Posted by Ben Trengrove - Developer Relations Engineer, Matt Dyor - Product Manager
To empower Android developers, we’re excited to announce Android Studio’s new Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) Shared Module Template. This template was specifically designed to allow developers to use a single codebase and apply business logic across platforms. More specifically, developers will be able to add shared modules to existing Android apps and share the business logic across their Android and iOS applications.
This makes it easier for Android developers to craft, maintain, and most importantly, own the business logic. The KMP Shared Module Template is available within Android Studio when you create a new module within a project.
Shared Module Templates are found under the New Module tab
A single code base for business logic
Most developers have grown accustomed to maintaining different code bases, platform to platform. In the past, whenever there’s an update to the business logic, it must be carefully updated in each codebase. But with the KMP Shared Module Template:
Developers can write once and publish the business logic to wherever they need it.
Engineering teams can do more faster.
User experiences are more consistent across the entire audience, regardless of platform or form factor.
Releases are better coordinated and launched with fewer errors.
Customers and developer teams who adopt KMP Shared Module Templates should expect to achieve greater ROI from mobile teams who can turn their attention towards delighting their users more and worrying about inconsistent code less.
KMP enthusiasm
The Android developer community remains very excited about KMP, especially after Google I/O 2024 where Google announced official support for shared logic across Android and iOS. We have seen continued momentum and enthusiasm from the community. For example, there are now over 1,500 KMP libraries listed on JetBrains' klibs.io.
Our customers are excited because KMP has made Android developers more productive. Consistently, Android developers have said that they want solutions that allow them to share code more easily and they want tools which boost productivity. This is why we recommend KMP; KMP simultaneously delivers a great experience for Android users while boosting ROI for the app makers. The KMP Shared Module Template is the latest step towards a developer ecosystem where user experience is consistent and applications are updated seamlessly.
Large scale KMP adoptions
This KMP Shared Module Template is new, but KMP more broadly is a maturing technology with several large-scale migrations underway. In fact, KMP has matured enough to support mission critical applications at Google. Google Docs, for example, is now running KMP in production on iOS with runtime performance on par or better than before. Beyond Google, Stone’s 130 mobile developers are sharing over 50% of their code, allowing existing mobile teams to ship features approximately 40% faster to both Android and iOS.
KMP was designed for Android development
As always, we've designed the Shared Module Template with the needs of Android developer teams in mind. Making the KMP Shared Module Template part of the native Android Studio experience allows developers to efficiently add a shared module to an existing Android application and immediately start building shared business logic that leverages several KMP-ready Jetpack libraries including Room, SQLite, and DataStore to name just a few.
Come check it out at KotlinConf
Releasing Android Studio’s KMP Shared Module Template marks a significant step toward empowering Android development teams to innovate faster, to efficiently manage business logic, and to build high-quality applications with greater confidence. It means that Android developers can be responsible for the code that drives the business logic for every app across Android and iOS. We’re excited to bring Shared Module Template to KotlinConf in Copenhagen, May 21 - 23.
Get started with KMP Shared Module Template
To get started, you'll need the latest edition of Android Studio. In your Android project, the Shared Module Template is available within Android Studio when you create a new module. Click on “File” then “New” then “New Module” and finally “Kotlin Multiplatform Shared Module” and you are ready to add a KMP Shared Module to your Android app.
We appreciate any feedback on things you like or features you would like to see. If you find a bug, please report the issue. Remember to also follow us on X, LinkedIn, Blog, or YouTube for more Android development updates!
Posted by Sa-ryong Kang and Miguel Montemayor - Developer Relations Engineers
Peacock is NBCUniversal’s streaming service app available in the US, offering culture-defining entertainment including live sports, exclusive original content, TV shows, and blockbuster movies. The app continues to evolve, becoming more than just a platform to watch content, but a hub of entertainment.
Today’s users are consuming entertainment on an increasingly wider array of device sizes and types, and in particular are moving towards mobile devices. Peacock has adopted Jetpack Compose to help with its journey in adapting to more screens and meeting users where they are.
Disclaimer: Peacock is available in the US only. This video will only be viewable to US viewers.
Adapting to more flexible form factors
The Peacock development team is focused on bringing the best experience to users, no matter what device they’re using or when they want to consume content. With an emerging trend from app users to watch more on mobile devices and large screens like foldables, the Peacock app needs to be able to adapt to different screen sizes. As more devices are introduced, the team needed to explore new solutions that make the most out of each unique display permutation.
The goal was to have the Peacock app to adapt to these new displays while continually offering high-quality entertainment without interruptions, like the stream reloading or visual errors. While thinking ahead, they also wanted to prepare and build a solution that was ready for Android XR as the entertainment landscape is shifting towards including more immersive experiences.
Building a future-proof experience with Jetpack Compose
In order to build a scalable solution that would help the Peacock app continue to evolve, the app was migrated to Jetpack Compose, Android’s toolkit for building scalable UI. One of the essential tools they used was the WindowSizeClass API, which helps developers create and test UI layouts for different size ranges. This API then allows the app to seamlessly switch between pre-set layouts as it reaches established viewport breakpoints for different window sizes.
The API was used in conjunction with Kotlin Coroutines and Flows to keep the UI state responsive as the window size changed. To test their work and fine tune edge case devices, Peacock used the Android Studio emulator to simulate a wide range of Android-based devices.
Jetpack Compose allowed the team to build adaptively, so now the Peacock app responds to a wide variety of screens while offering a seamless experience to Android users. “The app feels more native, more fluid, and more intuitive across all form factors,” said Diego Valente, Head of Mobile, Peacock and Global Streaming. “That means users can start watching on a smaller screen and continue instantly on a larger one when they unfold the device—no reloads, no friction. It just works.”
Preparing for immersive entertainment experiences
In building adaptive apps on Android, John Jelley, Senior Vice President, Product & UX, Peacock and Global Streaming, says Peacock has also laid the groundwork to quickly adapt to the Android XR platform: “Android XR builds on the same large screen principles, our investment here naturally extends to those emerging experiences with less developmental work.”
The team is excited about the prospect of features unlocked by Android XR, like Multiview for sports and TV, which enables users to watch multiple games or camera angles at once. By tailoring spatial windows to the user’s environment, the app could offer new ways for users to interact with contextual metadata like sports stats or actor information—all without ever interrupting their experience.
Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer
Today at Google I/O, we announced the many ways we’re helping you build excellent, adaptive experiences, and helping you stay more productive through updates to our tooling that put AI at your fingertips and throughout your development lifecycle. Here’s a recap of 16 of our favorite announcements for Android developers; you can also see what was announced last week in The Android Show: I/O Edition. And stay tuned over the next two days as we dive into all of the topics in more detail!
