today we'll learn how tobuild a great android tv app. android tv is just androidon a new form factor. so, if you're all ready proficientwith android development, your existing skills will still apply. first, we'll work througha starter project and
Android TV compatible Apps, explain how the key pieces work,step by step. next, we'll apply these conceptsthat we've learned by enhancing the mobile version ofthe universal media player to also run on the tv formfactor in the very same apk.
here's how the universal mediaplayer looks when we start and here's how it looks when we're done. how cool is this? it's complete with highquality animations and a responsive cinematic ui. [music] to build our app, we're going toleverage the leanback support library. the leanback library is soeasy to use and so versatile that it's becoming synonymouswith writing android tv apps.
in fact,this entire ui was built using leanback, with very little coding on our part. that said though,leanback is just a library. you don't have to use it at all. and you have complete freedom overhow your app looks and feels. now, if you have an existing app you'dlike to run on the big screen, it's important not to reuse the same activitylayout that you already have for phones and tablets. although, technically this willwork on android tv, it'll make for
a poor user experience. and if you do that,timothy jordan will get angry and you don't want to see him angry. in reality, timothy's a supernice guy but just to be sure, your ui should be simple,cinematic, and fun. for this lesson,all you'll need is android studio. we'll use a tv emulator to run ourcode so everyone can participate. if you happen to have a real tv devicethough, you can use that as well.
in fact, i'd strongly recommend usinga real device instead of an emulator for
developing production apps. sound good? let's get our app runningon the big screen.
