Category Archives: Android Developers Blog

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The top Google Play updates from I/O ‘21

Posted by Alex Musil, Director of Product, Google Play

This year, we announced many great new features, tools, and updates to help you make the most of Google Play. You can check out all the updates in our I/O session, or keep reading for a quick overview of the new capabilities that will help take your business even further, from driving more installs to growing your engagement and revenue.

15% service fee for the first $1M in earnings

1. Earlier this year, we announced an additional service fee tier to help boost developer success on Google Play. Starting July 1st, the service fee will be 15% instead of 30% for your first $1M (USD) of earnings each year. You’ll be able to enroll for the new rate in Play Console the week of June 7th, so we’re sharing details about the process now to give you time to get ready.

New tools for managing policy compliance

2. We’ve built a new, dedicated Policy and Programs section in Play Console to provide you with a centralized place to see any policy compliance concerns, guidance on how to fix policy issues, and information about upcoming policy changes.

More SDK guidance

3. The new Google Play SDK Console lets providers report issues with their SDK versions so we can give you better guidance and recommendations. We’ve started with several large SDK providers and will continue to add more.

4. Later this year, we’re launching a new, public website with important insights about popular SDKs to help you choose the right SDK for your app. Learn more about how we’re helping you build safer and more stable apps in the I/O session below.

Helping more users discover your apps and games

5. To ensure that your store listing assets can help users anticipate your in-app or in-game experience and drive meaningful downloads, we’re pre-announcing a policy change for app metadata...

6. and introducing new guidelines on store listing preview assets.

Distribution features for the future of publishing

7. One million apps are in production using the Android App Bundle, with 15% size savings on average vs a universal APK. The app bundle is the future of publishing on Google Play and, starting August 1, 2021, they’ll be required for all new apps.

8. Based on developer feedback, we'll soon be launching an optional code transparency feature to offer additional cryptographic assurance that your app’s code on device has not been modified from its original version.

Identify growth opportunities with our new competitive insights

9. To help you understand your engagement and monetization trends and optimize your product plans, we’ve taken the best of our ecosystem data and contextualized your performance against peersets. Learn how to make the most of them in the I/O session below.

10. You can now also customize and pin the precise metrics that matter to you in a personalized KPIs section at the top of your app dashboard.

More features for a flexible monetization strategy

11. Your global reach just got even larger: In 2020, we added 34 new local forms of payment across 30 markets around the world.

12. We lowered the minimum prices developers can set for paid apps, in-app purchases, and subscriptions in 20 new markets across Latin America, EMEA, and APAC.

13. This year, we’ll be launching multi-quantity purchases, which will allow your users to buy more than one item at a time from the cart.

14. We’ll also be launching multi-line subscriptions, which will allow you to sell multiple products as part of a single subscription.

15. And finally, we’ll be launching prepaid plans, which will let you offer users access to content for a fixed amount of time. (Don’t worry, users can easily extend at any time.)

16. Want to take advantage of these new features? Many will be available when you integrate Play Billing Library version 4.0, and more will be rolling out later this year. As a reminder, new apps are required to integrate version 3.0 by August 2, 2021 or by November 1, 2021 for updates to existing apps.

Program enhancements to engage and retain users

17. This year, Google Play Pass expanded to over 40 markets, with more than 800 games and apps. Developers have on average more than doubled their Play revenue across participating titles in these markets. Let us know if you’d like to join!

18. Google Play Points expanded to 22 countries and added deeper integration with Play Console making it even easier for developers to onboard. Play’s loyalty program helps developers increase engagement and reduce churn with their most high value users. Developers can learn more about joining the program here.

More educational content

19. Want to learn more about any of these features? We’ve built a comprehensive website with best practices and resources to help you learn more about our programs and tools.

20. Last but not least, we’ve also added tons of new free courses to Google Play Academy. Whether you're about to launch your startup or grow your existing business on Play, Google Play Academy has you covered.

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What’s new for Android developers at Google I/O

Posted by Karen Ng, Director, Product Management & Jacob Lehrbaum, Director of Developer Relations, Android & Play

As Android developers, we are all driven by building experiences that delight people around the world. And with people depending on your apps more than ever, expectations are higher and your jobs as developers aren’t getting easier. Today, at Google I/O, we covered a few ways that we’re trying to help out, whether it be through Android 12 - one of the biggest design changes ever, Jetpack, Jetpack Compose, Android Studio, and Kotlin to help you build beautiful high quality apps. We’re also helping when it comes to extending your apps wherever your users go, like through wearables and larger-screened devices. You can watch the full Developer Keynote, but here are a few highlights:

Android 12: one of the biggest design updates ever.

The first Beta of Android 12 just started rolling out, and it’s packed with lots of cool stuff. From new user safety features like permissions for bluetooth and approximate location, enhancements to performance like expedited jobs and start up animations, to delightful experiences with more interactive widgets and stretch overscrolling, this release is one of the biggest design updates to Android ever. You can read more about what’s in Android 12 Beta 1 here, so you can start preparing your apps for the consumer release coming out later this year. Download the Beta and try it with your apps today!

Android 12 visual

Jetpack Compose: get ready for 1.0 in July!

For the last few years, we’ve been hard at work modernizing the Android development experience, listening to your feedback to keep the openness–a hallmark of Android, but becoming more opinionated about the right way to do things. You can see this throughout, from Android Studio, a performant IDE that can keep up with you, to Kotlin, a programming language that enables you to do more with less code, to Jetpack libraries that solve the hardest problems on mobile with backward compatibility.

The next step in this offering is Jetpack Compose - our modern UI toolkit to easily build beautiful apps for all Android devices. We announced Compose here at Google I/O two years ago and since then have been building it in the open, listening to your feedback to make sure we got it right. With the Compose Beta earlier this year, developers around the world have created some truly beautiful, innovative experiences in half the time, and the response to the #AndroidDevChallenge blew our socks off!

With the forthcoming update of Material You (which you can read more about here), we’ll be adding new Material components as well as further support for building for large screens, making it fast and easy to build a gorgeous UI. We’re pressure testing the final bits in Compose and will release 1.0 Stable in July—so get ready!

Android Studio Arctic Fox: Design, Devices, & Developer Productivity!