Building AI into your Apps
1: Building intelligent apps with Generative AI
Generative AI enhances apps' experience by making them intelligent, personalized and agentic. This year, we announced new ML Kit GenAI APIs using Gemini Nano for common on-device tasks like summarization, proofreading, rewrite, and image description. We also provided capabilities for developers to harness more powerful models such as Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash, and Imagen via Firebase AI Logic for more complex use cases like image generation and processing extensive data across modalities, including bringing AI to life in Android XR, and a new AI sample app, Androidify, that showcases how these APIs can transform your selfies into unique Android robots! To start building intelligent experiences by leveraging these new capabilities, explore the developer documentation, sample apps, and watch the overview session to choose the right solution for your app.
New experiences across devices
2: One app, every screen: think adaptive and unlock 500 million screens
Mobile Android apps form the foundation across phones, foldables, tablets and ChromeOS, and this year we’re helping you bring them to cars and XR and expanding usages with desktop windowing and connected displays. This expansion means tapping into an ecosystem of 500 million devices – a significant opportunity to engage more users when you think adaptive, building a single mobile app that works across form factors. Resources, including Compose Layouts library and Jetpack Navigation updates, help make building these dynamic experiences easier than before. You can see how Peacock, NBCUniveral’s streaming service (available in the US) is building adaptively to meet users where they are.
Disclaimer: Peacock is available in the US only. This video will only be viewable to US viewers.
3: Material 3 Expressive: design for intuition and emotion
The new Material 3 Expressive update provides tools to enhance your product's appeal by harnessing emotional UX, making it more engaging, intuitive, and desirable for users. Check out the I/O talk to learn more about expressive design and how it inspires emotion, clearly guides users toward their goals, and offers a flexible and personalized experience.
4: Smarter widgets, engaging live updates
Measure the return on investment of your widgets (available soon) and easily create personalized widget previews with Glance 1.2. Promoted Live Updates notify users of important ongoing notifications and come with a new Progress Style standardized template.
5: Enhanced Camera & Media: low light boost and battery savings
This year's I/O introduces several camera and media enhancements. These include a software low light boost for improved photography in dim lighting and native PCM offload, allowing the DSP to handle more audio playback processing, thus conserving user battery. Explore our detailed sessions on built-in effects within CameraX and Media3 for further information.
6: Build next-gen app experiences for Cars
We're launching expanded opportunities for developers to build in-car experiences, including new Gemini integrations, support for more app categories like Games and Video, and enhanced capabilities for media and communication apps via the Car App Library and new APIs. Alongside updated car app quality tiers and simplified distribution, we'll soon be providing improved testing tools like Android Automotive OS on Pixel Tablet and Firebase Test Lab access to help you bring your innovative apps to cars. Learn more from our technical session and blog post on new in-car app experiences.
7: Build for Android XR's expanding ecosystem with Developer Preview 2 of the SDK
8: Express yourself on Wear OS: meet Material Expressive on Wear OS 6
This year we are launching Wear OS 6: the most powerful and expressive version of Wear OS. Wear OS 6 features Material 3 Expressive, a new UI design with personalized visuals and motion for user creativity, coming to Wear, Android, and Google apps later this year. Developers gain access to Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS by utilizing new Jetpack libraries: Wear Compose Material 3, which provides components for apps and Wear ProtoLayout Material 3 which provides components and layouts for tiles. Get started with Material 3 libraries and other updates on Wear.
Some examples of Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS experiences
9: Engage users on Google TV with excellent TV apps
You can leverage more resources within Compose's core and Material libraries with the stable release of Compose for TV, empowering you to build excellent adaptive UIs across your apps. We're also thrilled to share exciting platform updates and developer tools designed to boost app engagement, including bringing Gemini capabilities to TV in the fall, opening enrollment for our Video Discovery API, and more.
Developer productivity
10: Build beautiful apps faster with Jetpack Compose
Compose is our big bet for UI development. The latest stable BOM release provides the features, performance, stability, and libraries that you need to build beautiful adaptive apps faster, so you can focus on what makes your app valuable to users.
Compose Adaptive Layouts Updates in the Google Play app
11: Kotlin Multiplatform: new Shared Template lets you build across platforms, easily
12: Gemini in Android Studio: AI Agents to help you work
Gemini in Android Studio is the AI-powered coding companion that makes Android developers more productive at every stage of the dev lifecycle. In March, we introduced Image to Code to bridge the gap between UX teams and software engineers by intelligently converting design mockups into working Compose UI code. And today, we previewed new agentic AI experiences, Journeys for Android Studio and Version Upgrade Agent. These innovations make it easier to build and test code. You can read more about these updates in What’s new in Android development tools.
Get ready for exciting updates from Play designed to boost your discovery, engagement and revenue! Learn how we’re continuing to become a content-rich destination with enhanced personalization and fresh ways to showcase your apps and content. Plus, explore powerful new subscription features designed to streamline checkout and reduce churn. Read I/O 2025: What's new in Google Play to learn more.
15: Start migrating to Play Games Services v2 today
Play Games Services (PGS) connects over 2 billion gamer profiles on Play, powering cross-device gameplay, personalized gaming content and rewards for your players throughout the gaming journey. We are moving PGS v1 features to v2 with more advanced features and an easier integration path. Learn more about the migration timeline and new features.
16: And of course, Android 16
We unpacked some of the latest features coming to users in Android 16, which we’ve been previewing with you for the last few months. If you haven’t already, make sure to test your apps with the latest Beta of Android 16. Android 16 includes Live Updates, professional media and camera features, desktop windowing and connected displays, major accessibility enhancements and much more.
Check out all of the Android and Play content at Google I/O
This was just a preview of some of the cool updates for Android developers at Google I/O, but stay tuned to Google I/O over the next two days as we dive into a range of Android developer topics in more detail. You can check out the What’s New in Android and the full Android track of sessions, and whether you’re joining in person or around the world, we can’t wait to engage with you!
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.
Posted by Ben Trengrove - Developer Relations Engineer, Matt Dyor - Product Manager
Google I/O and KotlinConf 2025 bring a series of announcements on Android’s Kotlin and Kotlin Multiplatform efforts. Here’s what to watch out for:
Announcements from Google I/O 2025
Jetpack libraries
Our focus for Jetpack libraries and KMP is on sharing business logic across Android and iOS, but we have begun experimenting with web/WASM support.
We are adding KMP support to Jetpack libraries. Last year we started with Room, DataStore and Collection, which are now available in a stable release and recently we have added ViewModel, SavedState and Paging. The levels of support that our Jetpack libraries guarantee for each platform have been categorised into three tiers, with the top tier being for Android, iOS and JVM.
Tool improvements
We're developing new tools to help easily start using KMP in your app. With the KMP new module template in Android Studio Meerkat, you can add a new module to an existing app and share code to iOS and other supported KMP platforms.
