Now in Android #106
I/O’24, Android 15, KMP, Compose, AndroidX, and more
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development. In this episode we’ll cover I/O’24, Android 15, KMP, Compose, AndroidX, and more.
Most of the content of this post is available in the form of a video or podcast, so feel free to watch or listen rather than read on. (Or do all three to help you remember! There won’t be a quiz.)
Announcements 📣
Google I/O happened on May 14th. Did you miss an Android announcement?
Check out the blog post 15 Things to know for Android developers at Google I/O. This covered a range of updates to our tools and services grounded in productivity, helping make it faster and easier for you to build excellent experiences across form factors, as well as how we’re reimagining Android with AI at the core.
We released The Second Beta of Android 15 which includes improved large-screen multitasking, private space, predictive back on by default, generated widget previews, and more. Also, the Android 15 beta is available on more devices.
Android has been actively supporting Kotlin since 2017, and is now supporting Kotlin Multiplatform which enables sharing code across mobile, web, server, and desktop platforms. Check out the blog post Android Support for Kotlin Multiplatform to Share Business Logic Across Mobile, Web, Server, and Desktop Platforms.
We also released the first alpha version of the Compose Preview Screenshot Testing tool. Screenshot testing is an effective way to verify how your UI looks to users, leveraging the simplicity and speed of Compose previews.
Android Developers blog 📝
Trying to understand what’s new with a specific area of Android? Check out the following I/O’24 blog posts:
What’s new in Google Play we shared a brand new play store surface in developer preview, updates to Google Play SDK Console and Play Integrity API to help you reinforce trust with secure, high-quality experiences. Also we shared more ways to acquire and engage users, and optimize your revenue.
What’s new in Jetpack Compose we announced the upcoming June ’24 Jetpack Compose release and announced expanded Compose support across the ecosystem of Android devices.
What’s new in Wear OS we announced that we released the Developer Preview of Wear OS 5, the next iteration of the Watch Face Format with Wear OS 5 and tooling and library updates.
Get the big picture with Large Screens. At I/O we covered building adaptable apps, increasing user productivity with key inputs like keyboard and stylus, and scaling games across surfaces.
Level up your apps with the latest features from Android Health Our updates this year focus on helping you build up a strong foundation of health data, with support for more data types, new ways to access data, and methods of getting timely data updates.
Developer.Android.com updates 💻
Along with the new announcements, we’ve been updating developer.android.com to be better than ever! Check out our new AI, Identity and Social and Messaging documentation hubs. These new hubs offer guidance around critical user journeys such as high performance on-device AI with Gemini Nano, how to do user authentication with Passkeys and how to do media capture and creation.
Medium 📝
Check out the following medium blog posts:
Shahbaz wrote about Multisampled Anti-aliasing For Almost Free. If you get it right, you can seriously improve the visuals of your game with little effort.
If you are developing a Wear OS app, Chiara wrote about tools and libraries you can use to help your Wear OS app satisfy Google Play app quality requirements.
Codelabs 🛠️
We’ve also added new codelabs, check out the new pathway: Improve the user experience of an Android app. Learn how Edge to Edge, Predictive Back, and Glance can enhance the user experience and quality of an Android app.
Also, check out Practical performance problem solving in Jetpack Compose. In this codelab, you learn how to improve the runtime performance of a Compose app.
Android Developers Backstage🎙️
On Android Developers Backstage episode 206: “Make it faster” we cover ADB, “Android Debug Bridge”, the technology powering device connections.
Romain and Tor talk with Fabien from the Android Studio team on his work to improve the debug stack — including the new USB speed detection feature recently unveiled at Google I/O.
Listen to it in podcast or youtube format.
AndroidX Releases 🚀
Finally, we had several exciting new libraries and features launched in Android Jetpack:
Camera Viewfinder Compose Version 1.0.0-alpha01 is released. This library introduces a Compose native Viewfinder composable, that can be used with CameraX and Camera2
VectorDrawable-Seekable Version 1.0.0 is released. This launches SeekableAnimatedVectorDrawable, a seekable alternative to AnimatedVectorDrawable with some additional features.
ViewPager2 Version 1.1.0 is released. This includes a number of fixes and adds the FragmentTransactionCallback interface for listening to fragment lifecycle changes that happen inside FragmentStateAdapter.
Fragment Version 1.7.0 is released. Fragments now provide support for Predictive in-app back when using Animator or when using AndroidX Transition 1.5. This allows users to use the back gesture to see the previous fragment by seeking your Animator/Transition before deciding to either commit the transaction via completing the gesture or canceling.
Transition Version 1.5.0 is released. TransitionListeners now have new onTransitionStart() and onTransitionEnd() listeners that allow the developer to know whether the transition is starting or ending.
Webkit Version 1.11.0 is released. This allows apps to control audio playback in WebView through the new setAudioMuted and isAudioMuted APIs, which are analogous to muting a tab in Chrome.
Make sure to check out the AndroidX release notes here to learn more.
Now then… 👋
That’s it for this week with I/O’24, Android 15, KMP, Compose, AndroidX, and more!
Check back soon for your next update from the Android developer universe! 💫