Android Studio Arctic Fox (2020.3.1) Beta, the latest release of the official powerful Android IDE, is out today to help you build quality apps easier and faster. We have delivered and updated the suite of tools to empower three major themes: accelerate your UI design, extend your app to new devices, and boost your developer productivity. With this latest release you can create modern UIs with Compose tooling, see test results across multiple devices, and optimize debugging databases and background tasks with the App Inspector. We’re also making your apps more accessible with the Accessibility Scanner and more performant with Memory Profiler. And for faster build speeds, we have the Android Gradle plugin 7.0, new DSL, and variant APIs. You can learn more about the Android Studio updates here.

Android Studio Arctic Fox

Kotlin: the most used language by professional Android devs

Kotlin is now the most used primary language by professional Android developers according to our recent surveys; in fact, over 1.2M apps in the Play Store use Kotlin, including 80% of the top 1000 apps. And here at Google, we love it too: 70+ Google apps like Drive, Home, Maps and Play use Kotlin. And with a brand-new native solution to annotation processing for Kotlin built from the ground up, Kotlin Symbol Processing is available today, a powerful and yet simple API for parsing Kotlin code directly, showing speeds up to 2x faster with libraries like Room.

Android Jetpack: write features, not boilerplate

With Android Jetpack, we built a suite of libraries to help reduce boilerplate code so you can focus on the code you care about. Over 84% of the top 10,000 apps are now using a Jetpack library. And today, we’re unpacking some new releases for Jetpack, including Jetpack Macrobenchmark (Alpha) to capture large interactions that affect your app startup and jank before your app is released, as well as a new Kotlin Coroutines API for persisting data more efficiently via Jetpack DataStore (Beta). You can read about all the updates in Android Jetpack here.

Now is the time: a big step for Wear

The best thing about modern Android development is that these tools have been purpose built to help make it easy for you to build for the next era of Android, which is all about enabling devices connected to your phone–TVs, cars, watches, tablets–to work better together.

Starting today, we take a huge step forward with wearables. First, we introduced a unified platform built jointly with Samsung, combining the best of Wear and Tizen. Second, we shared a new consumer experience with revamped Google apps. And third, a world-class health and fitness service from Fitbit is coming to the platform. As an Android developer, it means you’ll have more reach, and you’ll be able to use all of your existing skills, tools, and APIs that make your mobile apps great, to build for a single wearables platform used by people all over the world.

Whether it’s new Jetpack APIs for Wear tailored for small screens and designed to optimize battery life, to the Jetpack Tiles API, so you can create a custom Tile for all the devices in the Wear ecosystem, there are a number of new features to help you build on Wear. And with a new set of APIs for Health and Fitness, created in collaboration with Samsung, data collection from sensors and metrics computation is streamlined, consistent, and accurate–like heart rate to calories to daily distance–from one trusted source. All this comes together in new tooling, with the release of Android Studio Arctic Fox Beta, like easier pairing to test apps, and even a virtual heart rate sensor in the emulator. And when your app is ready, users will have a much easier time discovering the world of Wear apps on Google Play, with some big updates to discoverability. You can read more about all of the Wear updates here.

Tapping the momentum of larger screens, like tablets, Chrome OS and foldables

When it comes to larger screens -- tablets, foldables, and Chrome OS laptops-- there is huge momentum. People are increasingly relying on large screen devices to stay connected with family and friends, go to school, or work remotely. In fact, there are over 250 million active large screen Android devices. Last year, Chrome OS grew +92% year over year–5 times the rate of the PC market, making Chrome OS the fastest growing and the second-most popular desktop OS. To help you take advantage of this momentum, we’re giving you APIs and tools to make optimizing that experience easier: like having your content resize automatically to more space by using SlidingpaneLayout 1.2.0 and a new vertical navigation rail component, Max widths on components to avoid stretched UIs, as well as updates to the platform, Chrome OS, and Jetpack windowmanager, so apps work better by default. You can learn more here.

Google Duo's optimized experience for foldable devices

Google Duo's optimized experience for foldable devices

This is just a taste of some of the new ways we’re making it easier for you to build high quality Android apps. Later today, we’ll be releasing more than 20 technical sessions on Android and Play, covering a wide range of topics such as background tasks, privacy, and Machine Learning on Android, or the top 12 tips to get you ready for Android 12. If building for cars, TVs, and wearables is your thing, we got that covered, too. You can find all these sessions - and more - on the I/O website. Beyond the sessions and news, there’s a number of fun ways to virtually connect with Googlers and other developers at this year’s Google I/O. You can check out the Android dome in I/O Adventure, where you can see new blog posts, videos, codelabs, and more. Maybe even test out your Jetpack Compose skills or take a virtual tour of the cars inside our dome!

What’s new in Android 12 Beta

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Android 12 logo

Today at Google I/O we unveiled the first Beta of Android 12, one of our most ambitious releases ever. We focused on a new UI that adapts to you, improving performance, with privacy and security at the core. For developers, we’re giving you more tools to build delightful experiences for people on phones, laptops, tablets, wearables, TVs, and cars.

There’s a lot to explore in Beta 1, starting with the most significant UI update to Android yet, created with a design language that we call Material You. There are new privacy features to try too, like approximate location, and a new standard called Performance Class that lets apps and users identify high-performing devices.

Try Android 12 Beta today on Pixel devices by enrolling here. Thanks to our device-maker partners who are working to accelerate updates, you can now get the Beta on other devices as well, including select devices from ASUS, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, TCL, Transsion, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE, with others on the way. Visit android.com/beta to learn more.

Read on for more highlights of what’s new and visit the Android 12 developer site for details on everything in Android 12 and how to get started developing.

A new UI for Android

As we highlighted in our consumer blog post, Android 12 brings the biggest design change in Android's history. We rethought the entire experience, from the colors to the shapes, light and motion, making Android 12 more expressive, dynamic, and personal. This work is being done in deep collaboration between our software, hardware and Material Design teams, and we’re unifying our software and hardware ecosystems under a single design language called Material You.

Android 12 UI

We’ve extended the new design language across the platform and UI components, so your apps will get these upgrades automatically.

Redesigned widgets - Along with the design changes in Android 12 we’ve refreshed app widgets to make them more useful, beautiful, and discoverable. We added new interactive controls like checkboxes, switches, and radio buttons and made personalizing widgets easier. Android 12 widgets look great with our system UI and themes, with rounded corners and padding automatically adapted to every launcher and home screen. Responsive layouts let you adapt widgets to phones, tablets, foldables, and other screens. We also added dynamic color APIs so your widgets can use system colors to create a personalized but consistent look. And we’re making widgets easier to discover through an improved widget picker and an integration with the Assistant. Check out sample code and give the updated widgets a try. More here.

widgets in Android 12

Stretch overscroll - We’re also adding a new system-wide “stretch” overscroll effect to let users know they’ve scrolled past the end of the available content in your UI. The stretch effect provides a natural vertical and horizontal scroll-stop indicator that’s common across all apps, and it’s enabled by default for scrolling containers across the platform and AndroidX. The new stretch overscroll replaces the glow overscroll supported in previous versions. Make sure to test your apps and content with the new scrolling behavior, and if needed you can opt out. More here.