In addition to KMP enhancements, Android Studio now supports Kotlin K2 mode for Android specific features requiring language support such as Live Edit, Compose Preview and many more.
How Google is using KMP
Last year, Google Workspace began experimenting with KMP, and this is now running in production in the Google Docs app on iOS. The app’s runtime performance is on par or better than before1.
It’s been helpful to have an app at this scale test KMP out, because we’re able to identify issues and fix issues that benefit the KMP developer community.
For example, we've upgraded the Kotlin Native compiler to LLVM 16 and contributed a more efficient garbage collector and string implementation. We're also bringing the static analysis power of Android Lint to Kotlin targets and ensuring a unified Gradle DSL for both AGP and KGP to improve the plugin management experience.
Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP2) is stable to better support new Kotlin language features and deliver better performance. It is easier to integrate with build systems, is thread-safe, and has better support for debugging annotation processors. In contrast to KSP1, KSP2 has much better compatibility across different Kotlin versions. The rewritten command line interface also becomes significantly easier to use as it is now a standalone program instead of a compiler plugin.
KotlinConf 2025
Google team members are presenting a number of talks at KotlinConf spanning multiple topics:
Talks
Deploying KMP at Google Workspace by Jason Parachoniak, Troels Lund, and Johan Bay from the Workspace team discusses the challenges and solutions, including bugs and performance optimizations, encountered when launching Kotlin Multiplatform at Google Workspace, offering comparisons to ObjectiveC and a Q&A. (Technical Session)
The Life and Death of a Kotlin/Native Object by Troels Lund offers a high-level explanation of the Kotlin/Native runtime's inner workings concerning object instantiation, memory management, and disposal. (Technical Session)
APIs: How Hard Can They Be? presented by Aurimas Liutikas and Alan Viverette from the Jetpack team delves into the lifecycle of API design, review processes, and evolution within AndroidX libraries, particularly considering KMP and related tools. (Technical Session)
Project Sparkles: How Compose for Desktop is changing Android Studio and IntelliJ with Chris Sinco and Sebastiano Poggi from the Android Studio team introduces the initiative ('Project Sparkles') aiming to modernize Android Studio and IntelliJ UIs using Compose for Desktop, covering goals, examples, and collaborations. (Technical Session)
JSpecify: Java Nullness Annotations and Kotlin presented by David Baker explains the significance and workings of JSpecify's standard Java nullness annotations for enhancing Kotlin's interoperability with Java libraries. (Lightning Session)
Lessons learned decoupling Architecture Components from platform specific code features Jeremy Woods and Marcello Galhardo from the Jetpack team sharing insights from the Android team on decoupling core components like SavedState and System Back from platform specifics to create common APIs. (Technical Session)
KotlinConf’s Closing Panel, a regular staple of the conference, returns, featuring Jeffrey van Gogh as Google’s representative on the panel. (Panel)
Live Workshops
If you are at KotlinConf in person, we will have guided live workshops with our new codelabs from above.
The codelab Migrating Room to Room KMP, also led by Matt Dyor, and Dustin Lam, Tomáš Mlynarič, demonstrates the process of migrating an existing Room database implementation to Room KMP within a shared module.
We love engaging with the Kotlin community. If you are attending KotlinConf, we hope you get a chance to check out our booth, with opportunities to chat with our engineers, get your questions answered, and learn more about how you can leverage Kotlin and KMP.
Learn more about Kotlin Multiplatform
To learn more about KMP and start sharing your business logic across platforms, check out our documentation and the sample.
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.
Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer
Since launching the Android XR SDK Developer Preview alongside Samsung, Qualcomm, and Unity last year, we’ve been blown away by all of the excitement we’ve been hearing from the broader Android community. Whether it's through coding live-streams or local Google Developer Group talks, it's been an outstanding experience participating in the community to build the future of XR together, and we're just getting started.
Today we’re excited to share an update to the Android XR SDK: Developer Preview 2, packed with new features and improvements to help you develop helpful and delightful immersive experiences with familiar Android APIs, tools and open standards created for XR.
Since the release of Developer Preview 1, we’ve been focused on making the APIs easier to use and adding new immersive Android XR features. Your feedback has helped us shape the development of the tools, SDKs, and the platform itself.
With the Jetpack XR SDK, you can now play back 180° and 360° videos, which can be stereoscopic by encoding with the MV-HEVC specification or by encoding view-frames adjacently. The MV-HEVC standard is optimized and designed for stereoscopic video, allowing your app to efficiently play back immersive videos at great quality. Apps built with Jetpack Compose for XR can use the SpatialExternalSurface composable to render media, including stereoscopic videos.
Using Jetpack Compose for XR, you can now also define layouts that adapt to different XR display configurations. For example, use a SubspaceModifier to specify the size of a Subspace as a percentage of the device’s recommended viewing size, so a panel effortlessly fills the space it's positioned in.
Material Design for XR now supports more component overrides for TopAppBar, AlertDialog, and ListDetailPaneScaffold, helping your large-screen enabled apps that use Material Design effortlessly adapt to the new world of XR.
An app adapts to XR using Material Design for XR with the new component overrides
In ARCore for Jetpack XR, you can now track hands after requesting the appropriate permissions. Hands are a collection of 26 posed hand joints that can be used to detect hand gestures and bring a whole new level of interaction to your Android XR apps:
Hands bring a natural input method to your Android XR experience.
The Android XR Emulator has also received updates to stability, support for AMD GPUs, and is now fully integrated within the Android Studio UI.
The Android XR Emulator is now integrated in Android Studio
Developers using Unity have already successfully created and ported existing games and apps to Android XR. Today, you can upgrade to the Pre-Release version 2 of the Unity OpenXR: Android XR package! This update adds many performance improvements such as support for Dynamic Refresh Rate, which optimizes your app’s performance and power consumption. Shaders made with Shader Graph now support SpaceWarp, making it easier to use SpaceWarp to reduce compute load on the device. Hand meshes are now exposed with occlusion, which enables realistic hand visualization.
Check out Unity’s improved Mixed Reality template for Android XR, which now includes support for occlusion and persistent anchors.
We recently launched Android XR Samples for Unity, which demonstrate capabilities on the Android XR platform such as hand tracking, plane tracking, face tracking, and passthrough.
Google’s open-source Unity samples demonstrate platform features and show how they’re implemented
The Firebase AI Logic for Unity is now in public preview! This makes it easy for you to integrate gen AI into your apps, enabling the creation of AI-powered experiences with Gemini and Android XR. The Firebase AI Logic fully supports Gemini's capabilities, including multimodal input and output, and bi-directional streaming for immersive conversational interfaces. Built with production readiness in mind, Firebase AI Logic is integrated with core Firebase services like App Check, Remote Config, and Cloud Storage for enhanced security, configurability, and data management. Learn more about this on the Firebase blog or go straight to the Gemini API using Vertex AI in Firebase SDK documentation to get started.
