What’s new from Firebase at Google I/O 2017

Francis Ma

Group Product Manager

It's been an exciting year! Last May, we expanded Firebase into our unified app platform, building on the original backend-as-a-service and adding products to help developers grow their user base, as well as test and monetize their apps. Hearing from developers like Wattpad, who built an app using Firebase in only 3 weeks, makes all the hard work worthwhile.

We're thrilled by the initial response from the community, but we believe our journey is just getting started. Let's talk about some of the enhancements coming to Firebase today.

Integrating with Fabric

In January, we announced that we were welcoming the Fabric team to Firebase. Fabric initially grabbed our attention with their array of products, including the industry-leading crash reporting tool, Crashlytics. As we got to know the team better, we were even more impressed by how closely aligned our missions are: to help developers build better apps and grow successful businesses. Over the last several months, we've been working closely with the Fabric team to bring the best of our platforms together.
We plan to make Crashlytics the primary crash reporting product in Firebase. If you don't already use a crash reporting tool, we recommend you take a look at Crashlytics and see what it can do for you. You can get started by following the Fabric documentation.

Phone authentication comes to Firebase

Phone number authentication has been the biggest request for Firebase Authentication, so we're excited to announce that we've worked with the Fabric Digits team to bring phone auth to our platform. You can now let your users sign in with their phone numbers, in addition to traditional email/password or identity providers like Google or Facebook. This gives you a comprehensive authentication solution no matter who your users are or how they like to log in.
At the same time, the Fabric team will be retiring the Digits name and SDK. If you currently use Digits, over the next couple weeks we'll be rolling out the ability to link your existing Digits account with Firebase and swap in the Firebase SDK for the Digits SDK. Go to the Digits blog to learn more.

Introducing Firebase Performance Monitoring

We recognize that poor app performance and stability are the top reasons for users to leave bad ratings on your app and possibly churn altogether. As part of our effort to help you build better apps, we're pleased to announce the beta launch of Performance Monitoring.
Firebase Performance Monitoring is a new free tool that helps you understand when your user experience is being impacted by poorly performing code or challenging network conditions. You can learn more and get started with Performance Monitoring in the Firebase documentation.

More robust analytics

Analytics has been core to the Firebase platform since we launched last I/O. We know that understanding your users is the number one way to make your app successful, so we're continuing to invest in improving our analytics product.
First off, you may notice that you're starting to see the name "Google Analytics for Firebase" around our documentation. Our analytics solution was built in conjunction with the Google Analytics team, and the reports are available both in the Firebase console and the Google Analytics interface. So, we're renaming Firebase Analytics to Google Analytics for Firebase, to reflect that your app analytics data are shared across both.
For those of you who monetize your app with AdMob, we've started sharing data between the two platforms, helping you understand the true lifetime value (LTV) of your users, from both purchases and AdMob revenue. You'll see these new insights surfaced in the updated Analytics dashboard.
Many of you have also asked for analytics insights into custom events and parameters. Starting today, you can register up to 50 custom event parameters and see their details in your Analytics reports. Learn more about custom parameter reporting.

Firebase for all - iOS, games, and open source

Firebase's mission is to help all developers build better apps. In that spirit, today we're announcing expanded platform and vertical support for Firebase.
First of all, as Swift has become the preferred language for many iOS developers, we've updated our SDK to handle Swift language nuances, making Swift development a native experience on Firebase.
We've also improved Firebase Cloud Messaging by adding support for token-based authentication for APNs, and greatly simplifying the connection and registration logic in the client SDK.
Second, we've heard from our game developer community that one of the most important stats you monitor is frames per second (FPS). So, we've built Game Loop support & FPS monitoring into Test Lab for Android, allowing you to evaluate your game's frame rate before you deploy. Coupled with the addition of Unity plugins and a C++ SDK, which we announced at GDC this year, we think that Firebase is a great option for game developers. To see an example of a game built on top of Firebase, check out our Mecha Hamster app on Github.
Finally, we've taken a big first step towards open sourcing our SDKs. We believe in open source software, not only because transparency is an important goal, but also because we know that the greatest innovation happens when we all collaborate. You can view our new repos on our open sourceproject page and learn more about our decision in this blog post.

