Category Archives: Android Developers Blog

An Open Handset Alliance Project

First preview of Android 12

Android 12 logo

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Every day, Android apps help billions of people work, play, communicate, and create on a wide range of devices from phones and laptops to tablets, TVs, and cars. As more people come to rely on the experiences you build, their expectations can rise just as fast. It’s one of the reasons we share Android releases with you early: your feedback helps us build a better platform for your apps and all of the people who use them. Today, we’re releasing the first Developer Preview of Android 12, the next version of Android, for your testing and feedback.

With each version, we’re working to make the OS smarter, easier to use, and better performing, with privacy and security at the core. In Android 12 we’re also working to give you new tools for building great experiences for users. Starting with things like compatible media transcoding, which helps your app to work with the latest video formats if you don’t already support them, and easier copy/paste of rich content into your apps, like images and videos. We’re also adding privacy protections and optimizing performance to keep your apps responsive.

Today’s first preview is just the start for Android 12, and we’ll have lots more to share as we move through the release. Read on for a taste of what’s new in Android 12, and visit the Android 12 developer site for details on downloads for Pixel and release timeline. As always, it’s crucial to get your feedback early, to help us incorporate it into the final product, so let us know what you think!

Alongside the work we’re doing in Android 12, later this month we’ll have more to share on another important tool that helps you create great user experiences more easily: Jetpack Compose, our modern toolkit for building native UI. Join us on #TheAndroidShow for a behind-the-scenes look at Jetpack Compose, livestreamed on February 24 at 9AM PT, and tweet your Jetpack Compose questions using #TheAndroidShow to have them answered live on the show.

Trust and safety

Privacy is at the heart of everything we do, and in Android 12 we’re continuing to focus on giving users more transparency and control while keeping their devices and data secure. In today’s release we’ve added new controls over identifiers that can be used for tracking, safer defaults for app components, and more. These changes may affect your apps, so we recommend testing as soon as possible. Watch for more privacy and security features coming in later preview releases.

Modern SameSite cookie behaviors in WebView - In line with changes to Chrome and other browsers, WebView includes new SameSite cookie behaviors to provide additional security and privacy and give users more transparency and control over how cookies can be used across sites. More here.

Restricted Netlink MAC - We’re continuing to help developers migrate to privacy-protecting resettable identifiers. In a multi-release effort to ease migration of device-scoped Netlink MAC, in Android 11 we restricted access to it based on API level 30, and in Android 12 we’re applying the restriction for all apps - regardless of targetSDK level. More here.

Safer exporting of components - To prevent apps from inadvertently exporting activities, services, and receivers, we’re changing the default handling of the android:exported attribute to be more explicit. With this change, components that declare one or more intent filters must now explicitly declare an android:exported attribute. You should inspect your components in the manifest in order to avoid installation errors related to this change. More here.

Safer handling of Intents - To make handling PendingIntents more secure, Android 12 requires apps to explicitly declare a mutability flag, either FLAG_MUTABLE or the new FLAG_IMMUTABLE, for each PendingIntent. More here.

You can read more about these and other privacy and security changes here.

Better user experience tools

In Android 12 we’re investing in key areas to help deliver a polished experience and better performance for users. Here are some of the updates so far.

Compatible media transcoding - With the prevalence of HEVC hardware encoders on mobile devices, camera apps are increasingly capturing in HEVC format, which offers significant improvements in quality and compression over older codecs. Most apps should support HEVC, but for apps that can’t, we’re introducing compatible media transcoding.

With this feature, an app that doesn’t support HEVC can have the platform automatically transcode the file into AVC, a format that is widely compatible. The transcoding process takes time, depending on the video and hardware properties of the device. As an example, a one minute 1080p video at 30fps takes around 9 seconds to transcode on a Pixel 4. You can opt-in to use the transcoding service by just declaring the media formats that your apps don't support. For developers, we strongly recommend that your apps support HEVC, and if that’s not possible, enable compatible media transcoding. The feature will be active on all devices using HEVC format for video capture. We'd love to hear your feedback on this feature. More here.

AVIF image support - To give you higher image quality with more efficient compression, Android 12 introduces platform support for AV1 Image File Format (AVIF). AVIF is a container format for images and sequences of images encoded using AV1. Like other modern image formats, AVIF takes advantage of the intra-frame encoded content from video compression. This dramatically improves image quality for the same file size when compared to older image formats, such as JPEG.

AVIF (18.2kB)

JPEG (20.7kB)

race car photo in AVIF (18.2kB)
race car photo in JPEG (20.7kB)

Credit: Image comparison from AVIF has landed by Jake Archibald

Foreground service optimizations - Foreground services are an important way for apps to manage certain types of user-facing tasks, but when overused they can affect performance and even lead to app kills. To ensure a better experience for users, we will be blocking foreground service starts from the background for apps that are targeting the new platform. To make it easier to transition away from this pattern, we’re introducing a new expedited job in JobScheduler that gets elevated process priority, network access, and runs immediately regardless of power constraints like Battery Saver or Doze. For back-compatibility, we’ve also built expedited jobs into the latest release of Jetpack WorkManager library. Also, to reduce distraction for users, we’re now delaying the display of some foreground service notifications by up to 10 seconds. This gives short-lived tasks a chance to complete before their notifications are shown. More here.