Continuing to build the future together
Our commitment to open standards continues with the glTF Interactivity specification, in collaboration with the Khronos Group. which will be supported in glTF models rendered by Jetpack XR later this year. Models using the glTF Interactivity specification are self-contained interactive assets that can have many pre-programmed behaviors, like rotating objects on a button press or changing the color of a material over time.
Android XR will be available first on Samsung’s Project Moohan, launching later this year. Soon after, our partners at XREAL will release the next Android XR device. Codenamed Project Aura, it’s a portable and tethered device that gives users access to their favorite Android apps, including those that have been built for XR. It will launch as a developer edition, specifically for you to begin creating and experimenting. The best news? With the familiar tools you use to build Android apps today, you can build for these devices too.
XREAL’s Project Aura
The Google Play Store is also getting ready for Android XR. It will list supported 2D Android apps on the Android XR Play Store when it launches later this year. If you are working on an Android XR differentiated app, you can get it ready for the big launch and be one of the first differentiated apps on the Android XR Play Store:
New! Make your XR app stand out from others on Play Store with preview assets such as stereoscopic 180° or 360° videos, as well as screenshots, app description, and non-spatial video.
And we know many of you are excited for the future of Android XR on glasses. We are shaping the developer experience now and will share more details on how you can participate later this year.
To get started creating and developing for Android XR, check out developer.android.com/develop/xr where you will find all of the tools, libraries, and resources you need to work with the Android XR SDK. In particular, try out our samples and codelabs.
We welcome your feedback, suggestions, and ideas as you’re helping shape Android XR. Your passion, expertise, and bold ideas are vital as we continue to develop Android XR together. We look forward to seeing your XR-differentiated apps when Android XR devices launch later this year!
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.
Posted by Paul Lammertsma – Developer Relations Engineer
Ratings and reviews are essential for developers, offering quantitative and qualitative feedback on user experiences. In 2022, we enhanced the granularity of this feedback by segmenting these insights by countries and form factors.
Now, we're extending the In-App Ratings and Reviews API to TV to allow developers to prompt users for ratings and reviews directly from Google TV.
Ratings and reviews on Google TV
Users can now see rating averages, browse reviews, and leave their own review directly from an app's store listing on Google TV.
Users can interact with in-app ratings and reviews on their TVs by doing the following:
Select ratings using the remote control D-pad.
Provide optional written reviews using Gboard’s on-screen voice input, or by easily typing from their phone.
Send mobile notifications to themselves to complete their TV app review directly on their phone.
Additionally, users can leave reviews for other form factors directly from their phone by simply selecting the device chip when submitting an app rating or writing a review.
We've already seen a considerable lift in app ratings on TV since bringing these changes to Google TV, and now, we're making it possible for developers to trigger a ratings prompt as well.
Before we look at the integration, let's first carefully consider the best time to request a review prompt. First, identify optimal moments within your app to request user feedback, ensuring prompts appear only when the UI is idle to prevent interruption of ongoing content.
val manager = ReviewManagerFactory.create(context)
manager.requestReviewFlow().addOnCompleteListener { task ->
if (task.isSuccessful) {
// We got the ReviewInfo objectval reviewInfo = task.result
manager.launchReviewFlow(activity, reviewInfo)
} else {
// There was some problem, log or handle the error code
@ReviewErrorCode val reviewErrorCode =
(task.getException() as ReviewException).errorCode
}
}
First, invoke requestReviewFlow() to obtain a ReviewInfo object which is used to launch the review flow. You must include an addOnCompleteListener() not just to obtain the ReviewInfo object, but also to monitor for any problems triggering this flow, such as the unavailability of Google Play on the device. Note that ReviewInfo does not offer any insights on whether or not a prompt appeared or which action the user took if a prompt did appear.
The challenge is to identify when to trigger launchReviewFlow(). Track user actions—identifying successful journeys and points where users encounter issues—so you can be confident they had a delightful experience in your app.
For this method, you may optionally also include an addOnCompleteListener() to ensure it resumes when the returned task is completed.
Note that due to throttling of how often users are presented with this prompt, there are no guarantees that the ratings dialog will appear when requesting to start this flow. For best practices, check this guide on when to request an in-app review.
Get started with In-App Reviews on Google TV
You can get a head start today by following these steps:
Identify successful journeys for users, like finishing a movie or TV show season.
Identify poor experiences that should be avoided, like buffering or playback errors.
Posted by Ben Sagmoe - Developer Relations Engineer
The in-car experience continues to evolve rapidly, and Google remains committed to pushing the boundaries of what's possible. At Google I/O 2025, we're excited to unveil the latest advancements for drivers, car manufacturers, and developers, furthering our goal of a safe, seamless, and helpful connected driving experience.
Today's car cabins are increasingly digital, offering developers exciting new opportunities with larger displays and more powerful computing. Android Auto is now supported in nearly all new cars sold, with almost 250 million compatible vehicles on the road.
We're also seeing significant growth in cars powered by Android Automotive OS with Google built-in. Over 50 models are currently available, with more launching this year. This growth is fueled by a thriving app ecosystem, including over 300 apps already available on the Play Store. These include apps optimized for a safe and seamless experience while driving as well as entertainment apps for while you're parked and waiting in your car—many of which are adaptive mobile apps that have been seamlessly brought to cars through the Car Ready Mobile Apps Program.
A vibrant developer community is essential to delivering these innovative in-car experiences utilizing the different screens within the car cabin. This past year, we've focused on key areas to help empower developers to build more differentiated experiences in cars across both platforms, as we embark on the Gemini era in cars!
Gemini for Cars
Exciting news for in-car experiences: Gemini, Google's advanced AI, is coming to vehicles! This unlocks a new era of safe and helpful interactions on the go.
Gemini enables natural voice conversations and seamless multitasking, empowering drivers to get more done simply by speaking naturally. Imagine effortlessly finding charging stations or navigating to a location pulled directly from an email, all with just your voice.
Navigation apps can integrate with Gemini using three core intent formats, allowing you to start navigation, display relevant search results, and execute custom actions, such as enabling users to report incidents like traffic congestion using their voice.
Gemini for cars will be rolling out in the coming months. Get ready to build the next generation of in-car AI experiences!
New developer programs and tools
Last year, we introduced car app quality tiers to inspire developers to create high quality in-car experiences. By developing your app in compliance with the Car ready tier, you can bring video, gaming, or browser apps to run while parked in cars with Google built-in with almost no additional effort. Learn more about Car Ready Mobile Apps.
Your app can further shine in cars within the Car optimized and Car differentiated tiers to unlock experiences while the car is in motion, and also when transitioning between parked and driving modes, while utilizing the different screens within the modern car cabin. Check the car app quality guidelines for details.
