SASCHA PRUETER: Hey, everyone.

Wow.

[APPLAUSE]

Didn't do anything.

Already got applause.

It's a pretty good start.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

SASCHA PRUETER: [LAUGHS] I see a lot of familiar faces.

But the stage is getting bigger every year.

So hey, my name is Sascha Prueter.

I'm on the product team for Android TV.

BENJAMIN BAXTER: I'm Benjamin Baxter, DevRel for Android TV.

SASCHA PRUETER: And thanks for joining the Android TV

session at Google I/O. The session is called What's New,

but we're also talking a little bit what

has happened in the last year.

So thanks for joining.

And yeah, let's get going.

So last time most of us talked was last year at Google I/O.

And the Android TV ecosystem since then

has grown significantly.

And we are, obviously, really happy about that.

So we have now more than 100 partners

working with us on Android TV devices.

And as you can see, we are doubling that, so far,

every year.

And as you can see, the growth comes

from a number of devices and device categories.

We have-- maybe you heard at CES earlier this year--

a bunch of new partners in very different smart TV price

categories launching Android TV devices.

So we are in the very lucky position

that we can't even list all partners on one slide anymore.

So if you're here, if you're working

with us on Android TV devices and your logo is not here,

sorry.

We are running out of space.

But also in the set-top box space,

and specifically when it comes to pay TV operators,

we see significant growth.

And we're very happy about that.

So we already have, I think, around 30 partners worldwide--

so pay TV operators, cable, satellite, IPTV, shipping boxes

with Android TV.

And we have more than 50 additional ones coming.

So we are really happy.

And we see good growth there.

But it's not only about hardware,

it's also about software.

And that's why I'm really happy that the TV app ecosystem is

growing significantly as well.

And I think this is the fifth time I said significantly,

so I will stop doing that.

But all of you are contributing to apps.

Having developers here at I/O over the last few years

actually pick up Android TV and build cool media experiences,

games or completely new stuff we didn't think about,

is really awesome.

When we started the TV Play Store,

I think, in 2014, we had 25 apps or so.

Now we are approaching 4,000.

And the thing, because there are a lot of app developers here,

we wanted to mention, because it's

a little bit under the radar, we have also

launched DCB on Android TV.

A lot of you, if you're developing for mobile,

you know direct carrier billing already on mobile.

So if someone buys an app, if someone does an in-app purchase

or buys a cool new car in a game,

you can charge it to your mobile bill in a lot of cases,

if you don't have a credit card or you don't

want to use the credit card.

And the same concept has launched also since last Google

I/O on Android TV.

And we're working with more and more partners, pay TV operator

partners, that you can do charges from the Play Store

or the Play ecosystem in general to your cable,

or satellite, or TV subscription bill.

But then also, one of the things we

have started putting more emphasis on

is the Google Assistant.

You heard us briefly talking last year

at Google I/O about this.

And since then, the ecosystem and the services

that the Google Assistant brings to Android TV have--

not only to Android TV, but to devices in general--

has grown.

So we see a lot of use of the Assistant on TV.

We think it's a great additional tool

to make use and consumption of media services and apps

a lot easier on TV by just interacting with voice--

discovering content by simply talking to your TV,

having a very natural interface, not having to remember,

what was that search phrase again?

Just natural.

And it's easy, and it works.

But it's not only about finding content,

it's also about looking up answers to questions

you might be interested in.

It might be who that actor is.

Or it's also control of other devices in your house.

The Assistant on Android TV gives you all of that.

And so because we think it is so important,

we are this year putting a lot of priority

on getting the Assistant into more countries.

We want to make sure we do it right,

so we don't want to rush anything.

But since we have launched in the US in late 2017,

we are [? bringing ?] this year, as you can see,

a lot more countries into the Assistant

ecosystem on Android TV.

But even if you are in a country or a language that is not yet

Assistant enabled and you have to wait a little bit,

we refresh our voice search experience

even in those countries.

So I mentioned earlier that we are

really happy about all the apps and more and more apps

in the Play Store.