Smoother audio transitions - UI isn't just about the visuals. We've also improved the way that audio focus is handled. When an app loses audio focus, its audio is automatically faded out, providing a smoother transition between apps which play audio, and preventing apps from playing over each other. This is particularly relevant in foldable and multi-screen Android environments. More here.

Performance

With Android 12, we’ve made significant and deep investments in performance - from foundational performance that makes the system and apps faster and smoother, to a new standard for high-performing devices that helps developers deliver richer experiences on those devices.

Faster, more efficient system performance - We reduced the CPU time needed for core system services by 22%, so devices will be faster and more responsive. We also improved Android's power efficiency by reducing the use of big cores by the system server by 15% to help devices run longer before needing to charge.

Sampled rate , omn big core

We improved transitions and app startup times by reducing lock contention and latency variability, and we optimized I/O for faster app loading. In PackageManager, a read-only snapshot reduced lock contention by as much as 92%. In Binder, lightweight caching radically improved latencies up to 47x in targeted calls. In I/O, we accelerated dex/odex/vdex files to improve app load times, especially on low-memory phones. Our restriction on notification trampolines also helps reduce latency for apps started from a notification. For example, the Google Photos app now launches 34% faster after moving away from notification trampolines.

To improve database query performance we’ve optimized CursorWindow by inlining results in Binder transactions. For small windows, CursorWindow is 36% faster, and for windows over 1000 rows the improvements are as high as 49x.

Performance class - Starting with Android 12 and working together with our ecosystem partners, we’re introducing a common standard for high-performing Android devices.

This standard, called performance class, defines a set of capabilities that go beyond Android's baseline requirements. Devices that meet the performance class requirements can support more demanding use-cases and deliver higher quality content. Developers can check for performance class at runtime and then reliably deliver enhanced experiences that take full advantage of the device’s performance.

Initially, we’re focusing performance class capabilities on media use-cases, with requirements including camera startup latency, codec availability and encoding quality, as well as minimum memory size, screen resolution and read/write performance. More here.

Private by design

Privacy is at the heart of everything we do, and in Android 12 we’re continuing to give people more transparency and control while keeping their devices and data secure. Today we announced several new privacy features that will be coming in Beta 2 - Privacy Dashboard, microphone and camera indicators, and microphone and camera toggles. Stay tuned for more on these features. Here’s what’s new in Beta 1.

App hibernation - Last year we launched permissions auto-reset, and over the last two weeks, Android has reset permissions for over 8.5 million apps that weren’t being used - so apps that people have forgotten about can’t still access their data. In Android 12 we’re building on permissions auto-reset by intelligently hibernating apps that have gone unused for an extended period - optimizing for device storage, performance and safety. Hibernation not only revokes permissions granted previously by the user, but it also force-stops the app and reclaims memory, storage and other temporary resources. In this state the system also prevents apps from running jobs in the background or receiving push notifications, helping to keep users safe. Hibernation should be transparent for most apps, but if needed, direct users to Settings to turn off this feature for your app. More here.

Android 12 device location

Nearby device permissions - Previously, Bluetooth scanning required apps to have the location permission, which was a challenge for apps that needed to pair with nearby devices but didn’t actually need the device location. We’re now allowing apps to scan for nearby devices without needing location permission. Apps targeting Android 12 can scan using the new BLUETOOTH_SCAN permission with the usesPermissionFlags="neverForLocation" attribute. After pairing with a device, use the BLUETOOTH_CONNECT permission to interact with it. These permissions promote privacy-friendly app design while reducing friction for apps. More here.

Approximate location - Recently we’ve given people better ways to manage access to location, such as through separate permissions for foreground and background access and an “only this time” option. Now for apps targeting Android 12, we’re offering even more control with a new “approximate location” option. When apps request precise location data, users can now choose to grant either precise or approximate location. Users can also change an app’s location precision at any time from Settings. If your app requests precise location data (ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION), keep these changes in mind and make sure your app functions properly with approximate location only. For almost all general uses of location, we recommend asking for approximate location (ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION) only. More here.

App compatibility

If you haven’t tested your app for compatibility with Android 12 yet, now is the time to do it! With Android 12 in Beta, we’re opening up access to early-adopter users as well as developers, on Pixel and other devices. This means that in the weeks ahead, expect many more users to be trying your app on Android 12 and raising any issues that they find.

To test for compatibility, install your published app from Google Play or other source on a device or emulator running Android 12 Beta and work through all of the app’s flows. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. After you’ve resolved any issues, publish an update as soon as possible.

With Beta we’re getting closer to Platform Stability in August 2021. Starting then, app-facing system behaviors, SDK/NDK APIs, and non-SDK lists will be finalized. At that time, finish up your final compatibility testing and release a fully compatible version of your app, SDK, or library. More on the timeline for developers is here.

timeline

Get started with Android 12!

Today’s Beta release has everything you need to try the Android 12 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just enroll any supported Pixel device here to get the update over-the-air. If you’ve already installed a preview build, you’ll automatically get Beta updates. To get started developing, set up the SDK.

You can also get Android 12 Beta on devices from some of our top device-maker partners who are participating in the Android 12 Developer Preview program. Visit android.com/beta to see the full list of partners, with links to their sites with details on their supported devices. Each partner will handle their own enrollments and support, and provide the Beta updates to you directly.

For even broader testing on supported devices, try Android 12 Beta on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device you can test on the Android Emulator -- just download the latest emulator system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

For complete details on how to get the Beta, visit the Android 12 developer site.

#AndroidDevChallenge – It’s a wrap!

Posted by The Jetpack Compose Team

From delightful doggos to creative countdowns and storming weather apps, the 2000 submissions to the #AndroidDevChallenge blew our socks off. We are truly amazed at the creativity and beauty of the apps you built with Jetpack Compose, Android’s new UI toolkit. Now that we judged the final challenge, let’s wrap up, look back at this incredible journey and find out who the winners are!

Week #1 - Puppy adoption app ?

The week that made us say “Aww” every time we check out our social media timelines. With this challenge you took your first steps with Compose and learned how to work with lists.

