Android Developers Blog

Posted by Parul Soi, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google Play Android is fortunate to have an incredibly rich ecosystem of SDKs and libraries to help developers build great apps more efficiently. These SDKs can range from developer tools that simplify complicated feature development to end-to-end services such as analytics, attribution, engagement, etc. All of these tools can help Android developers reduce cost and ship products faster. For the past few months, various teams at Google have been working together on new initiatives to expand the resources and support we offer for the developers of these tools. Today, SDK developers can sign up and register their SDK with us to receive updates that will keep you informed about Google Play policy changes, updates to the platform, and other useful information. Our goal is to provide you with whatever you need to better serve your technical and business goals in helping your partners create better apps or games. Going forward we ...

Posted by Seang Chau (VP Engineering) Last year we announced Fast Pair , a set of specs that make it easier to connect Bluetooth headsets and speakers to Android devices. Today, we're making it easier for people to connect Fast Pair compatible accessories to devices associated with the same Google Account. Fast Pair will connect accessories to a user's current and future Android phones (6.0+), and we're adding support for Chromebooks in 2019. Fast Pair provides stress-free Bluetooth pairing for your Android phone. We have been working closely with dozens of manufacturers, many of which are bringing new Fast Pair compatible devices to market over the coming months. This includes Jaybird, who is already selling the Tarah Wireless Sport Headphones , as well as upcoming products from prominent brands such as Anker SoundCore, Bose, and many more. The Jaybird Tarah, Fast Pair compatible sport headphones already available in the market. We also want to make it easy for manufacture...

Posted by Hoi Lam , Lead Developer Advocate Today, we are launching the final API 28 emulator image for developers. This image will also contain the UI redesign we announced in August. You should verify that your app's notification works well with the new notification stream, and that your apps work well against changes previously announced for API 28. What's new in API 28? Here are the highlights of the API 28 emulator: New notification stream - You should make sure that your notifications are branded correctly, using color, and that the notification is sufficiently concise to fit into the new layout. Custom notification layout is no longer supported. App Standby Buckets - Wear OS prioritizes app requests for resources based on how recent and how frequently the apps have been used. Developers are advised to follow best practices to ensure that their app behaves well, whichever bucket the apps are in. User input and data privacy - To enhance user privacy, API 28 introduced n...

Posted by Ben Murdoch, Software Engineer and Michael Wright, Android Framework Engineer The screen on a mobile device is critical to the user experience. The improved Adaptive Brightness feature in Android P automatically manages the display to match your preferences for brightness level so you get the best experience, whatever the current lighting environment. Screen brightness in Android is managed via Quick Settings or via the settings app (Settings → Display → Brightness Level). In Android Pie, Adaptive Brightness is enabled by default (Settings → Display → Adaptive Brightness). While enabled, Android automatically selects a screen brightness that's suitable for the user's current ambient light conditions. Prior to Android Pie, the brightness slider didn't represent an absolute screen brightness level, but a global adjustment factor for boosting or reducing the device manufacturer's preset screen brightness curve across all ambient light levels: * Setting the slider...

Posted by Mo Yu, Damien Octeau, and Chuangang Ren, Android Security & Privacy Team In a previous blog post , we talked about using machine learning to combat Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs) . This blog post covers how Google uses machine learning techniques to detect and classify PHAs. We'll discuss the challenges in the PHA detection space, including the scale of data, the correct identification of PHA behaviors, and the evolution of PHA families. Next, we will introduce two of the datasets that make the training and implementation of machine learning models possible, such as app analysis data and Google Play data. Finally, we will present some of the approaches we use, including logistic regression and deep neural networks. Using machine learning to scale Detecting PHAs is challenging and requires a lot of resources. Our security experts need to understand how apps interact with the system and the user, analyze complex signals to find PHA behavior , and evolve their t...

Posted by Iliyan Malchev, Project Treble Architect Last week at the 2018 Android Dev Summit , we demonstrated the benefits of Project Treble by showing the same Generic System Image (GSI) running on devices from different OEMs. We highlighted the availability of GSI for Android 9 Pie that app developers can use to develop and test their apps with Android 9 on any Treble-compliant device. Launched with Android Oreo in 2017, Project Treble has enabled OEMs and silicon vendors to develop and deploy Android updates faster than what was previously possible. Since then, we've been working with device manufacturers to define Vendor Interfaces (VINTF) and draw a clear separation between vendor and framework code on Android devices. Going forward, all devices launching with Android 9 Pie or later will be Treble-compliant and take full advantage of the Treble architecture to deliver faster upgrades. Thanks to Treble, we expect to see more devices from OEMs running Android 9 Pie at the end ...

Posted by Leo Sei, Product Manager on Android As you may have heard from the Android Dev Summit, we announced that we're expanding support in Android to include Foldables, in preparation for upcoming devices from hardware partners like Samsung . Here are a set of recommendations and information to make sure your application provides a great user experience on this new form factor (you can also check out the Android Dev Summit dedicated session here ) 1. Screen continuity On this new form factor, your application could be transitioned from one screen to another automatically (eg. when folding / unfolding a foldable phone). During this transition, your app will receive a configuration change for the new layout (and possibly density in some cases). To provide a great user experience when changing from one screen to the other, you want to make sure your app properly support runtime configuration change . How to test : Emulators for various devices should become available soon (eg., S...

Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director of Product Management Today, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, we kicked off the Android Dev Summit , taking a look back at the last 10 years of Android and then jumping into some important new features for Android developers. Here's a look at some of the things we shared! Unfolding Android into new experiences As early as Android 1.6, Android and our partners have contemplated different screen sizes and densities, enabling the platform to power a broad category of form factors and new experiences like Android TV, Android Auto, Wear OS and even Android apps on Chromebooks. Phone screens are an area where Android partners set the bar, introducing "phablets" when phone screens were small. Fast forward to today, when a phablet is... just a phone, a standard size users have come to love. Now we see a Android device makers creating a new category: Foldables . Taking advantage of new flexible display technology, the ...

Posted by Leo Sei, Product Manager on Android Studio and R8 Android developers know that APK size is an important factor in user engagement. Code shrinking helps reduce the size of your APK by getting rid of unused code and resources as well as making your actual code take less space (also known as minification or obfuscation). That's why we're investing in improving code shrinking to make it faster and more efficient. We're excited to announce that the next generation code shrinker, R8, is available for preview as part of Android Studio 3.3 beta . R8 does all of shrinking, desugaring and dexing in one step. When comparing to the current code shrinking solution, Proguard, R8 shrinks the code faster while improving the output size. The following data comes from benchmark on the Santa Tracker app, you can find the project with benchmark details on this GitHub repository . How to try it R8 is available with Android Studio 3.3 beta and works with Proguard rules. To try it, set ...