And we, last year here at Google I/O,

gave you a little bit of a sneak peek of the new Android TV home

experience, and the system UI, and how

apps can integrate with that.

Back then, it was a sneak peek.

It was a preview.

It has launched with Android Oreo.

And we now have a lot of partners starting to roll this

out to Android TV devices.

So we thought it's a good opportunity

to go into more detail how your apps can actually

take advantage of this content first experience

that we are trying to achieve with Android TV.

And Ben is going to talk a little bit

about what it actually means to have a content first app.

BENJAMIN BAXTER: Thanks, Sascha.

So we really wanted to redefine this experience,

wanted to be very content first, content-driven.

If you're familiar with the previous screen,

we have one row for recommendations, a double row

for apps, double row for games.

We've changed that, as you can clearly see.

So apps are still important.

We have one row for apps.

It's just your favorite apps.

Your users can customize and add your app to this row.

It's up to the user's discretion.

That recommendation row from Android N and below,

we've broken it up into several different responsibilities.

So we have a Play Next row where you can add content.

And we'll talk more about this later,

but you can add content to be picked back and engaged

with the user later.

The next thing we did was we broke out--

and each app can have their own channel.

They can have their own surface on the home screen.

We're trying to really push this content first design.

And every app can contribute to it.

As Sascha mentioned earlier with the Assistant,

the Assistant is also on the home screen.

It's not specific to Android O or Android P.

It's actually supported from Android M and above.

So this is here to enhance search and keep pushing

that content first design.

OK.

I keep saying content first.

It's like my favorite phrase all of a sudden.

But let's look at some really good examples

before we dive into the technical details about what

builds a content first design.

So here, we have Google Play Movies.

And this is from the home screen.

And you can see everything about their details.

It's as if the movie detail screen

is right there on the home screen to help build and engage

an experience.

This is great for users.

They don't have to go into the app and hop back out.

They can make decisions right there from the home screen.

If we take it a step further, we have video previews.

So if you have a movie, a trailer

makes a great video preview.

If you're an audio app, 10-second clip

is a great audio preview.

We've found that having previews is

very engaging for users and drives engagement

into your app.

I said earlier about the Play Next row.

This is a great place for you to add

content to bring users back in.

If you're watching a really long movie,

you add a little bit extra metadata,

we'll make a beautiful progress indicator to add more context.

And the users are able to hop back into the app.

And I said channels.

You're not just limited to one little row in the home screen,

you can have as many channels as you want.

If we look here, we have channels like Featured,

Top Free.

These are great channels that you know are going to be fresh.

These have indications of being updated daily, even hourly.

OK.

So now that we have a nice context about what's

on the home screen, let's dive into how you guys can

build this experience.

So what is a channel?

A channel is just a logo and a name.

That's all it is.

It's a container for programs.

This is going to be where you theme

your content and customize everything deeper

in the programs.

To build a channel, we have a support library.

It just uses the builder pattern.

Super easy, super convenient for you.

Everything on the home screen should be clickable.

So if you click on a logo, it should open back into your app.

So just set the App Link URI, and this

will let you open up your app from the home screen.

The next thing that's important is the internal provider ID.

This is an ID for your app to tell the home screen, hey, keep

track of this.

I know what this ID is.

And when I go to query my channel later,

I can synchronize my channel with what the home screen knows

about my app.

And that's it.

It uses a content provider.

And we have convenient methods.

For those of you that know the joys of content providers,

you know that there can be boilerplate code.

We've abstracted all of that into the support library.

And we make it really easy for you to build a content provider

API.

Those also familiar with content providers

know that URIs are kind of tedious and cumbersome

to manage.

The support library manages all of that for you.

It's just a simple insert statement,

and you get back a channel ID.

Like I said earlier with internal provider ID,

you can use the channel ID and the internal provider

ID to make sure, when you synchronize

and update your channels later, you'll

have all the keys you need.

OK, channels, like I said, they're just a shell of a row.

The programs are what really matter.

So let's look at an example of a program.

In this program, we have a bunch of stuff happening.