We already shipped the prizes to the first 500 successful submissions: a limited edition trophy of our Jetpack Compose superhero, made of LEGO bricks.

Jetpack Compose prize

Week #1 prize: Jetpack Compose superhero

Week #2 - Countdown timer ⏲️

When time came to implement a countdown timer, you didn’t disappoint! This challenge showed us that you mastered state and animation in Compose.

The first successful 500 submissions already got this week’s prize: a Compose poster pack.

Jetpack Compose prize

Week #2 prize: a Jetpack Compose poster pack

Week #3 - Speed round ?

We couldn’t believe how fast you were! This week you had to implement a design provided by us (the designs are still available if you want to try your hand at them in your own time). We opened the challenge in 3 different time zones, each with its own design to build. Here are the winning projects and the time it took to implement each of them:

  • WeTrade Jorge Baños - 2h 43min
  • MySoothe Nezih Yılmaz - 2h 44min
  • Bloom Takaki Hoshikawa - 5h 57min

It was incredible seeing how quickly the winners worked with themes and layouts in Compose; scoring themselves a Pixel 5 each!

Week #4 - Weather app ?

Come rain or shine, Android developers don’t disappoint! This week it rained… Compose weather apps. We judged them on 4 categories: code quality, novelty of idea, visual beauty and overall execution. As you made our job quite hard, we got some help from some of our Google Developer Experts to decide the winning projects:

Code quality: Paulo Pereira - JetWeatherfy

Novelty of idea: Roman Levinzon - Colony X Weather

Visual beauty: Chris Horner - Weather Scene

Overall execution: Corentin Bect - Flux

The winners each got a Google Pixel 5!


It was incredible to see what thousands of you built in this Jetpack Compose #AndroidDevChallenge. We hope that the challenge gave you a fun way to start learning Jetpack Compose and get ready to adopt it in your apps. If you’re new to Compose or want to dig deeper, check out our docs, codelabs & samples:

Have fun composing!

New safety section in Google Play will give transparency into how apps use data

Posted by Suzanne Frey, VP, Product, Android Security and Privacy

Blog header

We work closely with developers to keep Google Play a safe, trusted space for billions of people to enjoy the latest Android apps. Today, we’re pre-announcing an upcoming safety section in Google Play that will help people understand the data an app collects or shares, if that data is secured, and additional details that impact privacy and security.

Developers agree that people should have transparency and control over their data. And they want simple ways to communicate app safety that are easy to understand and help users to make informed choices about how their data is handled. Developers also want to give additional context to explain data use and how safety practices could affect the app experience. So in addition to the data an app collects or shares, we’re introducing new elements to highlight whether:

  1. The app has security practices, like data encryption
  2. The app follows our Families policy
  3. The app needs this data to function or if users have choice in sharing it
  4. The app’s safety section is verified by an independent third-party
  5. The app enables users to request data deletion, if they decide to uninstall

This can be a big change, so we’re sharing this in advance and building with developers alongside us.

What this section will include

Among other things, we’ll ask developers to share:

  • What type of data is collected and stored: Examples of potential options are approximate or precise location, contacts, personal information (e.g. name, email address), photos & videos, audio files, and storage files
  • How the data is used: Examples of potential options are app functionality and personalization

Similar to app details like screenshots and descriptions, developers are responsible for the information disclosed in their section. Google Play will introduce a policy that requires developers to provide accurate information. If we find that a developer has misrepresented the data they’ve provided and is in violation of the policy, we will require the developer to fix it. Apps that don’t become compliant will be subject to policy enforcement.

What you can expect

All apps on Google Play - including Google's own apps - will be required to share this information and provide a privacy policy.

We’re committed to ensuring that developers have plenty of time to prepare. This summer, we’ll share the new policy requirements and resources, including detailed guidance on app privacy policies. Starting Q2 2022, new app submissions and app updates must include this information.

Timeline

Target Timeline (Dates subject to change)

In the future, we’ll continue providing new ways to simplify control for users and automate more work for developers.

In the meantime, here are some resources to help you design secure & privacy-friendly apps

We’re excited to advance our partnership with developers to make Google Play a trustworthy platform for everyone.

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Google Play Logo

Android Studio 4.2

Posted by Jamal Eason, Product Manager, Android

Android logo

We are excited to announce that Android Studio 4.2 is now available to download in the stable release channel. The focus areas for this release is an upgraded IntelliJ platform and a handful of new features centered around improving your productivity as an Android app developer.

We know sometimes upgrading your app project to the latest version can be complicated. To address this, we have a new app project upgrade assistant in Android Studio 4.2 that makes it easier to migrate your project and to take advantage of the latest Android Gradle Plugin APIs. Additionally, we have added a whole range of enhancements to the existing features like the Database Inspector, System Trace, SafeArgs support, Apply Changes, the new project wizard and more. If you use these features and you are looking for the next stable version of Android Studio, you should download Android Studio 4.2 today!

Check out the list of new features in Android Studio 4.2 below, organized by key developer flows.

Develop

  • IntelliJ Platform Update - Android Studio 4.2 includes all the major features and updates found in IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2020.2, which includes an updated GitHub UI for pull requests, and new centralized problems window, and more. Learn more.
  • Safe Args Support - Using Safe Args is the recommended way to ensure data encapsulation if you want to pass data between two destinations in your app when you are using the Jetpack Navigation component. With Android Studio 4.2, you now have code autocompletion for Directions Args, and code navigation from source to XML. Learn more.
    safe arfs support

    Safe Args Support

  • New Project Wizard and Module Wizard Updates - This release includes a visual refresh to the new project wizard to make it easier to discover Android device types, plus we added ViewBinding to each of the templates as well. Furthermore, we also made a visual update to the new module wizards to make it easier to understand the variety of module types you can add to your app.
New Project Wizard New Module Wizard

New Project Wizard & New Module Wizard

Debug

  • Database Inspector Improvements - Managing and monitoring your in app database is easier to do with the Database Inspector. In this release we made a couple new enhancements. We added a new offline mode, so that you can still keep inspecting your app's databases after a process disconnects, making it easier to diagnose your app after a crash. And we added a handy query history option as well.
Query History with the Database Inspector

Query History with the Database Inspector

  • Retrace Command Line Tool - As part of your app compilation process, R8 obfuscates Kotlin and Java programming language code. This can make stack traces impossible to decipher since types and method names are obfuscated and shortened to reduce the memory footprint of your app. The Retrace command line tool deobfuscates these names and recovers inlined frames using a mapping.txt file, making stack traces understandable again The new standalone tool can be found at ./sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/retrace. Learn more.

