Now in Android #83 — I/O edition
Android at Google I/O, Second Beta of Android 14, Announcing Studio Bot at I/O, What’s new in Jetpack, Wear OS updates, Compose for TV and more!
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
This week is our special Google 🔌 I/O 📽️ edition and, as every year in May, we have a lot to cover. So let’s begin!
Episode 83 video and podcast
Now in Android is also offered as a video and podcast.
14 things to know for Android developers at Google I/O!
At Google I/O 2023, you saw how we are ushering in important breakthroughs in AI across all of Google. For Android developers, we see this technology helping you out in your flow, saving you time so you can focus on building engaging new experiences for your users. Time saving tools ⚒️ are going to be even more important, as your users are asking you to support their experiences across an expanding portfolio of screens, like large screens and wearables in particular. In the Developer Keynote, Android showed you a number of ways to support you in this mission to help build great experiences for your users.
So, make sure to check out 1️⃣4️⃣ things to know for Android developers from Google I/O to get up to speed with the latest Android news:
Curious for even more Android updates and news 🧐? Our What’s new in Android, Google Play and Android Accessibility I/O videos got you covered:
Second 🅱️eta of Android 14
Coinciding with Google I/O, we’ve released the Second 🅱️eta of Android 14. Google I/O includes sessions covering many of Android 14’s new features in detail, and Beta 2 includes enhancements around camera and media, privacy and security, system UI, and developer productivity. We’re continuing to improve the large-screen device experience, and the Android 14 beta program is now available for the first time on select partner phones, tablets, and foldables. The Android 14 developer site has lots more information about the beta, including downloads for Pixel and the release timeline.
Read more in the Android Beta 2 blog post:
Android Studio @ I/O ’23: Announcing Studio Bot 🤖, an AI-powered coding assistant
We first announced Android Studio at I/O 2013 with a promise to deliver a best-in-class integrated development environment (IDE) focused on Android app developers. 10 years later, this commitment to developer productivity still drives the team to deliver new tools and solutions that help teams around the world to create amazing app experiences for their users. And with Google’s push to unlock the power of AI to help you throughout your day, Android Studio Hedgehog 🦔 introduces a key breakthrough: an AI-powered conversational experience 🤖 designed to make you more productive.
To find out all about this exciting new feature, read this blog post:
Google I/O 2023: What’s new in Jetpack 🚀
Android Jetpack is a key pillar of Modern Android Development. It is a suite of over 100 libraries, tools and guidance to help developers follow best practices, reduce boilerplate code, and write code that works consistently across Android versions and devices so that you can focus on building unique features for your app. The majority of apps on Google Play rely on Jetpack, in fact over 90% of the top 1000 apps use Jetpack 🚀. In this blog post, we cover highlights of recent updates in Architecture Libraries and Guidance; Performance Optimization of Applications, and User Interface Libraries and Guidance, and more.
Watch the Wear OS ⌚ updates at I/O 2023
As we continue to evolve the Wear OS platform ⌚, we’re excited to share with you some of the newest features and improvements that have been added to help you create innovative and engaging experiences for your users. Partners like Peloton and Todoist have been building exceptional experiences for Wear OS — and seeing the impact on their feature-adoption and engagement. Hear directly from Peloton engineers about how they built a differentiated experience for the watch with Compose for Wear OS.
For all your Wear-related updates, go to Wear OS updates at I/O 2023 blog post:
Building pixel-perfect living room experiences with Compose for TV 📺
Over the past year, we’ve continued to see significant growth on Android TV OS, now with over 150 million monthly active devices. In fact, according to Strategy Analytics, the Android TV streaming platform shipped on more devices worldwide than any other streaming TV platform in 2022. At Google I/O, we’ve launched the Alpha release of Compose for TV 📺, the latest UI framework for developing beautiful and functional apps for Android TV.
You can find all the information on this exciting topic in this blog post:
AndroidX releases 🚀
Since the previous episode, there has been an AndroidX release worth highlighting.
Compose Material 3 Version 1.1.0 is out! It includes a number of experimental components promoted to stable, as well as new components you’ve been asking for, such as:
More details can be found in Material Design 3 for Compose release blog post.
For all other AndroidX releases, take a look at the recent release notes.
Articles and documentation 📚
In Redesigning the Android Studio Logo, Marie talks about the new Android Studio logo redesign, available with the stable release of Flamingo 🦩. This case study offers a comprehensive overview of the design journey, from identifying the initial problem to the final outcome.
Introducing the Android UI design hub brings the ultimate resource for building exceptional user interfaces ⭐ across all form factors. Adhithya guides you through sharing takeaways, examples and do’s and don’ts, starter Figma kits, UI samples and inspiring galleries.
In What’s new in Android Performance — Google I/O, Ben shares the latest developments in making performance more approachable and rewarding 🏅 — from Baseline Profiles, tooling improvements within Android Studio, libraries, to how we made the technology work better for you behind the scenes.
With more active large screen Android devices each year 📱 💻 , it’s more important than ever for apps to ensure they provide their users with a seamless experience on these devices. How to optimize your Android app for large screens guides you on Dos and Don’ts of optimizing for large screens.
For a more hands-on way of learning, check out our two brand new codelabs 🔬!
In Theming in Compose with Material 3 codelab you’ll learn how to theme your apps in Jetpack Compose using M3 and the key building blocks 🎨 — color schemes, typography, and shapes to theme your application in personalized and accessible ways. You’ll also explore support of dynamic theming.
Building a Data Layer codelab teaches you about the data layer 💾 and how it fits into your overall app architecture. You’ll build the data layer for a task management app and create data sources for a local database and a network service, and a repository which exposes, updates, and synchronizes data.
Videos 🎥
Continuing with all the Google I/O treats 🍬, for those of you in a rush, here are three quick, 1-min videos that highlight what’s new in: Android, Google Play and Android Accessibility:
You can also watch two interesting case studies, to learn from other apps and their engineers 👷, on how Dropbox took 40% less time to rebuild a feature with Compose, as well as how Peloton now works seamlessly across multiple different devices and screen sizes.
For all your tooling updates, take a look at What’s new in Android development tools ⚒️ and meet our Studio Bot — the AI powered coding assistant in Android Studio.
To get updates on the latest Modern Android Development 😎 recommendations, check out Best practices for saving UI state on Android and What’s new in Kotlin for Android videos.
But there’s so much more 🤯, so make sure to check out the entire Android and Play at Google I/O 2023 playlist.
Now then… 👋
That’s it for this week with Android at Google I/O, Second Beta of Android 14, Announcing Studio Bot at I/O, What’s new in Jetpack, Wear OS updates, Compose for TV and more!
Check back soon for the next update from the Android developer universe! 💫
