Android Developers Blog

Posted by Isai Damier, Android Developer Platform Engineering (@isaidamier) Kevin Chyn, Android Framework Curtis Belmonte, Android Framework With the launch of Android 10 ( API level 29 ), developers can now use the Biometric API, part of the AndroidX Biometric Library , for all their on-device user authentication needs. The Android Framework and Security team has added a number of significant features to the AndroidX Biometric Library , which makes all of the biometric behavior from Android 10 available to all devices that run Android 6.0 (API level 23) or higher. In addition to supporting multiple biometric authentication form factors, the API has made it much easier for developers to check whether a given device has biometric sensors. And if there are no biometric sensors present, the API allows developers to specify whether they want to use device credentials in their apps. The features do not just benefit developers. Device manufacturers and OEMs have a lot to celebrate as well...

Posted by Allan Livingston, Product Management Director, Chrome OS App Ecosystem Android fuels mobile apps on devices that range far beyond your typical small-screen smartphone, from new Chromebooks like the lightweight, high-performance Google Pixelbook Go to multi-display devices and foldable phones like the Samsung Galaxy Fold . Not to mention the more than 175M Android tablets that have the Google Play store installed. 1 These large-screen devices set the stage for more engaging and visually immersive experiences, whether by creating a larger canvas for creativity or by giving users faster, more flexible ways to work . As we’ve continued to prioritize large-screen devices with OEM partners like Samsung, Asus, and Lenovo, we’ve been able to expand our reach to a huge new audience of users. During the week of Black Friday in 2018, 1 in 3 notebooks sold in the U.S. were Chromebooks. 2 Chromebook unit sales also increased 22% YoY, while the rest of the notebook category decreased -...

Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director, Product Management Modern Android Development today Perhaps as a consequence of Android's flexibility, we often get asked by developers what does the Android team recommend when it comes to building apps? You’ve told us: you love our openness..but you’d also love us to marry it with an opinion about the right way to do things. And, to make sure the right way is also the easiest way. And so today, at the Android Dev Summit , the team wanted to answer that question for you. We call our recommendation “modern Android development". Opinionated and powerful, for fast, easy development. Taking away everything that slows you down so you can focus on building incredible experiences. You can see it in the investments we’ve made like creating Android Studio and Jetpack. (Over 90% of our pro developers are using Android Studio today.) Kotlin and Compose are especially great recent examples. Kotlin is a modern, concise language -- something you a...

Posted by The Android team Developers like you have always played an important role in shaping the direction of Android, fueling the wave of Android innovation. It’s the reason that when we first launched the SDK for Android 10+ years ago, we simultaneously announced the Android Developer Challenge: a way to help reward model apps and show us what user problems you wanted to solve. As Android continues to push the boundaries into emerging areas like ML, 5G, foldables and more, we need your help to bring to life the consumer experiences that will define these new frontiers. So we’re bringing back the Android Developer Challenge and asking you to help us unlock new experiences on Android, and help inspire other developers around these emerging technologies. As we kick off this challenge, the first area we’ll be focusing on is On-Device Machine Learning. At Google, we’re big believers in how this new technology can open up a world of helpful innovation so you can get things done in ways ...

Posted by Iliyan Malchev, Project Treble Architect Android 10 , our newest release, brings helpful tools for both developers and consumers like suggested actions in Smart Reply to help you multitask faster, Dark theme for battery saving, Focus mode that keeps you from digital distractions, and more. And with almost 50 changes related to privacy and security, Android 10 gives you greater protection, transparency, and control over your data than ever before. It is important to both users and developers that these new releases find their way to mobile devices as fast as possible. In this post, we’ll share an update on the progress we’ve made with Project Treble , an initiative to help manufacturers update devices to new versions of Android more quickly. Wait and See When we launched Project Treble with Android 8.0 Oreo, we asked ourselves if our investment would pay off. There were two factors to consider in measuring the effectiveness of the program: Complexity: The new architecture was...

Posted by Dan Lavelle, Head of Learning Operations, Google Play One year ago, we introduced the Academy for App Success , an e-learning platform to help apps and games businesses who want to grow on Android and Google Play. In that time we've seen tens of thousands of people register for free learning, complete over 50,000 courses, and provide an average course rating of 4.66 out of 5 stars. Thank you to everyone who has spent time learning about best practices, Play Console features, policies and other aspects that are critical to growing your business - we hope to see more of you in the future. New content and features Since the debut of Play Academy, we've been working hard to expand our offering to cover the topics you want to learn about. In this time, we have: Created and updated 30+ courses Localized Play Academy in 9 additional languages Developed tailored content for specific markets, such as India, Indonesia and Korea Launched content updates to share the best of GDC ...