Build

  • AGP Upgrade Assistant - Migrating your project to the latest Android Gradle Plugin (AGP) can sometimes be tricky especially if you use deprecated APIs. To solve this and to better prepare you for the transition to the Android Gradle Plugin 7.0, we created a new upgrade assistant. The assistant allows you to toggle the commands that will be executed on your project to upgrade to a higher version of AGP, preview exactly which files will be affected by the AGP upgrade, and lastly globally update deprecated configurations.
AGP Upgrade Assistant<

AGP Upgrade Assistant

  • Apply Changes Enhancements - Apply Changes lets you push code and resource changes to your running app without restarting your app. In Android Studio 4.2 we have expanded the number of compatible changes with Apply Changes to include adding resources (which accounted for 23% of changes that needed a full restart) and adding static final fields (e.g. constants) when running on an Android 11+ device or emulator.
  • Android Gradle Plugin 4.2 - With AGP 4.2, we made a number of notable changes. First, we implemented a new resources compiler which should aid in improving build performance especially on Windows machines. Secondly, we have updated the default Java programming language to version 8. Lastly, we added support for the APK v3 and APK v4 signing format. Learn more about additional AGP updates here. 
// build.gradle.kts

android {
   ...
   signingConfigs {
      config {
          ...
          enableV3Signing(true)
          enableV4Signing(true)
      }
   }
}

APK v3 and APK v4 singing support

Test

  • Multiple Device Deployment - Sometimes when you are developing and testing your app it is helpful to deploy your app on multiple devices to see the results. We brought back this feature from very early versions of Android Studio and integrated it directly into the device selection menu in Android Studio 4.2. To note, if you deploy tests to multiple devices you may be prompted to enable this behavior.
Multiple Device Deployment

Multiple Device Deployment

Profile

  • System Trace Improvements - To understand the fine-grained performance characteristics of your app, it helps to use the system trace features inside of the Android Studio profiers. With this release of Android Studio, system trace now has a new events table. With this new table view you can see; BufferQueue, RSS memory counters, and CPU core frequency all within a compact user interface. Profiler with new System Trace Events Table

    Profiler with new System Trace Events Table

    To recap, Android Studio 4.2 includes these new enhancements & features:

    Develop

    • IntelliJ 2020.2.3 Platform Update
    • Safe Args Support
    • New Project Wizard and Module Wizard Updates

    Debug

    • Database Inspector Improvements
    • Retrace Command Line Tool

    Build

    • AGP Upgrade Assistant
    • Apply Changes Enhancements
    • Android Gradle Plugin 4.2

    Test

    • Multiple Device Deployment

    Profile

    • System Trace Improvements

    Check out the Android Studio release notes, Android Gradle plugin release notes, and the Android Emulator release notes for more details.


Getting Started

Download

Download the latest version of Android Studio 4.2 from the download page. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio Arctic Fox at the same time. Learn more.

We appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.

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Updated guidance to improve your app quality and discovery on Google Play

Posted by Bert de Weerd and Tingmui Li, Google Play

When Google Play launched in 2008, it was easy for developers to get noticed with only a few hundred apps and games live on the Play Store. Fast forward to today, there are now millions of apps and games available to audiences in over 190 countries. The unique assets you provide to the Store – images, video, descriptions, even your app name itself – are essential to users making a decision on what to download.

Google Play is increasingly showing more of your assets front and center, surfacing graphic assets and descriptions right on Apps and Games home. To ensure that your store listing assets can help users anticipate your in-app or in-game experience and drive meaningful downloads, we are:

  1. Pre-announcing a policy change for app metadata
  2. Introducing new guidelines on Store listing preview assets

1. Pre-announce policy change for app metadata

Since your app title, icon, and developer name are the most important discovery elements on your store listing page, we are preparing to launch a new set of policies to keep these elements recognizable and unique, focusing on:

  • Limiting the length of app titles to 30 characters
  • Prohibiting keywords that imply store performance, promotion in the icon, title and developer name
  • Eliminating graphic elements that may mislead users in the app icon

App title, icon and developer name that do not meet the upcoming policies will not be allowed on Google Play. You can expect more details about this policy change, including enforcement start dates, later this year.

We recommend reviewing the examples of do and don’t below and thinking about how these changes may impact you, so you can get ready for the upcoming policy changes.

Store performance or rank:
Price and promotional information:
Play programs and graphic elements that mislead users:
Emoticons & repeated or sequential special characters and or punctuations:

2. New guidelines for Store listing preview assets

We are also announcing new store listing preview asset guidelines for the feature graphics, screenshots, videos, and short descriptions you supply to showcase your app's features and functionality. Assets that don’t meet our guidelines may be ineligible for promotion and recommendation on major Google Play surfaces like Apps and Games home.

The new guideline for developer supplied assets focus on the following principles:

  • Do the preview assets accurately represent the app or game?
  • Do the preview assets provide enough information to help users decide whether to install?
  • Are the preview assets free of buzzwords like "free" or "best" and instead focus on providing meaningful information about the unique aspects of your app or game?
  • Are the preview assets localized correctly and easy to read?

To ensure that your apps and games are eligible for recommendations on all surfaces on Google Play, please review our new store listing guidelines. We’ll start using these guidelines to inform our recommendations starting in the second half of 2021.

We hope you found both the policy pre-announcement and preview asset guideline announcement useful as you plan your roadmap for the year, and we hope you share in our excitement for a more useful and engaging Play Store.

#AndroidDevJourney spotlight – April edition

Posted by Luli Perkins, Developer Relations Program Manager

Banner for Android Dev Journey and the four developers we featured in April.

We’re wrapping up the April edition of #AndroidDevJourney by highlighting Android developers from all over the world each with their own unique experience. Early this year, we launched the #AndroidDevJourney series to highlight our community on our social media accounts. Each Saturday, from January through June, we’ll feature a new developer on our Twitter account.

We’re getting near the end of our six month journey, so don’t miss your chance to be featured in one of our last two spotlight series, tweet us your story using #AndroidDevJourney.

Mohit Sarveiya

Photo of Mohit Sarveiya within Android Dev Journey card.

Tell me about your journey to becoming an Android Developer and how you got started.

I started my journey first as a backend developer 10 years ago while teaching myself Android development on the side. I had an opportunity to create an app from scratch. My first app had in-app-purchasing, notifications, and video playback. It wasn’t easy. I was the only Android developer and I learned as I went along. I kept building on this experience and have worked on building many apps in the past 10 years.

