Now in Android #82
Google I/O, Spatial Audio, Automatic Update Prompts for Crashing Apps, and more!
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
Episode 82 Video and Podcast
Now in Android is also offered as a video and podcast.
Get ready for Google I/O
I/O is just a few days away and we couldn’t be more excited to share the latest updates across Google’s developer products, solutions, and technologies. From keynotes to technical sessions and hands-on workshops, these announcements aim to help you build smarter and ship faster.
Here are some helpful tips to maximize your experience online:
- Start building your personal I/O agenda: Starting now, you can save the Google and developer keynotes to your calendar and explore the program to preview content.
- Connect with the community: After the keynotes, you can talk to Google experts and other developers online in I/O Adventure chat. If you’re craving community now, visit the Community page to meet people with similar interests in your area or find a watch party to attend.
Check out this post for more information:
Delivering an immersive sound experience with Spatial Audio
In Android 13 (API level 33), we introduced a new standardized platform architecture for spatial audio, a premium and more engaging sound experience. With spatial audio, your content sounds more realistic to users by making it sound as though they are in the middle of the action. The individual instruments from a band can be separated and “placed” around the user, or the sound from a whale might grow as it approaches from behind and taper off as it swims away.
Immerse yourself in this post to learn more:
Automatic Update Prompts for Crashing Apps
We are excited to announce a new feature that will help you to increase the rollout velocity of app updates and meet Play’s quality bar. On phones and tablets running Android 7.0 (SDK level 24) and above, the Play Store will prompt users to update your app if it crashes in the foreground and a more stable version is available. This will reduce your user-perceived crash rate.
Check out this post if you’d like to learn more:
AndroidX releases 🚀
Since the previous episode, there has been an AndroidX release worth highlighting.
- Compose Material 3 Version 1.1.0-rc01 is out.
TimePickerremoved from stable API, further changes are expected in the state API.ModalBottomSheetmoved to android only.ModalBottomSheetis not recommended for desktop use, and the functionality is not actively maintained.
Articles, documentation, and videos 📚🎥
In The Shape of Things to Come, Chet outlines how to create rounded shapes in AndroidX using the new :graphics:graphics-shapes: library. This sets you up to learn how to animate between shapes in Shape Morphing in Android.
In Problem solving in Compose Text, Alejandra takes you step by step through her process for solving a text layout problem, weighing pros and cons of each solution along the way.
Yacine covers the new Photo Picker support library in Photo Picker Everywhere. This means that with ActivityX 1.7.0, Photo Picker works on devices as far back as Android KitKat (4.4).
A new codelab was released to help you Configure, implement, and verify Android App Links. This goes great with Sabs’ previous blog post Android App Links implementation in a few steps!
Jeremy covers some upcoming changes to Compose’s point input in Improvements and Changes to Compose’s Pointer Input. Make sure to give this a read if you use Modifier.pointerInput.
Finally, In What is PLR and how can it help to create accessible apps?, Ankita covers how the play pre-launch reports can help you make your app more accessible for your users.
Now then… 👋
That’s it for this week with Google I/O, Spatial Audio, Automatic Update Prompts for Crashing Apps, and more!
Check back soon for the next update from the Android developer universe! 💫
