Android Developers Blog

Posted by Wojtek Kaliciński, Developer Advocate, Android When we adopted Kotlin as a supported language on Android, and then shifted to a Kotlin-first approach, one of the main drivers was the excitement and adoption from the developer community. As Kotlin has grown, we’ve seen continued investment in the language from JetBrains (Kotlin's creators), the open source community, and increasingly our own teams at Google. Today we are excited to share the news about the Kotlin 1.4 release, the next milestone in the evolution of Kotlin, which contains new language features, improved compilers and tools. Below you'll find a brief rundown of some exciting new features in this release. You can read more about Kotlin 1.4 in the official announcement . New language features New language features introduced in Kotlin 1.4 improve the ergonomics of writing Kotlin code. Here's just one example: SAM conversions for Kotlin interfaces Previously, only functional interfaces (i.e. having jus...

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Head of Product Management, Games on Android & Google Play Welcome to our latest Android games update and the start of our #11WeeksOfAndroid week focused on games, media and 5G. With all of your interest and feedback in our developer previews, tools and services, we have lots to share in our ongoing efforts to help you better understand your game’s performance, expand your reach to more devices and new audiences, and support your go-to-market with Google Play. Get the latest updates below and follow us at @AndroidDev for additional games resources and more. Android tools for mobile game development Android Studio 4.1 : We've enhanced the CPU Profiler to expose more data with an improved UI, and we've added memory visualization, startup profiling capabilities, and sampling rate configuration to our Native Memory Profiler. Additionally, you can now open the Android Studio Profilers in a standalone UI. Checkout the System Trace and Native Memory ...

Posted by Product Leads for Android TV, Android for cars, Wear OS, and Chrome OS This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid . Each week we’re diving into a key area of Android so you don’t miss anything. This week, we spotlighted Android Beyond Phones; here’s a look at what you should know. With Android, people can experience the apps and services that they love across many devices & surfaces. Beyond phones, Android offers distinct yet familiar experiences on devices of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the smallest smartwatch screens, to larger displays on foldables and Chromebooks, to in-car entertainment systems, and all the way up to the largest television screens. For the past 4 days, we featured a daily deep dive into each of these exciting form factors that are providing developers with new and growing ways to engage people. Read on for a recap. Android TV We kicked off the week with Android TV , which is now partnering with 7 of the top 10 OEMs and ...

Posted by Karen Ng, Director of Product and Robert Simpson, Product Manager This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid . For each week, we’re diving into a key area and this week we’re focusing on Android Beyond Phones. Today, we’ll share what’s happening with Wear OS by Google. Wearable technologies help people lead healthier lives and connect with important, timely information. Today, we're sharing our areas of investment focusing on the fundamentals, bringing even more helpful experiences to more watches, and giving users more choice in a device ecosystem. Focusing on fundamentals Wearables are designed to instantly connect people with what's important throughout the day. That's why we're focused on fundamentals like performance and power. In the next OTA update coming in the fall, we’re improving performance by making it faster to access your info and start your apps. We’re simplifying the pairing process to make onboarding easier. You’ll see im...

Posted by Iein Valdez, Head of Chrome OS Developer Relations This article originally appeared on ChromeOS.dev. While people are spending more time at home than on the go, they’re relying increasingly on personal desktops and laptops to make everyday life easier. Whether they’re video-chatting with friends and family, discovering entertaining apps and games, multitasking at work, or pursuing a passion project, bigger screens and better performance have made all the difference. This trend was clear from March through June 2020: Chromebook unit sales grew 127% year over year (YOY) while the rest of the U.S. notebook category increased by 40% YOY. 1 Laptops have become crucial to people at home who want to use their favorite apps and games, like Star Trek™ Fleet Command and Reigns: Game of Thrones to enjoy action-packed adventure, Calm to manage stress, or Disney+ to keep the whole family entertained. To deliver app experiences that truly improve people’s lives, developers must be equ...

Posted by Mickey Kataria, Director of Product Management, Android for cars This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid . For each week, we’re diving into a key area and this week we’re focusing on Android Beyond Phones. Today, we’ll be talking about cars. Since 2014, Google has been committed to bringing the familiarity of apps and services from Android phones into the car in a safe and seamless way. We’re continuing to see strong momentum and adoption of both Android Auto and Android Automotive OS , and are excited to share new improvements that provide app developers the opportunity to reach more users in the car. Android Auto momentum We launched Android Auto for users to stay connected on-the-go and more easily access their Android phones on their car displays— while staying focused on the road. Android Auto is currently available with nearly every major car manufacturer and is on track to be in more than 100 million cars in the coming months. Many car manufac...

Posted by Dan Aharon, Product Manager, Android TV This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid. This week we’re focusing on Android Beyond Phones. So what’s new on Android TV?. With users asking for more TV shows, movies, and apps than ever, the big screen has become a big deal. There are now over 80% more Android TV monthly active devices than a year ago! Working with 7 of the top 10 Smart TV OEMs and over 160 TV Operators has helped give users more options to spruce up their living room with Android TV. But connecting with this many people wouldn’t have been possible without the developer ecosystem building ~7,000 apps for Google Play on Android TV. Together, our users can now watch, play, and do more on their TVs. Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features to Android TV to make discovering and accessing your content even easier for users. We updated Google Play with a refreshed look and new app collections while making it easier for users to subscribe to...