To start with, across both Android Auto and for cars with Google built-in, we've made some exciting improvements for Car App Library:
The Weather app category has graduated from beta: any developer can now publish weather apps to production tracks on both Android Auto and cars with Google Built-in. Before you publish your app, check that it meets the quality guidelines for weather apps.
Two new templates, the SectionedItemTemplate and MediaPlaybackTemplate, are now available in the Car App Library 1.8 alpha release for use on Android Auto. These templates are a great fit for building templated media apps, allowing for increased customization in layout and browsing structure.
On Android Auto, many new app categories and capabilities are now in beta:
We are adding support for Building media apps with the Car App Library, enabling media app developers to build both richer and more complete experiences that users are used to on their phones. During beta, developers can build and publish media apps built using the Car App Library to internal testing and closed testing tracks. You can also express interest in being an early access partner to publish to production while the category is in beta.
The communications category is in beta. We've simplified calling integration for calling apps by utilizing the CallsManager Jetpack API. Together with the templates provided by the Car App Library, this enables communications apps to build features like full message history, upcoming meetings list, rich in-call views, and more. During beta, developers can build and publish communications apps to internal testing and closed testing tracks. You can also express interest in being an early access partner to publish to production while the category is in beta.
Games are now supported in Android Auto, while parked, on phones running Android 15 and above. You can already find some popular titles like Angry Birds 2, Farm Heroes Saga, Candy Crush Soda Saga and Beach Buggy Racing 2. The Games category is in Beta and developers can publish games to internal testing and closed testing tracks. You can also express interest in being an early access partner to publish to production while the category is in beta.
Finally, we have further simplified building, testing and distribution experience for developers building apps for Android Automotive OS cars with Google built-in:
Distribution through Google Play is more flexible than ever. It’s now possible for apps in the parked categories to distribute in the same APK or App Bundle to cars with Google built-in as to phones, including through the mobile release track. Learn more on how to Distribute to cars.
Android Automotive OS on Pixel Tablet is now generally available, giving you a physical device option for testing Android Automotive OS apps without buying or renting a car. Additionally, the most recent system images include support for acting as an Android Auto receiver, meaning you can use the same device to test both your app’s experience on Android Auto and Android Automotive OS. Apply for access to these images.
The road ahead
You can look forward to more updates later this year, including:
Video apps will be supported on Android Auto, starting with phones running Android 16 on select compatible cars. If your app is already adaptive, enabling your app experience while parked only requires minimal steps to distribute to cars.
For Android Automotive OS cars running Android 14+ with Google built-in, we are working with car manufacturers to add additional app compatibility, to enable thousands of adaptive mobile apps in the next phase of the Car Ready Mobile Apps Program.
Updated design documentation that visualizes car app quality guidelines and integration paths to simplify designing your app for cars.
Google Play Services for cars with Google built-in are expanding to bring them on-par with mobile, including:
a. Passkeys and Credential Manager APIs for a more seamless user sign-in experience.
b. Quick Share, which will enable easy cross-device sharing from phone to car.
Pre-launch reports for Android Automotive OS are coming soon to the Play Console, helping you ensure app quality before distributing your app to cars.
Be sure to keep up to date through goo.gle/cars-whats-new on these features and more as we continuously invest in the future of Android in the car. Stay tuned for more resources to help you build innovative and engaging experiences for drivers and passengers.
Posted by Mayank Jain – Product Manager, Android Studio
Android Studio continues to advance Android development by empowering developers to build better app experiences, faster. Our focus has been on improving AI-driven functionality with Gemini, streamlining UI creation and testing, and helping you future-proof apps for the evolving Android ecosystem. These innovations accelerate development cycles, improve app quality, and help you stay ahead in the fast-paced world of mobile development.
Get the latest Gemini 2.5 Pro model in Android Studio
The power of artificial intelligence through Gemini is now deeply integrated into Android Studio, helping you at all stages of Android app development. Now with access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, we're continuing to look for new ways to use AI to supercharge Android development — and help you build better app experiences, faster.
Journeys for Android Studio
We’re also introducing agentic AI with Gemini in Android Studio.Testing your app is now much easier when you create journeys - just describe the actions and assertions in natural language for the user journeys you want to test, and Gemini performs the tests for you. Creating journeys lets you test your app’s critical user journeys across various devices without writing extensive code. You can then run these tests on local physical or virtual Android devices to validate that the test worked as intended by reviewing detailed results directly within the IDE. Although the feature is experimental, the goal is to increase the speed that you can ship high-quality code, while significantly reducing the amount of time you spend manually testing, validating, or reproducing issues.
Journeys for Android Studio uses Gemini to test your app.
Suggested fixes for crashes with Gemini
The App Quality Insights panel has a great new feature. The crash insights now analyzes your app's source code referenced from the crash, and not only offers a comprehensive analysis and explanation of the crash, in some cases it even offers a source fix! With just a few clicks, you are able to review the changes, accept the code suggestions, and push the changes to your source control. Now you can determine the root cause of a crash and fix it much faster!
Crash analysis with Gemini
AI features in Studio Labs (stable releases only)
We’ve heard feedback that developers want to access AI features in stable channels as soon as possible. You can now discover and try out the latest AI experimental features through the Studio Labs menu in the Settings menu starting with Narwhal stable release. You can get a first look at AI experiments, share your feedback, and help us bring them into the IDE you use everyday. Go to the Studio Labs tab in Settings and enable the features you would like to start using. These AI features are automatically enabled in canary releases and no action is required.
AI features in Studio Labs
Compose preview generation with Gemini
Gemini can automatically generate Jetpack Compose preview code saving you time and effort. You can access this feature by right-clicking within a composable and navigating to Gemini > Generate Compose Preview or Generate Compose Preview for this file, or by clicking the link in an empty preview panel. The generated preview code is presented in a diff view that enables you to quickly accept, edit, or reject the suggestions, providing a faster way to visualize your composables.
Compose Preview generation with Gemini
Transform UI with Gemini
You can now transform UI code within the Compose Preview environment using natural language directly in the preview. To use it, right click in the Compose Preview and select "Transform UI With Gemini". Then enter your natural language requests, such as "Center align these buttons," to guide Gemini in adjusting your layout or styling, or select specific UI elements in the preview for better context. Gemini will then edit your Compose UI code in place, which you can review and approve, speeding up the UI development workflow.
Transform UI with Gemini
Image attachment in Gemini
You can now attach image files and provide additional information along with your prompt. For example: you can attach UI mock-ups or screenshots to tell Gemini context about your app’s layout. Consequently, Gemini can generate Compose code based on a provided image, or explain the composables and data flow of a UI screenshot.