Dynamic Hosting with Cloud Functions for Firebase

In March, we launched Cloud Functions for Firebase, which lets you run custom backend code in response to events triggered by Firebase features and HTTP requests. This lets you do things like send a notification when a user signs up or automatically create thumbnails when an image is uploaded to Cloud Storage.
Today, in an effort to better serve our web developer community, we're expanding Firebase Hosting to integrate with Cloud Functions. This means that, in addition to serving static assets for your web app, you can now serve dynamic content, generated by Cloud Functions, through Firebase Hosting. For those of you building progressive web apps, Firebase Hosting + Cloud Functions allows you to go completely server-less. You can learn more by visiting our documentation.

Firebase Alpha program and what's next

Our goal is to build the best developer experience: easy-to-use products, great documentation, and intuitive APIs. And the best resource that we have for improving Firebase is you! Your questions and feedback continuously push us to make Firebase better.
In light of that, we're excited to announce a Firebase Alpha program, where you will have the opportunity to test the cutting edge of our products. Things might not be perfect (in fact, we can almost guarantee they won't be), but by participating in the alpha community, you'll help define the future of Firebase. If you want to get involved, please register your interest in the Firebase Alpha form.
Thank you for your support, enthusiasm, and, most importantly, feedback. The Firebase community is the reason that we've been able to grow and improve our platform at such an incredible pace over the last year. We're excited to continue working with you to build simple, intuitive products for developing apps and growing mobile businesses. To get started with Firebase today, visit our newly redesigned website. We're excited to see what you build!

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Seven MORE Sessions I Don't Want to Miss at Google I/O

Frank van Puffelen

Engineer

Google I/O is rapidly sneaking up on us. I hope those of you attending have your bags packed by now, and those joining on the live stream have started marking the sessions you want to see. It's quite a lineup.

Personally, I'm looking forward to all the new great Firebase content that we're going to be sharing. I know Todd shared the five I/O sessions he was most looking forward to, but here's a list of some of the sessions that you'll find me at:


What's new in Firebase
I have been calling this our "Firebase keynote" internally. I've been following the rehearsals closely and it's shaping up to be a great overview of everything new that we're announcing for Firebase. It'll also be your essential starting point for all things Firebase at I/O; go to this talk and you'll have a good idea of what other sessions you might want to attend.

The future of Fabric: gaining momentum at Google
What is is like for a startup that joins Google? How do you maintain what made your startup unique, but also make optimal use of the resources available at Google? Will Google keep investing in Fabric and Firebase? And what on earth is Bring Your Pineapple To Work Day? Come to this talk and find out from the folks that started Fabric and Firebase, and the Googler who convinced them to join.

Rewarding for engagement
Building a great app is one thing. But convincing your users to keep using your app is another. Gus and Damien have great experience in this area, and together with some developers using Firebase in their app, they'll show you one approach that was very successful. Then they'll show you how to implement that very same approach yourself using Firebase.

Using Firebase to accelerate app growth
There are many ways to use Firebase to get more users on your app. Firebase's product managers Jumana and Jon are the perfect teachers for this topic. I'll be going to their great session to get a fresh overview of the Firebase features that help with growing your app's user base.

Using Pirate Metrics to grow your user base
Ahoy matey! Who can resist a session about Firebase that's centered around Pirates? I certainly can't. I expect buccaneers, swashbucklers and pirate ships! Or, at the very least, an analytics-focused discussion on how to best acquire and retain users through best practices. It might be less pirate-y, but it's easier to put into a business plan. AARRR….!

Single Codebase, Two Apps with Flutter and Firebase
Sure, maybe you've seen live-coding demos where we've built Android and iOS apps on top of Firebase before. But have you ever seen us do it with one codebase? Using Flutter makes it easy -- and maybe even fun -- to build cross-platform apps, and Emily and Emily will show you how in this session. I'm a sucker for live-coding talks and this is one that won't disappoint.