In my journey, I was an early adopter of Kotlin. During that time, there were very few resources to learn Kotlin. I learned Kotlin by converting lots of Java code to Kotlin. I’m grateful to have learned Kotlin early on. Coding is what I do, but not who I am. There have been many obstacles in my journey. But, Kotlin was my medium to discover my passion. It has had a profound impact on my life.

I have helped companies adopt Kotlin and Kotlin Coroutines on both Android and backend. I enjoy teaching it. I shared my experiences through tech talks. For the past eight years I gave a tech talk every month in the NYC community. Every talk has meant so much to me, because of what I went through to prepare for it. My adversity has been my motivator. Everyone sees the results, but not the process. I discovered my passion for public speaking and developer advocacy. After eight years, I became a GDE in Android & Kotlin and I’m still on this journey to inspire others.

What’s one shortcut, tip, or hack you can’t live without?

Finding ways to incorporate automation in your solutions is one of the attributes of a good developer. I have observed it in many examples through out my career. For example, a developer wrote an annotation processor to generate custom adapters and to generate models based on API specifications. Another example is a developer who wrote a generator to setup the scaffolding for a module. Its valuable to find ways to automate tasks.

What's the one piece of advice you wish someone would have given you when you started on your journey?

You will seldomly work on green field projects. You will work on an app that already exists and has been built over the years. You’ll work on teams that have diverse perspectives on best practices on Android throughout your career. You may not work on an Android app that is using a modern Android development stack. You’ll find many obstacles navigating this spectrum. But, the obstacle is the way.

Imangi Studios

Photo of Imangi Studios team within Android Dev Journey card.

Tell me about your journey to becoming an Android Developer and how you got started.

We first became an Android Developers when we made Temple Run! We started out with a bang. Fans instantly all of the world came to love playing Temple Run on Android and we were happy to develop the game for Android!

What’s one shortcut, tip, or hack you can’t live without?

Tip 1 - To help deal with the larger number of Android devices out there, build a device farm with a wide range of devices, and do robust automated testing on your app from the start.

Tip 2 - Build releases and store listings can be updated independently.

What's the one piece of advice you wish someone would have given you when you started on your journey?

Advice 1 - The biggest thing that struck us about Android development is just how many devices there are out there. Google Play supports tens of thousands of devices, and if you want to cover a sizable portion of those, you need to plan ahead for things like quality controls, asset tiering, and content delivery specced. If we could go back to the beginning of Temple Run 2 and have known that at the start, we could have planned a game that would look and run even better across an even bigger range of devices.

Advice 2 - The industry moves fast so be open to change and research your craft.

Valentine Rutto

Photo of Valentine Rutto within Android Dev Journey card.

Tell me about your journey to becoming an Android Developer and how you got started.

My Android development journey started in 2015. I was doing my computer science degree and I felt that there was a gap between the theory and practical technical skills so I enrolled in the Moringa School coding bootcamp. Here I was introduced to Android development by the then instructor and cofounder Frank Tamre. I immediately fell in love with Android and I have been hooked ever since.

The Google Developer Groups and WomenTechMakers communities have played a great role in my journey. The tech community provides invaluable resources that have immensely helped in my career growth. I was the Women TechMakers Nyeri chapter lead for about two years where I taught Android development to aspiring developers. Through the community I was able to meet brilliant Android developers who I still learn from everyday.

Currently I always aim to contribute to the tech community in whatever capacity I can.

What’s one shortcut, tip, or hack you can’t live without?

I can't live without JsonToKotlin plugin it is an efficient tool that makes JSON deserialization easy and fast.

What's the one piece of advice you wish someone would have given you when you started on your journey?

Read the developer documentation, it will save you a lot of time which would otherwise have been wasted on trial and error.

Joe Birch

Photo of Joe Birch within Android Dev Journey card.

Tell me about your journey to becoming an Android Developer and how you got started.

I started working with Android while I was studying at university, and it was actually kind of by chance! One of my lecturers had some friends who were looking to build an app for their company. Truth is, at this point I had not even had an Android phone for long but I jumped at the chance to build something for a real client. During this build, I pretty much fell in love with Android and quickly became fascinated in how portable and accessible things that you build would become. As soon as I started building that project, I knew this is how I wanted my start off my career.

What’s one shortcut, tip, or hack you can’t live without?

For me, split screen in Android Studio has really helped my productivity when working on some projects. Whether it's during refactoring or working with a file and its corresponding tests, being able to display multiple files side-by-side removes the need to manually hop between them. Within Android Studio, you can do this by right-clicking on the tab for a file and selecting either "Split Horizontally" or "Split Vertically.” The selected file will then shift to a seperate section and you can work on that code at the same time as another file within a separate section.

What's the one piece of advice you wish someone would have given you when you started on your journey?

Don't get too caught up in making things perfect or strictly following standards. When I started out building things privately or sharing things in the public, I felt I had to match up to these and was worried too much about making mistakes.

All learning is a journey, we will always make mistakes and that's where growth comes from! While topics things can be important, getting something tangible in your hands can be incredibly motivating - something that can be slowed down greatly if you get caught up here. It's still worth diving in deeper and learning how things work once you have something working, but it can be inspiring to get something built without getting caught up in too many of the details!


The Android Developer community prides itself in its inclusivity and welcomes developers from all backgrounds and stages of life. If you’re feeling inspired and want to learn more about how to become a part of our community, here are a few resources to help get you started.

Dive into developer.android.com

Follow us on Twitter

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

GDG logo

The Google Developer Groups program gives developers the opportunity to meet local developers with similar interests in technology. A GDG meetup event includes talks on a wide range of technical topics where you can learn new skills through hands-on workshops.

Join a chapter near you here.

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Founded in 2014, Google’s Women Techmakers is dedicated to helping all women thrive in tech through community, visibility and resources. With a member base of over 100,000 women developers, we’re working with communities across the globe to build a world where all women can thrive in tech.

Become a member here.

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The Google Developers Experts program is a global network of highly experienced technology experts, influencers and thought leaders who actively support developers, companies and tech communities by speaking at events, publishing content, and building innovative apps. Experts actively contribute to and support the developer and startup ecosystems around the world, helping them build and launch highly innovative apps.

Learn more about the program here.


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Google Developer Student Clubs in India build Android Apps with Kotlin

Posted by Siddhant Agarwal, Google Developer Student Clubs India Community Manager and Biswajeet Mallik, Program Manager, Google Developers India

Google Developer Student Clubs recently hosted Android Study Jams, a collection of community-organized study groups, in 275 campuses across India. These study jams helped students build Android apps in the Kotlin programming language via a curriculum provided by Google.