Image attachment and preview generation via Gemini in Android Studio
@File context in Gemini
You can now attach your project files as context in chat interactions with Gemini in Android Studio. This lets you quickly reference files in your prompts for Gemini. In the Gemini chat input, type @ to bring up a file completion menu and select files to attach. You can also click the Context drop-down to see which files were automatically attached by Gemini. This gives you more control over the context sent to Gemini.
@File context in Gemini
Rules in Prompt Library
Rules in Gemini let you define preferred coding styles or output formats within the Prompt Library. You can also mention your preferred tech stack and languages. When you set these preferences once, they are automatically applied to all subsequent prompts sent to Gemini. Rules help the AI understand project standards and preferences for more accurate and tailored code assistance. For example, you can create a rule such as “Always give me concise responses in Kotlin.”
Prompt Library Improvements
Gemini in Android Studio for businesses
Gemini in Android Studio for businesses is now available. It provides all the benefits of Gemini in Android Studio, plus enterprise-grade privacy and security features backed by Google Cloud — giving your team the confidence they need to deploy AI at scale while keeping their data protected.
Improved tools for creating great user experiences
Elevate your Compose UI development with the latest Android Studio enhancements.
Compose preview improvements
Compose preview interaction is now more efficient with the latest navigation improvements. Click on the preview name to jump to the preview definition or click the individual component to jump to the function where it’s defined. Hover states provide immediate visual feedback as you mouse over a preview frame. Improved keyboard arrow navigation eases movement through multiple previews, enabling faster UI iteration and refinement. Additionally, the Compose preview picker is now also available in the stable release.
Compose preview navigation improvements
Compose preview picker
Resizable Previews
While in Compose Preview’s focus mode in Android Studio, you can now resize the preview window by dragging its edges. This gives you instant visual feedback on how your UI adapts to different screen sizes, ensuring responsiveness and visual consistency. This rapid iteration helps create UIs that look great on any Android device.
Resizable Preview
Embedded Android XR Emulator
The Android XR Emulator now launches by default in the embedded state. You can now deploy your application, navigate the 3D space and use the Layout Inspector directly inside Android Studio, streamlining your development flow.
Embedded XR Emulator
Improved tools for future-proofing and testing your Android apps
We’ve enhanced some of your favorite features so that you can test more confidently, future-proof your apps, and ensure app compatibility across a wide range of devices and Android versions.
Streamlined testing with Backup and Restore support
Android Studio offers built-in Backup and Restore support by letting you trigger app backups on connected devices directly from the Running Devices window. You can also configure your Run/Debug settings to automatically restore from a previous backup when launching your app. This simplifies the process of validating your app's Backup and Restore implementation and speeds up development by reducing manual setup for testing.
Streamlined testing with Backup and Restore support
Android’s transition to 16 KB Page Size
The underlying architecture of Android is evolving, and a key step forward is the transition to 16 KB page sizes. This fundamental change requires all Android apps with native code or dependencies to be recompiled for compatibility. To help you navigate this transition smoothly, Android Studio now offers proactive warnings when building APKs or Android App Bundles that are incompatible with 16 KB devices. Using the APK Analyzer, you can also find out which libraries are incompatible with 16 KB devices. To test your apps in this new environment, a dedicated 16 KB emulator target is also available in Android Studio alongside existing 4 KB images.
Android’s transition to 16 KB page size
Backup and Sync your Studio settings
When you sign in with your Google account or a JetBrains account in Android Studio, you can now sync your customizations and preferences across all installs and restore preferences automatically on remote Android Studio instances. Simply select “Enable Backup and Sync” while you’re logging in to Android Studio, or from the Settings > Backup and Sync page, and follow the prompts.
Backup and Sync your Studio settings
Increasing developer productivity with Android’s Kotlin Multiplatform improvements
Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) enables teams to reach new audiences across Android and iOS with less development time. Usage has been growing in the developer community, with apps such as Google Docs now using it in production. We’ve released new Android Studio KMP project templates, updated Jetpack libraries and new codelabs (Get Started with KMP and Migrate Existing Apps to Room KMP) to help developers who are looking to get started with KMP.
Experimental and features that are coming soon to Android Studio
Android Studio Cloud (experimental)
Android Studio Cloud is now available as an experimental public preview, accessible through Firebase Studio. This service streams a Linux virtual machine running Android Studio directly to your web browser, enabling Android application development from anywhere with an internet connection. Get started quickly with dedicated workspaces featuring pre-downloaded Android SDK components. Explore sample projects or seamlessly access your existing Android app projects from GitHub without a local installation. Please note that Android Studio Cloud is currently in an experimental phase. Features and capabilities are subject to significant change, and users may encounter known limitations.
Version Upgrade Agent (coming soon)
The Version Upgrade Agent, as part of Gemini in Android Studio, is designed to save you time and effort by automating your dependency upgrades. It intelligently analyzes your Android project, parses the release notes for included libraries, and proposes updates directly from your libs.versions.toml file or the refactoring menu (right-click > Refactor > Update dependencies). The agent automatically updates dependencies to the latest compatible version, builds the project, fixes any errors, and repeats until all errors are fixed. Once the dependencies are upgraded, the agent generates a report showing the changes it made, as well as a high level summary highlighting the changes included in the updated libraries.
Version Upgrade Agent
Agent Mode (coming soon)
Agent Mode is a new autonomous AI feature using Gemini, designed to handle complex, multi-stage development tasks that go beyond typical AI assistant capabilities, invoking multiple tools to accomplish tasks on your behalf.
You can describe a complex goal, like integrating a new API, and the agent will formulate an execution plan that spans across files in your project — adding necessary dependencies, editing files, and iteratively fixing bugs. This feature aims to empower all developers to tackle intricate challenges and accelerate the building and prototyping process. You can access it via the Gemini chat window in Android Studio.
Agent Mode
Play Policy Insights beta in Android Studio (coming soon)
Android Studio now includes richer insights and guidance on Google Play policies that might impact your app. This information, available as lint checks, helps you build safer apps from the start, preventing issues that could disrupt your launch process and cost more time and resources to fix later on. These lint checks will present an overview of the policy, do and don’ts, and links to Play policy pages where you can find more information about the policy.
