Truecaller Developers Go to Google I/O
Lindsey LaMont
Jun 14, 20173 min read
During 2017’s Google I/O, we sent some engineers to sunny California to get the scoop on trends, gadgets, and see Truecaller on the big screen! Guest post written by Olivier Payen.
Andriy Kozak (Product owner) and myself, Olivier Payen (Software engineer on Android) went to Google I/O this year. It was our first time there, so we were both very excited!
What is Google I/O
Google IO is the yearly event for every developer working on mobile and web applications with Google tech stack. It is 3 days conference where you can attend technical sessions and have a chance to meet with the people from Google.
Also, each year at I/O, Google showcases their improvements on developer tools, showcase the upcoming changes on their platforms, and explain what they are focusing on. This year, more than 7,000 developers from around the world gathered at the event in Mountain View, California in the U.S.
For people who didn’t know about Truecaller, it was a great surprise for them for when we looked up their number, and it gave the correct name. It was fun to see that reaction. – Andriy Kozak, Product Owner
What’s New on Android
Both Andriy and I work in the Android team here at Truecaller, so most of the sessions we attended were about that OS that we love 😀
The biggest announcement on Android is the official support from Google of the Kotlin language. Kotlin is a modern language that can be used instead of Java for developing Android apps. It is supposed to make the code safer and the developers more efficient.
Amazing, Kotlin is now an official language for #androiddev #IO17— Olivier Payen (@opayen) May 17, 2017
Google also showed what’s new in the next version of Android, Android O:
- Notifications channels
- Autofill
- Project Treble (a feature that modularizes Android, allowing next generation Android phones to hopefully get the OS updates faster)
- And a lot of performance improvements
Progressive Web Apps
Next to Android, Progressive web apps (PWA) was another big topic featured at I/O, with multiple sessions about it.
Progressive web apps are like web apps steroids: they can work offline, show notifications, they are fast and can be shown full screen.
Alex, our web developer magician, did such a good work at making our website a Progressive Web App that Google decided to showcase it at a session, along with the Twitter, Forbes and Tinder.
Yesssss! Truecaller featured at #IO17 pic.twitter.com/KjqCNHoczD— Olivier Payen (@opayen) May 19, 2017
You can try our PWA by opening www.truecaller.com on your mobile browser. The session can be viewed here: Production Progressive Web Apps With JavaScript Frameworks (Google I/O ’17)
Conclusion
Overall, I think the best thing going at Google IO was to meet the people that actually created and work on the Android framework and tools. It was amazing to be able chat and see them in person.
So big thanks to Google for inviting us and holding such a great event!
Olivier’s Favorite Google I/O 2017 Sessions
- Building for Your Next Billion Users (Google I/O ’17)
- Android Go (Google I/O ’17)
- Speeding Up Your Android Gradle Builds (Google I/O ’17)
And here is a link to the list of all sessions: Google I/O 2017 – All Sessions
Lindsey LaMont
Jun 14, 20173 min read