Google I/O 2024 — Android Keynotes

Forging the developer path: Inspiration and insight at Google I/O

Published in

Simform Engineering

6 min readMay 15, 2024

The dust has settled on Google I/O 2024, and what a whirlwind it was! This year’s conference focused heavily on the ever-evolving realm of AI.

Let’s dive into the key takeaways from the main keynotes:

The Gemini Era

Gemini 1.5 Pro:

The token capacity of this model is expanded from 1 million to 2 million.
It is also now available globally in 35 languages.

Gemini 1.5 Flash:

This smaller Gemini model is optimized for narrower or high-frequency tasks that require quick response time.

Gems:

Gemini Gems feature lets you customize a Gemini chatbot with personalities and abilities, such as a hard core coder, or a classical music singer.

Gemini Nano:

Nano is the smallest model from Google.
Nano is optimized for providing quick responses, on-device, with or without a data network.

Fraud Call Detection:

Fraud call detection is now included in Android to detect fraudulent language and conversation patterns using Gemini Nano.
The AI analyzes conversation patterns often associated with scams and alerts users if they suspect they are talking to a scammer.

Ask Photos:

With the AskPhotos feature, we can ask for specific photos in a natural way, similar to speaking to a person. It can filter photos quickly and read text from images.

What’s New in Jetpack Compose?

At Google I/O 2024, several new features for Jetpack Compose were announced, set to release in June 2024:

Shared Element Transition :

Modifier.sharedElement() and Modifier.sharedBound() have been added to Compose. They allow for beautiful transitions between screens with finer control than the View system allowed.

Lazy List Item Animation:

We can now add Modifier.animateItem() to our list items to animate list item changes automatically, with customizable animation specifications.

Text:

Text now supports inline links and basic HTML formatting via the new AnnotatedString.fromHtml() extension.
A new overload is added to BasicTextField that accepts a TextFieldState.

Contextual Flow Layouts:

A lazy flow layout is that which only composes the content that can fit. If we ever need this functionality, we can now use the ContextualFlowRow and ContextualFlowColumn .

Performance Improvements:

Improvement in Jetsnack with each Compose release

Jetpack now has a 17% improvement in the time to first pixel benchmark of the Jetsnack sample compared to the January release.

Strong Skipping Mode :

Strong skipping mode simplifies composable skipping with a 20% improvement in home screen recomposition time in the Now In Android sample.

Compose Compiler Moving to Kotlin Repository :

From Kotlin 2.0, the Compose compiler will be hosted in the Kotlin repository. This means we will no longer have to wait for a matching Compose compiler to upgrade our Kotlin version.

Stable APIs:

Google continues to stabilize experimental APIs and remove experimental annotations. Some release include Pager, AnchoredDraggable, SegmentedButton, SwipeToDismissBox, Slider, and more.

Type Safe Navigation in Navigation Compose:

As of Jetpack Navigation 2.8.0-alpha08, the Navigation Component now has a full type-safe system based on Kotlin Serialization for defining navigation graphs, optimized for Navigation Compose.

CameraX Compose:

In this first alpha release, we can use the new Viewfinder composable to display a camera preview with the correct aspect ratio and rotation, regardless of window size or device orientation.

Compose Support Across Android Form Factors:

At I/O this year, Google announced several updates to support building layouts that adapt across screen sizes, with Compose for TV reaching 1.0 Beta and updates to Compose for Wear OS.

Android Studio

Code Suggestions with Gemini:

We can now provide custom prompts for Gemini in Android Studio to generate code suggestions.

Gemini for Recommendations on Crash Reports:

We can now analyze crash reports and generate insights displayed in the Gemini tool window.

Integrate Gemini API into Your App with a Starter Template:

We can start prototyping with Gemini models using the new starter app template provided in Android Studio.

Gemini 1.5 Pro Coming to Android Studio:

Gemini 1.5 Pro, equipped with a large context window, will be integrated into Android Studio later this year.

Productivity Enhancements:

Release Monitoring with Firebase:

We can now monitor the most recent production releases of Android apps with a single dashboard powered by Firebase Crashlytics.

Android Device Streaming:

It lets us securely connect to remote physical Android devices hosted in Google’s data centers, powered by Firebase.

USB Cable Speed Detection:

Android Studio Koala now makes it easy to differentiate low-performing USB cables from high-performing ones.

A New Way to Sign in with Google in Android Studio:

It’s now easier to sign in to multiple Google services with one authentication step. After that, we can use Gemini, Firebase, and other services with the same account.

Device UI Setting Shortcut:

Using the device UI setting shortcut, we can now easily configure our devices to desired dark themes, font sizes, display sizes, app languages, and more settings.

Faster and Improved Profiler with a Task-Centric Approach:

Popular profiling tasks like capturing a system trace now start up to 60% faster.

Google Play SDK Index Integration:

Android Studio is integrated with the Google Play SDK Index to inform when there are known policy or version issues with SDKs used by our app.

Preview Tiles for Wear OS Apps:

We can now quickly see what a tile looks like on different configurations without needing to run it on a device.

Generate Synthetic Sensor Data for Testing on Wear OS Apps:

To help simulate real-life scenarios, we can now generate synthetic (fake) data for a Wear OS emulator for health-related sensors such as heart rate, speed, steps, and more.

Compose Glance Widget Previews:

Android Studio Koala makes it easy to preview our Jetpack Compose Glance widgets directly within the IDE.

Live Edit for Compose Enabled by Default:

Live Edit for Compose accelerates Compose development experience by automatically deploying code changes to the running application on an emulator or physical device.

Compose Preview Screenshot Testing Plugin (Alpha):

The generated HTML test report lets us detect changes to our app’s UI visually.

IntelliJ Platform Update (2024.1):

Android Studio Koala Feature Drop includes the IntelliJ 2024.1 platform release, with some useful IDE improvements.

Android 15

Android 15 Beta 2:

Available on May 15, 2024. AI announcements took center stage this year, shifting the conventional timing of Android Beta announcements.

Latest Devices from Google

Pixel 8a — Delightful. Powerful. AI-full.

Google being Google! It launched the Pixel 8a on May 7, surprising fans ahead of the expected May 14 announcement.

The new smartphone, which features a built-in Gemini AI assistant and Google’s Tensor G3 chipset, is priced slightly higher than its predecessor, the Pixel 7a.

Conclusion

Google I/O 2024 has showcased a future with unlimited possibilities. With accessible and powerful AI like Gemini at our fingertips, developers can build experiences we never thought possible. Let’s turn these advancements into reality and shape the future of technology together.

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