Play Policy Insights beta in Android Studio
IntelliJ Platform Update (2025.1)
Here are some important IDE improvements in the IntelliJ IDEA 2025.1 platform release
Kotlin K2 mode: Android Studio now supports Kotlin K2 mode in Android-specific features requiring language support such as Live Edit, Compose Preview and many more
Improved dependency resolution in Kotlin build scripts: Makes your Kotlin build scripts for Android projects more stable and predictable
Hints about code alterations by Kotlin compiler plugins: Gives you clearer insights into how plugins used in Android development modify your Kotlin code
Automatic download of library sources for Gradle projects: Simplifies debugging and understanding your Android project dependencies by providing immediate access to their source code
Support for Gradle Daemon toolchains: Helps prevent potential JVM errors during your Android project builds and ensures smoother synchronization
Automatic plugin updates: Keeps your Android development tools within IntelliJ IDEA up-to-date effortlessly
To Summarize
Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop (2025.2.1) is now available in the Android Studio canary channel with some amazing features to help your Android development
AI-powered development tools for Android
Journeys for Android Studio: Validate app flows easily using tests and assertions in natural language
Suggested fixes for crashes with Gemini: Determine the root cause of a crash and fix it much faster with Gemini
AI features in Studio Labs
Compose preview generation with Gemini: Generate Compose previews with Gemini's code suggestions
Transform UI with Gemini: Transform UI in Compose Preview with natural language, speeding development
Image attachment in Gemini: Attach images to Gemini for context-aware code generation
@File context in Gemini: Reference project files in Gemini chats for quick AI prompts
Rules in Prompt Library: Define preferred coding styles or output formats within the Prompt Library
Improved tools for creating great user experiences
Compose preview improvements: Navigate the Compose Preview using clickable names and components
Resizable preview: Instantly see how your Compose UI adapts to different screen sizes
Embedded XR Emulator: XR Emulator now launches by default in the embedded state
Improved tools for future-proofing and testing your Android apps
Streamlined testing with Backup and Restore support: Effortless app testing, trigger backups, auto-restore for faster validation
Android’s transition to 16 KB Page Size: Prepare for Android's 16KB page size with Studio's early warnings and testing
Backup and Sync your Studio settings: Sync Android Studio settings across devices and restore automatically for convenience
Increasing developer productivity with Android’s Kotlin Multiplatform improvements: simplified cross-platform Android and iOS development with new tools
Experimental and features that are coming soon to Android Studio
Android Studio Cloud (experimental): Develop Android apps from any browser with just an internet connection
Version Upgrade Agent (coming soon): Automated dependency updates save time and effort, ensuring projects stay current
Agent Mode (coming soon): Empowering developers to tackle multistage complex tasks that go beyond typical AI assistant capabilities
Play Policy Insights beta in Android Studio (coming soon): Insights and guidance on Google Play policies that might impact your app
How to get started
Ready to try the exciting new features in Android Studio?
This year, we’re excited to introduce Wear OS 6: the most power-efficient and expressive version of Wear OS yet.
Wear OS 6 introduces the new design system we call Material 3 Expressive. It features a major refresh with visual and motion components designed to give users an experience with more personalization. The new design offers a great level of expression to meet user demand for experiences that are modern, relevant, and distinct. Material 3 Expressive is coming to Wear OS, Android, and all your favorite Google apps on these devices later this year.
The good news is that you don’t need to compromise battery for beauty: thanks to Wear OS platform optimizations, watches updating from Wear OS 5 to Wear OS 6 can see up to 10% improvement in battery life.1
Wear OS 6 developer preview
Today we’re releasing the Developer Preview of Wear OS 6, the next version of Google’s smartwatch platform, based on Android 16.
Wear OS 6 brings a number of developer-facing changes, such as refining the always-on display experience. Check out what’s changed and try the new Wear OS 6 emulator to test your app for compatibility with the new platform version.
Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS
Some examples of Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS experiences
Material 3 Expressive for the watch is fully optimized for the round display. We recommend developers embrace the new design system in their apps and tiles. To help you adopt Material 3 Expressive in your app, we have begun releasing new design guidance for Wear OS, along with corresponding Figma design kits.
As a developer, you can get access the Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS using new Jetpack libraries:
These two libraries provide implementations for the components catalog that adheres to the Material 3 Expressive design language.
Make it personal with richer color schemes using themes
Dynamic color theme updates colors of apps and Tiles
The Wear Compose Material 3 and Wear Protolayout Material 3 libraries provide updated and extended color schemes, typography, and shapes to bring both depth and variety to your designs. Additionally, your tiles now align with the system font by default (on Wear OS 6+ devices), offering a more cohesive experience on the watch.
Both libraries introduce dynamic color theming, which automatically generates a color theme for your app or tile to match the colors of the watch face of Pixel watches.
Make it more glanceable with new tile components
Tiles now support a new framework and a set of components that embrace the watch's circular form factor. These components make tiles more consistent and glanceable, so users can more easily take swift action on the information included in them.
We’ve introduced a 3-slot tile layout to improve visual consistency in the Tiles carousel. This layout includes a title slot, a main content slot, and a bottom slot, designed to work across a range of different screen sizes:
Some examples of Tiles with the 3-slot tile layout.
Highlight user actions and key information with components optimized for round screen
The new Wear OS Material 3 components automatically adapt to larger screen sizes, building on the Large Display support added as part of Wear OS 5. Additionally, components such as Buttons and Lists support shape morphing on apps.
The following sections highlight some of the most exciting changes to these components.
Embrace the round screen with the Edge Hugging Button
We introduced a new EdgeButton for apps and tiles with an iconic design pattern that maximizes the space within the circular form factor, hugs the edge of the screen, and comes in 4 standard sizes.
Screenshot representing an EdgeButton in a scrollable screen.
Fluid navigation through lists using new indicators
The new TransformingLazyColumn from the Foundation library makes expressive motion easy with motion that fluidly traces the edges of the display. Developers can customize the collapsing behavior of the list when scrolling to the top, bottom and both sides of the screen. For example, components like Cards can scale down as they are closer to the top of the screen.
TransformingLazyColumn allows content to collapse and change in size when approaching the edge of the screens
Material 3 Expressive also includes a ScrollIndicator that features a new visual and motion design to make it easier for users to visualize their progress through a list. The ScrollIndicator is displayed by default when you use a TransformingLazyColumn and ScreenScaffold.
ScrollIndicator
Lastly, you can now use segments with the new ProgressIndicator, which is now available as a full-screen component for apps and as a small-size component for both apps and tiles.
Example of a full-screen ProgressIndicator
To learn more about the new features and see the full list of updates, see the release notes of the latest beta release of the Wear Compose and Wear Protolayout libraries. Check out the migration guidance for apps and tiles on how to upgrade your existing apps, or try one of our codelabs if you want to start developing using Material 3 Expressive design.
Watch Faces
With Wear OS 6 we are launching updates for watch face developers:
New options for customizing the appearance of your watch face using version 4 of Watch Face Format, such as animated state transitions from ambient to interactive and photo watch faces.
Look for more information about the general availability of Wear OS 6 later this year.
Library updates
ProtoLayout
Since our last major release, we've improved capabilities and the developer experience of the Tiles and ProtoLayout libraries to address feedback we received from developers. Some of these enhancements include:
Developers can now write more idiomatic Kotlin, with APIs refined to better align with Jetpack Compose, including type-safe builders and an improved modifier syntax.