These virtual events were attended by thousands of students in 250+ colleges and saw the creation of hundreds of new Android apps made with Kotlin. To celebrate all of this exciting work, we wanted to showcase some noteworthy apps built by the Android Study Jam session participants:

Stumate App

Android 12 logo

Developed by GDSC GMR Institute of Technology, Stumate is a place for students who are looking for a solution to store all of their files and notes in one organized place on their devices. This application also allows students to send notifications to their classmates about assignments while uploading notes in a PDF, Word Document or a Presentation.

The app uses the Material Design library for the front-end and Firebase as a backend. Some of the technical concepts used in the app include:

  1. SharedPreferences and RoomDatabase to store user credentials
  2. WorkManager to schedule the reminders at a particular time
  3. Data Binding to display the content
  4. Firebase Authentication (Google Single Sign On and Email Auth), Realtime Database, Storage, Firebase Cloud Messaging, Crashlytics
  5. Firebase Test Lab to test the application on various devices

You can find this app on the Play Store here.


Ask Me Anonymously App

Android 12 logo

Ask Me Anonymously is a chat application developed by GDSC Chandigarh University where users can ask questions to one another without revealing their identity.

This app uses concepts that were taught in Android Study Jams such as:

  1. RecyclerView
  2. Activity Lifecycle
  3. Data Binding
  4. Using Glide for loading and displaying images from the internet

The application also uses Firebase Realtime Database and Firebase Cloud Storage for implementing the above-said functionality, it also uses some other notable Firebase features such as Cloud Messaging and Firebase Dynamic Links.

You can find this app on the Play Store here.

Travel Wise App

Android 12 logo

Developed by GDSC Indian Institute of Information Technology, Lucknow, Travel Wise is an app that helps users find co-travellers in their journey, allowing you to share your journey and save money on travelling.

The app uses Google Firebase for authentication and Realtime Database for storage.

Eye Tester App

Android 12 logo

In today's digital age, our screen time has dramatically increased, making eyesight problems more common. GDSC Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering developed an Eye Tester app, which tells whether one should visit a doctor or not based on a simple digital eye test.

The app uses the concept 'toast' which makes the text appear for a short period and disappear, and 'random' which generates random numbers. The app is designed using Compose’s 'constraint-layout' which gives the flexibility to design the UI of the app efficiently.

Taperback App

GDSC Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute developed Taperback, a book and novel reading Android app. In Taperback, users can read from a large collection of free books collected manually from already publicly available online websites. Books from these sites are then later uploaded to the Firebase Firestore and Storage using a custom made Web Portal, along with other metadata of the books. New books are often added daily.

This app was created using Kotlin and XML. Some of the key concepts used are Kotlin Coroutines, navigation graphs, RecyclerView, WebView, SQLite, data caching, and more.

We want to thank all the Android Study Jam facilitators for hosting these sessions and for helping students develop these exciting Android apps with Kotlin.

The Google Developer Student Clubs Community in India is now bringing their enthusiasm to the 2021 Solution Challenge, where they’re building apps that serve their local community.

Get started

Ready to start learning Kotlin and building your own Android apps? If you’re a university student, join a Google Developer Student Club near you. If you’re a professional, find the right Google Developer Group for you.

Android 12 Developer Preview 3

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Android 12 logo

Google I/O 2021 is just a few weeks away and we’re looking forward to sharing all of the latest news in Android with you soon! To take us one step closer, today we’re sharing Developer Preview 3, the next milestone release of Android 12, for your testing and feedback.

In Android 12 we’re continuing to focus on making the OS smarter, easier to use, and better performing, with privacy and security at the core. We’re also working to give you new tools for building great experiences for users on phones, laptops, tablets, TVs, or cars. Some things to check out in today’s release include a new app launch experience, new video and camera capabilities to help you get more out of underlying hardware support, and a new permission for exact alarms to help users save battery.

Read on for more highlights and visit the Android 12 developer site for details and downloads for Pixel. If you’re already running a Developer Preview 2 build, watch for an over-the-air (OTA) update coming to you soon! As always, let us know what you think, and thanks for all of the feedback you’ve shared so far.

Better user experience tools

Today’s release includes new tools to help you deliver a polished experience and better performance for users. Here are some of the updates.

Improved app launch experience - In Android 12 we’re making app startup a more consistent and delightful experience. We’ve added a new app launch animation for all apps from the point of launch, a splash screen showing the app icon, and a transition to the app itself. The new experience brings standard design elements to every app launch, but we’ve also made it customizable so apps can maintain their unique branding. For example, you can use new splashscreen APIs and resources to manage the splash screen window’s background color; you can replace the static launcher icon with a custom icon or an animation; you can control the timing to reveal the app; and you can set light mode or dark mode, and manage exit animation.

There’s nothing you need to do to take advantage of the new experience - it’s enabled by default for all apps. We recommend testing your app with the new experience soon, especially if you’re already using a splash screen. To customize the experience, check out the new APIs and let us know what you think. More here.

New call notification template - Incoming and ongoing calls are important to users and they need to be easy to see and manage. In Android 12 we’re improving call notifications to give them more visibility and scannability, and improve their consistency with other notification components. If your app handles calls - such as a dialer app or chat app with video calling - you’ll want to try our new CallStyle template. You can use the template to create notifications for incoming, outgoing, and screened calls. Each type supports multiple actions, including default actions and custom actions that are specific to your app. You can also attach a large avatar image, provide text, and set button color hints. The OS gives CallStyle notifications high visibility, such as bringing them to the top of the notifications shade. More here.

New permission for exact alarms - Alarms are an important way for apps to schedule work. In most cases, apps should use inexact alarms, which have the advantage of being battery-friendly. Android manages these alarms to minimize wakeups and battery impacts, such as through Doze and App Standby. For cases where you need alarms with precise timing - for example alarm clocks and timers - you can use exact alarms instead. These are convenient and reliable, but they can also cause battery drain, especially when overused. So in Android 12, we’re making some changes to give users more control.

Apps targeting Android 12 that want to use exact alarms will now need to request a new permission, SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM. It’s a normal permission, so once you’ve declared it in your manifest, you’ll be automatically granted it at first startup. However, we’re also giving users visibility over the apps that have this permission and letting them grant and revoke it from Special App Access Permissions in Settings. If your app requires exact alarms, make sure you handle cases where it no longer has the permission. We’ve added a new API, canScheduleExactAlarms(), to let you check the permission status for your app. In general, we recommend migrating your apps away from uses of exact alarms wherever possible. More here.