Great app performance with Firebase
Having a smoothly running, well performing app is critical to ensuring your app's success. With Firebase, this is easy to do, not only during development, but also in production. I've seen Nalin and Ali running around the hallways of the Googleplex all excited about the great things that they'll be sharing in this session. So not only will it be an exciting session, but it's done wonders for their metabolism!

And of course there's one more talk that I won't want to miss: Zero to App. Because missing your own I/O talk would be un-Googley. :-)

These are seven (well, okay, eight) Firebase sessions that I will definitely be attending. If you're not at I/O or just missed them, you can find them on the Firebase YouTube channel at the end of each day!

See you at I/O!

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Five Firebase I/O Sessions I'm Excited About

Todd Kerpelman

Developer Advocate

Over the last few weeks, I've had many of you approach me with questions like, "Hey Todd! I'm super excited to be going to I/O this year! What sessions should I go to?" And my answer has always been the same: "Who are you, and how did you get into my apartment?"

But yeah, I can understand that picking sessions at I/O can feel overwhelming. Between the VR awesomeness and the new Android O stuff, Google I/O has a lot to offer. And while the Firebase VR Data Viewer is still a work-in-progress, there's still plenty of great Firebase content for you to check out this year.

Of course, asking me to pick my favorites among all the sessions is like asking me to pick my favorite child -- I love all of them equally¹. But with that said, here's a few Firebase sessions that I'm certainly looking forward to next month:

Supercharging Firebase Apps with Machine Learning and Cloud Functions -- This combines two of the most intriguing (for me, anyway) technologies happening in cloud-land. First, you've got Cloud Functions for Firebase, which essentially allows you to run server-side code based on events happening within your app, and then there's Machine Learning, which is still basically, "We're living in the future" kind of wizardry as far as I'm concerned. Combine them together, and you can pull off some really cool features to enhance your mobile app. Or, in this case, a giant crowdsourced game.

Firebase Analytics: Overview and Updates -- Apparently, launching StreamView wasn't enough for the Analytics team. They've got a whole bunch of other new features popping up, including what might be the most commonly-requested feature since they launched last year. (No, it's not changing all the fonts to Papyrus. That's just my most-requested feature.) What is it? You'll just have to swing by the session to find out.

Zero to App: Develop with Firebase -- This is one of our most popular sessions from last year, and it's been brought back for 2017! We're gonna bring up four Firebase engineers for a realtime cross-platform app development deathmatch! But… uhhh... without the "death" part. HR wouldn't allow it. I've been told this year, there will be some Cloud Functions involved and possibly some other new twists and turns to keep things interesting. Will they end up with a real app by the end of the session? Or will Mike be unable to compile his code because he forgot a semicolon? Only time will tell!

AdMob and Firebase Analytics: Better Together -- Remember those Reese's commercials from the 80's, when people apparently walked around with open jars of peanut butter all the time? Well, this talk is a little like that, but instead of resulting in a delicious candy, you end up with some solid ad-driven analytics-backed monetization strategies for your app. Which you can then use to go and buy your own peanut-butter cups.

Shipping Santa Tracker: Carefully Rolling Out a Feature to a Million Users -- What happens when you've essentially got one day to launch an app to millions of people around the world with a whole slew of features that you've never really tested before in front of a large audience? You would think "mass chaos and hysteria", but in Santa Tracker land, things were as smooth a baby elf's bottom. Come by and listen to Sam and Dan tell you how they were able to pull it off. I know it's an early session, but they promised me there'd be costumes. So that might be worth rolling out of bed for.

So there ya go! Five Firebase sessions you should definitely keep an eye on. Not able to make it to I/O in person? Don't worry! All of our presentations will be available either in the livestream that day, or in the Firebase YouTube channel a few days later.

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1. Well, except you, Janice. Are you really going to use emacs over vim? You're breaking your mother's heart. 

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