We’re less than 24 hours away from kicking off the 2019 Android Dev Summit , broadcasting live from the Google Events Center (MP7) in Sunnyvale, CA on October 23 & 24. We’ll be broadcasting the entire two days of the event live on YouTube , Twitter and on the Android Dev Summit website . Here’s what you need to know: The keynote, sessions, sandbox and more, kicking off at 10AM PDT The summit kicks off on October 23 at 10 a.m. PDT with a keynote, where you'll hear from Dave Burke, VP Engineering for Android, Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director of Product Management and others on the present and future of Android development. From there, we'll dive into two days of deep technical content from the Android engineering team, on topics such as Android platform, Android Studio, Android Jetpack, Kotlin, Google Play, and more. The full agenda is here so you can plan your summit experience. #AskAndroid your pressing questions! Tweet us your best questions using the hashtag #AskAndroid ...

Posted by Madan Ankapura, Product Manager, Android Google’s vision is to bring a safe and seamless connected experience to every car. Since 2017, we have announced collaborations with vehicle manufacturers like Volvo Car Group, General Motors and others to power infotainment systems with Android Automotive OS, Google’s open-source Android platform, and to enable integration of Google technology and services. Now with the reveal of Volvo’s XC40 Recharge and the previously announced Polestar 2 , we are making progress on our vision with these brand new, customized infotainment systems that feature real-time updates to the Google Assistant, Google Maps and automotive apps created by Google, and the global developer community. Volvo XC40 Recharge & its infotainment unit With more manufacturers adding Android Automotive OS based infotainment systems to their vehicles, app developers have an opportunity to reach even more users with innovative, and drive optimized experiences. Concept ...

Posted by Dan Albert, Android NDK Tech Lead Android NDK r21 is now in beta! It’s been a longer than usual development cycle (four months since NDK r20), so there’s quite a lot to discuss for this release. We have the usual toolchain updates, improved defaults for better security and performance, and are making changes to our release process to better accommodate users that need stability without hindering those that want new features. New Minimum System Requirements This release comes with new minimum system requirements. Following Android Studio and the SDK , 32-bit Windows is no longer supported. While this change will not affect most developers, this change does have an impact if you use 32-bit versions of Microsoft® Windows®. Linux users must have glibc 2.17 or newer. Release Cycle Changes and LTS One release a year will be our Long Term Support (LTS) release for users that want stability more than they need new features. The release will undergo a longer beta cycle before being re...

Posted by The #AndroidDevSummit team In two weeks, we'll be welcoming Android developers from around the world at Android Dev Summit 2019, broadcasting live from the Google Events Center (MP7) in Sunnyvale, CA on October 23 & 24. Whether you’re joining us in person or via the livestream, we’ve got a great show planned for you; starting today, you can read more details about the keynote, sessions, codelabs, sandbox, the mobile app, and how online viewers can participate. The keynote, sessions, sandbox and more, kicking off at 10AM PDT The summit kicks off on October 23 at 10 a.m. PDT with a keynote, where you'll hear from Dave Burke, VP Engineering for Android, and others on the present and future of Android development. From there, we'll dive into two days of deep technical content from the Android engineering team, on topics such as Android platform, Android Studio, Android Jetpack, Kotlin, Google Play, and more. The full agenda is now available, so you can start to ...

Posted by Lingfeng Yang, Android Studio team Developers often use the Android Emulator during their day-to-day development to quickly test the latest changes before they are being committed. In addition, developers are increasingly using the emulator in their continuous integration (CI) systems to run a larger suite of automated tests. To better support this use-case, we are open sourcing the Android Emulator Container Scripts and improving the developer experiences around two pain points: Deployability - finding and running the desired version of Android Emulator. Debuggability - tracking down bugs from remote instances of Android Emulator. Deployability Android supports a wide variety of hardware and software configurations, and the Android Emulator is no different. However, this wide variety can create confusion over environment configurations. How should developers obtain emulators and system images? What drivers are required? How do you run with or without CPU or GPU accelera...