Improved web linking - In Android 12 we’re making some changes to help users get to their content faster and more seamlessly. First, we’ve changed the default handling of links that aren’t verified through Android App Links or manually approved for links by the user. Now the OS will directly open them in the default browser, rather than showing a chooser dialog. To make it easier for users to approve your app for links, we’ve added a new Intent that takes them to “Open by default” in Settings. If you want to ensure that only your app can handle links from your domain, you can use App Links. We’ve added new adb commands to help you configure and test your links. More here.

Rich haptic experiences - We’re expanding the tools we offer for creating informative haptic feedback for UI events, immersive and delightful effects for gaming, and attentional haptics for productivity. We’ve added expressive effects like low tick that take advantage of the broader frequency bandwidth of the latest actuators. Game developers can now access multiple, different actuators independently in game controllers to deliver the same effect synchronously or different haptic effects on multiple actuators. For developers, we recommend using the constants and primitives as building blocks for rich haptic effects - constants to enhance UI events and haptic composer to sequence primitives for more complex effects. You can try these APIs to the fullest on Pixel 4 devices today, and we’re continuing to work with our device-maker partners to bring the latest in haptics support to users across the ecosystem.

Video encoding improvements - Android 12 standardizes the set of keys for controlling the range of the video Quantization Parameters (QP), allowing developers to avoid vendor-specific code. The new keys are available in the MediaFormat API and also in the NDK Media library. Video encoders must specify a minimum video quality threshold to ensure that users don't experience extremely low quality when videos are complex.

Camera2 vendor extensions - Many of our device manufacturer partners have built custom camera effects—such as bokeh, HDR, night mode, and others—that they want apps to use to create differentiated experiences on their devices. We’ve already supported these custom effects through a set of vendor extensions in our CameraX library, and now in Android 12 we’re exposing the vendor extensions directly in the platform as well. This helps apps that have complex Camera2 implementations to take advantage of the extensions without having to make significant changes to legacy code. The extension APIs expose exactly the same set of effects as in CameraX, and those are already supported on many different devices, so you can use them right out of the box. More here.

Quad bayer camera sensor support - Many Android devices today ship with ultra high-resolution camera sensors, typically with Quad / Nona Bayer patterns, and these offer great flexibility in terms of image quality and low-light performance. In Android 12, we’re introducing new platform APIs that let third-party apps take full advantage of these versatile sensors. The new APIs support the unique behavior of these sensors and take into account that they might support different stream configurations and combinations when operating in full resolution or ‘maximum resolution’ mode vs ‘default’ mode.

Faster machine learning - In Android 12, we invested in key areas so that developers can make the most of ML accelerators and always get the best possible performance through the Neural Networks API. In terms of performance improvements - we have more than halved inference call overhead by introducing improvements such as padding, sync fences and reusable execution objects. We’ve also made ML accelerator drivers updatable outside of platform releases, through Google Play services. This will make it easier for developers to take advantage of the latest drivers on any compatible device, and make sure that ML performance improvements and bug fixes reach users faster than ever before.

Standardizing GPU compute - We are deprecating the RenderScript APIs in favor of cross-platform GPU compute solutions such as Vulkan and OpenGL. We want you to have confidence that your high-performance workloads will run on GPU hardware, and many devices are already shipping with only CPU support for RenderScript. The existing APIs will continue to work for the time-being, and we've open-sourced a library for RenderScript intrinsics such as blur that uses the highly-optimized intrinsics platform code. Samples and a migration guide for using Vulkan to implement image processing are also available. More here.

Better debugging for native crashes - You've told us that debugging NDK-related crashes can be challenging. We’re making this easier in Android 12 by giving you more actionable diagnostics. In the platform, we use crash dump files called tombstones to debug our native crashes, and they contain the information required to diagnose a variety of issues; this includes unwinding through ART, integrating with fdsan, and recording all the stacks involved in a GWP-ASan, HWASan, or MTE crash. Now we’re giving your app access to its tombstone files through the App Exit Reasons API. When your app uses `ApplicationExitInfo` with `REASON_CRASH_NATIVE`, you can now call `getTraceInputStream()` to get the tombstone data as a protocol buffer.

More-flexible backup configurations - Android’s backup service lets users restore or migrate their data to a new device effortlessly. Apps are central to the experience, enabling users to easily transfer app data and continue where they left off. The backup service supports both cloud backups to Google Drive and device-to-device transfers, and developers can take advantage of these with minimal changes in their apps. For apps targeting Android 12, we’re improving the service to give you more flexibility and control. We’ve updated the XML configuration format so you can now set different rules for cloud backups and device-to-device transfers. With this, for example, you could exclude a large file from cloud backups but include it in device-to-device transfers. You can also set encryption requirements separately for backups or transfers. Last, if you’d like to opt-out of Auto Backup for device-to-device transfers, please use the new configuration format instead of the allowBackup manifest attribute. More here.

You can read more about all of the Android 12 features and behavior changes here.

App compatibility

We’re working to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app compatibility as we roll out new platform versions. In Android 12, we’ve made most app-facing changes opt-in to give you more time, and we’ve updated our tools and processes to help you get ready sooner.

With Developer Preview 3, we’re moving closer to our first Beta release as we continue to improve stability. Now is the time to try the new features and changes and let us know how these work with your apps. Please visit the feedback page to share your thoughts with us or report issues.

With the first Beta coming soon, it’s time to start your compatibility testing to make sure your app is ready. We recommend releasing a compatible update over the next few weeks. There’s no need to change your app’s targetSdkVersion at this time, although you can use the behavior change toggles to get a preliminary idea of how your app might be affected by opt-in changes in Android 12.

As we reach Platform Stability in August 2021, all of the app-facing system behaviors, SDK/NDK APIs, and non-SDK lists will be finalized. At that point, you can finish up your final compatibility testing and release a fully compatible version of your app, SDK, or library. More on the timeline for developers is here.

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Get started with Android 12

Today’s Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 12 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. You can get started today by flashing a device system image to a Pixel 3 / 3 XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, Pixel 4 / 4 XL, Pixel 4a / 4a 5G, or Pixel 5 device or using the Android Emulator. If you’ve already installed a preview build to your Pixel device, you’ll automatically get this update and future Beta updates over-the-air. More details on how to get Android 12 are here.

For complete information, visit the Android 12 developer site.