Android TV Development Comes Alive with NVIDIA's SHIELD DevCasts
The Android TV announcements at Google IO 2015 and the launch of NVIDIA SHIELD last week seriously excited the NVIDIA Developer Technologies engineers. The only answer, shout about it with DevCasts!
There was just too much news at Google IO. We simply couldn't wait for the next conference to talk about developing apps for Android TV and SHIELD! So we're bringing our development experiences to a new series of Android TV developer webcasts, or "DevCasts". These short, focused video training sessions bring the details of Android TV development to your computer or mobile device on your schedule. Unburdened by the fixed length of a conference session, these brief videos center on specific aspects of Android TV development to help you solve the problems that really matter. To keep things fresh, we’ll also be adding new DevCasts on a regular basis.
The first set of three DevCasts is available now, and they focus on Android TV application development. While Android game developers will find lots of great information in these, the real focus of these first DevCasts is non-gaming apps, including media streaming, video and audio playback, and other content- and information-focused apps. The sessions available today include:
- Getting Started with Android TV App Development and NVIDIA SHIELD, covering how NVIDIA's SHIELD Android TV device is both the premier Android TV user experience and the premier Android TV devkit, covering the tools, resources, and hardware features that make it a great way to develop for Android TV.
- Basic Android TV App Development with NVIDIA SHIELD, detailing how to take your working mobile Android app and move it to Android TV. The session covers initially installing and launching your unmodified app, testing your app's UI, and adding the right interaction to make the app nicely usable on Android TV.
- Preparing and Publishing your App on Android TV and targeting NVIDIA SHIELD, discussing the "last mile" in Android TV app development; packaging your app, getting your manifest right, deciding what features to declare, and pushing your app through the Google Play Developer Dashboard and into the Play Store for Android TV.
Expect more sessions in the coming weeks. Indeed, the next session is already in production; we are working on a session that covers some great pieces of Android integration that can take your app to the next level. The session will include details on keeping your application rendering video and content and playing audio while the user is back in the launcher, while respecting other apps that may launch. These "visible behind" and audio focus features can really make your app feel a part of the user's Android TV device itself. Later DevCasts will include sessions on search integration and launcher recommendations to keep driving users back to your app time and again.