Nikolay Pakhomov

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Android Developer

Talk Title

Ways of using hidden Android APIs in system and vendor development

Room

Lovelace

Date

07.07.2023

Time

15:15 > 40 min

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It's not uncommon to eventually find yourself looking for new interesting things to do with your Android skills. Some people turn to infrastructure, some go to GameDev and others, like me, end up in development of brand new devices.

In this talk I'll show you the ways to access, navigate through and use hidden Android APIs that helped us in creating amazing UX for our devices. You will learn about pros and cons of each of the way and which one is actually used within big vendors.

Lastly, I will cover the security mechanisms that protect Android from using hidden APIs in everyday development.

Speaker Bio

For the past 4 years I’ve been working in devices development based on Android: Phones, TVs, TV dongles, Smart Displays and other smart devices.

Each product release required me to dig into Android Framework in search of classes and methods that would allow us to achieve desired functionality. Typically, there’s no public information about System Development, most of it is shared in internal vendor documentation. And I want to change that. I want to make System Development problems, challenges and ways of solving them open to the public.

In 2019 I’ve started my way with a talk in droidcon Kenya about Android System Settings. I saw the passion in developers’ eyes when I showed them the new side of Android development. That gave me even more motivation to document what I do in everyday development and share it with others.