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Google really wants developers to adopt its new Material UI
Google isn't making devs wait to start working on the new stuff
Android development may have started as a grab bag of poorly integrated libraries with no documentation and running it all in a bad IDE, but things have really turned around over the years. Android Studio makes it easier to build working apps with fewer mistakes; Kotlin makes for more readable straightforward code; and the combination of Jetpack and Jetpack Compose provides a clear direction for faster development. Today's announcement really focuses on Jetpack Compose, but as you would expect from each Google I/O, new versions of each are coming out and they've got something new for everybody.
Google I/O isn't the only event where new tools, toys, and APIs come out for developers targeting the largest mobile operating system in the world; the Android Dev Summit has also become a venue for an assortment of important software releases and announcements. Last year's event included a number of topics ranging from support for folding phones to the new Generic System Images, and much more. This year hits on just as many subjects, but some of the top announcements will center around Android Studio 4.0, new Jetpack APIs, and Jetpack Compose.
We often forget it, but I/O is first and foremost a developer conference. So while most of us might be waiting with bated breath for new consumer products and services, the bulk of I/O's benefit is directed at the developer community. And that includes announcements like the new Android Jetpack, which promises to make app development even easier for the platform.
Historically, Java has been the only officially-supported language for Android development. That changed last year, when Kotlin support was announced at Google I/O. Even though Kotlin still uses the Java Virtual Machine and can interact with Java code, there are some key changes that make some tasks significantly easier.
As developers, it's almost always desirable to be able to write shorter and more readable code without sacrificing performance, stability, or control. Many Android devs have adopted Kotlin to replace Java because it delivers on those points and many others. Even though Kotlin's syntax and language features make it well-suited to Android, it's still not designed specifically for Android, so there are plenty of platform-specific patterns that require a lot of boilerplate code. To that end, a new extension library called Android KTX was released in preview form today with a focus on wrapping a lot of that boilerplate code.
For the past few years, the primary way to build Android applications has been through Google's Android Studio. The first stable release arrived in 2014, with version 2.0 appearing last year. The third major update was announced at Google I/O 2017, and now it is finally ready for prime time.