over the application lifecycle
• "Everything you do drains the battery"
• The thread story: they exist, you don't have to deal with them if you don't want to, and the UI
• Using XMPP for messaging

You can download the episode directly, or subscribe to the show (click here for iTunes one-click subscribe).