The example below shows how to display a layout with a text on a Tile using new enhancements:
// returns a LayoutElement for use in onTileRequest()
materialScope(context, requestParams.deviceConfiguration) {
primaryLayout(
mainSlot = {
text(
text = "Hello, World!".layoutString,
typography = BODY_LARGE,
)
}
)
}
The CredentialManager API is now available on Wear OS, starting with Google Pixel Watch devices running Wear OS 5.1. It introduces passkeys to Wear OS with a platform-standard authentication UI that is consistent with the experience on mobile.
The Credential Manager Jetpack library provides developers with a unified API that simplifies and centralizes their authentication implementation. Developers with an existing implementation on another form factor can use the same CredentialManager code, and most of the same supporting code to fulfill their Wear OS authentication workflow.
Credential Manager provides integration points for passkeys, passwords, and Sign in With Google, while also allowing you to keep your other authentication solutions as backups.
Users will benefit from a consistent, platform-standard authentication UI; the introduction of passkeys and other passwordless authentication methods, and the ability to authenticate without their phone nearby.
Devices that run Wear OS 5.1 or later support enhanced media controls. Users who listen to media content on phones and watches can now benefit from the following new media control features on their watch:
They can fast-forward and rewind while listening to podcasts.
They can access the playlist and controls such as shuffle, like, and repeat through a new menu.
Developers with an existing implementation of action buttons and playlist can benefit from this feature without additional effort. Check out how users will get more controls from your media app on a Google Pixel Watch device.
Start building for Wear OS 6 now
With these updates, there’s never been a better time to develop an app on Wear OS. These technical resources are a great place to learn more how to get started:
Earlier this year, we expanded our smartwatch offerings with Galaxy Watch for Kids, a unique, phone-free experience designed specifically for children. This launch gives families a new way to stay connected, allowing children to explore Wear OS independently with a dedicated smartwatch. Consult our developer guidance to create a Wear OS app for kids.
We’re looking forward to seeing the experiences that you build on Wear OS!
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.
Posted by Don Turner - Developer Relations Engineer
Navigating between screens in your app should be simple, shouldn't it? However, building a robust, scalable, and delightful navigation experience can be a challenge. For years, the Jetpack Navigation library has been a key tool for developers, but as the Android UI landscape has evolved, particularly with the rise of Jetpack Compose, we recognized the need for a new approach.
Today, we're excited to introduce Jetpack Navigation 3, a new navigation library built from the ground up specifically for Compose. For brevity, we'll just call it Nav3 from now on. This library embraces the declarative programming model and Compose state as fundamental building blocks.
Why a new navigation library?
The original Jetpack Navigation library (sometimes referred to as Nav2 as it's on major version 2) was initially announced back in 2018, before AndroidX and before Compose. While it served its original goals well, we heard from you that it had several limitations when working with modern Compose patterns.
One key limitation was that the back stack state could only be observed indirectly. This meant there could be two sources of truth, potentially leading to an inconsistent application state. Also, Nav2's NavHost was designed to display only a single destination – the topmost one on the back stack – filling the available space. This made it difficult to implement adaptive layouts that display multiple panes of content simultaneously, such as a list-detail layout on large screens.
Figure 1. Changing from single pane to multi-pane layouts can create navigational challenges
Founding principles
Nav3 is built upon principles designed to provide greater flexibility and developer control:
You own the back stack: You, the developer, not the library, own and control the back stack. It's a simple list which is backed by Compose state. Specifically, Nav3 expects your back stack to be SnapshotStateList<T> where T can be any type you choose. You can navigate by adding or removing items (Ts), and state changes are observed and reflected by Nav3's UI.
Get out of your way: We heard that you don't like a navigation library to be a black box with inaccessible internal components and state. Nav3 is designed to be open and extensible, providing you with building blocks and helpful defaults. If you want custom navigation behavior you can drop down to lower layers and create your own components and customizations.
Pick your building blocks: Instead of embedding all behavior within the library, Nav3 offers smaller components that you can combine to create more complex functionality. We've also provided a "recipes book" that shows how to combine components to solve common navigation challenges.
Figure 2. The Nav3 display observes changes to the developer-owned back stack.
Key features
Animations: Built-in transition animations are provided for changes in destination, including for predictive back. It also has a flexible API for custom animation behavior, allowing animations to be overridden at both the app and the individual screen level.
Adaptive layouts: A flexible layout API (named Scenes) allows you to render multiple destinations in the same layout (for example, a list-detail layout on large screen devices). This makes it easy to switch between single and multi-pane layouts.
State scoping: Enables state to be scoped to destinations on the back stack, including optional ViewModel support via a dedicated Jetpack lifecycle library.
Modularity: The API design allows navigation code to be split across multiple modules. This improves build times and allows clear separation of responsibilities between feature modules.
Figure 3. Custom animations and predictive back are easy to implement, and easy to override for individual destinations.
Basic code example
To give you an idea of how Nav3 works, here's a short code sample.
// Define the routes in your app and any arguments.
data object Home
data classProduct(val id: String)
// Create a back stack, specifying the route the app should start with.val backStack = remember { mutableStateListOf<Any>(ProductList) }
// A NavDisplay displays your back stack. Whenever the back stack changes, the display updates.
NavDisplay(
backStack = backStack,
// Specify what should happen when the user goes back
onBack = { backStack.removeLastOrNull() },
// An entry provider converts a route into a NavEntry which contains the content for that route.
entryProvider = { route ->
when (route) {
is Home -> NavEntry(route) {
Column {
Text("Welcome to Nav3")
Button(onClick = {
// To navigate to a new route, just add that route to the back stack
backStack.add(Product("123"))
}) {
Text("Click to navigate")
}
}
}
is Product -> NavEntry(route) {
Text("Product ${route.id} ")
}
else -> NavEntry(Unit) { Text("Unknown route: $route") }
}
}
)
common navigation UI, such as a navigation rail or bar
conditional navigation, such as a login flow
custom layouts using Scenes
We plan to provide code recipes, documentation and blogs for more complex use cases in future.
Nav3 is currently in alpha, which means that the API is liable to change based on feedback. If you have any issues, or would like to provide feedback, please file an issue.
Nav3 offers a flexible and powerful foundation for building modern navigation in your Compose applications. We're really excited to see what you build with it.
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.
Posted by Ben Trengrove - Developer Relations Engineer, Matt Dyor - Product Manager
Posted by Sa-ryong Kang and Miguel Montemayor - Developer Relations Engineers
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Posted by Ben Trengrove - Developer Relations Engineer, Matt Dyor - Product Manager
Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer
Posted by Paul Lammertsma – Developer Relations Engineer
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Posted by Ben Sagmoe - Developer Relations Engineer
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Posted by Don Turner - Developer Relations Engineer
