Google Developer Advocate Jen Person talks with Mark Mandel and Mark Mirchandani today about developments in Firebase. Firebase is a suite of products that helps developers build apps. According to Jen, it’s equivalent to the client-side of Google Cloud. Firebase works across platforms, including Android, web, iOS and offers many growth features, setting it apart from other Google products. It helps site and app owners interact with and reach customers with services like notifications, remote configurations to optimize the app, testing, and more.

Cloud Firestore has come out of beta, and it is available both through Firebase and Google Cloud Platform, making it easy for developers to move from one to the other if their needs change.

Recently, the Firebase team has been working to refine their products based on user feedback. Firebase Authentication has been upgraded with the additions of phone authentication, email link authentication, and multiple email actions. They’ve also added a generic authentication option so developers can use any provider they choose.

ML Kit makes machine learning much easier for client apps or on the server. With on-device ML features, users can continue using the app without internet service. Things like face recognition can still be done quickly without a wifi connection. ML Kit is adding new features all the time, including smart reply and translation, image labeling , facial feature detection, etc.

Cloud Functions for Firebase is also out of beta. It includes new features like a crash-litics trigger that can notify you if your site or app crashes and scheduled functions. An emulator is new as well, so you can test without touching your live code.

Jen Person

Jen is a Developer Advocate at Google. She worked with Firebase for 2.5 years prior to recently joining Google Cloud. She loves building iOS apps with Swift and planning the ideal data structures for various apps using Cloud Firestore. Jen is currently co-starring with JavaScript in a buddy cop comedy where the two don’t see eye to eye but are forced to work together, eventually forming a strong loving bond through a series of hilarious misadventures.

Cool things of the week

Uploading images directly to Cloud Storage using Signed URL blog
Build your own event-sourced system using Cloud Spanner blog
Cloud Shell on the Cloud Console app site
Google Cloud networking in depth: Cloud Load Balancing deconstructed blog

Interview

Firebase site
Firestore site
Cloud Storage site
Firebase Authentication site
ML Kit site
TensorFlow Lite site
Cloud Functions for Firebase site
Cloud Functions Samples site
I/O 2019 Talk: Zero to App video
Guide - Cloud Firestore collection group queries docs
Guide - Scheduled Cloud Functions docs
YouTube - #AskFirebase Playlist videos
Codelab - Recognize text, facial features, and objects in images with ML Kit for Firebase: iOS site
Codelab - Train and deploy on-device image classification model with AutoML Vision in ML Kit site
Codelab - Recognize text, facial features, and objects in images with ML Kit for Firebase: Android site
Codelab - Identify objects in images using custom machine learning models with ML Kit for Firebase site
Codelab - Detect objects in images with ML Kit for Firebase: Android site
Previous episodes on Firebase:
- GCP Podcast Episode 13: Firebase with Sara Robinson and Vikrum Nijjar podcast
- GCP Podcast Episode 29: The New Firebase with Abe Haskins and Doug Stevenson podcast
- GCP Podcast Episode 78: Firebase at I/O 2017 with James Tamplin and Andrew Lee podcast
- GCP Podcast Episode 97: Cloud Firestore with Dan McGrath and Alex Dufetel podcast
- GCP Podcast Episode 99: Cloud Functions and Firebase Hosting with David East podcast

Question of the week

How do I save money on my GCP resources?

Where can you find us next?

Mark Man will be at Tokyo Next! Watch him live code on Twitch.

Mark Mirch is going on vacation!

Firebase with Jen Person

Google Cloud Platform Podcast