Rich content insertion - Users love images, videos and other expressive content, but inserting and moving this content in apps is not always easy. To make it simple for your apps to receive rich content, we’re introducing a new unified API that lets you accept content from any source: clipboard, keyboard, or drag and drop. You can attach a new interface, OnReceiveContentListener, to UI components and get a callback when content is inserted through any mechanism. This callback becomes the single place for your code to handle insertion of all content, from plain and styled text to markup, images, videos, audio files, and more. For back-compatibility, we’ve added the unified API to AndroidX. More here.

Haptic-coupled audio effect - In Android 12 apps can provide audio-coupled haptic feedback through the phone's vibrator. The vibration strength and frequency are derived from an audio session, allowing you to create more immersive game and audio experiences. For example, a video calling app could use custom ringtones to identify the caller through haptic feedback, or you could simulate rough terrain in a racing game. More here.

Multi-channel audio - Android 12 includes several enhancements for audio with spatial information. It adds support for MPEG-H playback in passthrough and offload mode, and the audio mixers, resamplers and effects have been optimized for up to 24 channels (the previous maximum was 8).

Immersive mode API improvements for gesture nav - We’ve simplified immersive mode so that gesture navigation is easier and more consistent, for example when watching a video, reading a book, or playing a game. We’re still protecting apps from accidental gestures when in full-screen experiences related to gaming, but in all other full-screen or immersive experiences (e.g. video viewers, reading, photo gallery), for apps targeting the new platform, we’re changing the default to allow users to navigate their phone with one swipe. More here.

Notification UI updates - We’re refreshing notification designs to make them more modern, easier to use, and more functional. In this first preview you’ll notice changes from the drawer and controls to the templates themselves. We’re also optimizing transitions and animations across the system to make them more smooth. As part of the updates, for apps targeting Android 12 we’re decorating notifications with custom content with icon and expand affordances to match all other notifications. More here.

Faster, more responsive notifications - When users tap a notification, they expect to jump immediately into the app - the faster the better. To meet that expectation, developers should make sure that notification taps trigger Activity starts directly, rather than using “trampolines” - an intermediary broadcast receiver or service - to start the Activity. Notification trampolines can cause significant delays and affect the user experience. To keep notifications responsive, Android 12 will block notification trampolines by preventing them from launching their target Activities, and we’re asking developers to migrate away from this pattern. The change applies only to apps targeting the new platform, but for all apps we’ll display a toast to make trampolines visible to you and to users. More here.

Improved Binder IPC calls - As part of our work on performance, we’ve put a focus on reducing system variability. We’ve taken a look at latency and workload distribution, and made optimizations that reduce the median experience from the tail end, or 99% percentile use case. In doing so, we’ve targeted improvements to system binder calls adding lightweight caching strategies and focusing on removing lock contention to improve latency distribution. This has yielded roughly a 2x performance increase on Binder calls overall, with significant improvements in specific calls, for example a 47x improvement in refContentProvider(), 15x in releaseWakeLock(), and 7.9x in JobScheduler.schedule().

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. We’ve also added new functionality to Google Play system updates to give your apps a better environment on Android 12 devices.

More of Android updated through Google Play - We’re continuing to expand our investment in Google Play system updates (Project Mainline) to give apps a more consistent, secure environment across devices. In Android 12 we’ve added the Android Runtime (ART) module that lets us push updates to the core runtime and libraries on devices running Android 12. We can improve runtime performance and correctness, manage memory more efficiently, and make Kotlin operations faster - all without requiring a full system update. We’ve also expanded the functionality of existing modules - for example, we’re delivering our compatible media transcoding feature inside an updatable module.

Optimizing for tablets, foldables, and TVs - With more people than ever using apps on large-screen devices like foldables, tablets, and TVs, now is a great time to make sure your app or game is ready. Get started by optimizing for tablets and building apps for foldables. And, for the biggest screen in the home, the first Android 12 preview for Android TV is also available. In addition to bringing the latest Android features to the TV with this preview, you will also be able to test your apps on the all-new Google TV experience. Learn more on the Android TV Developers site and get started with your ADT-3 developer kit.

Updated lists of non-SDK interfaces - We’ve restricted additional non-SDK interfaces, and as always your feedback and requests for public API equivalents are welcome.

Easier testing and debugging of changes - To make it easier for you to test the opt-in changes that can affect your app, we’ve made many of them toggleable. WIth the toggles you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from Developer options or adb. Check out the details here.

mobile display of App Compatibility Changes with toggles

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Platform stability milestone - Like last year, we’re letting you know our Platform Stability milestone well in advance, to give you more time to plan for app compatibility work. At this milestone we’ll deliver not only final SDK/NDK APIs, but also final internal APIs and app-facing system behaviors. We’re expecting to reach Platform Stability by August 2021, and you’ll have several weeks before the official release to do your final testing. The release timeline details are here.

Get started with Android 12

The 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. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio.

When you’re set up, here are some of the things you should do:

  • Try the new features and APIs - your feedback is critical during the early part of the developer preview. Report issues in our tracker or give us direct feedback by survey for selected features from the feedback and requests page.
  • Test your current app for compatibility - the goal here is to learn whether your app is affected by default behavior changes in Android 12. Just install your current published app onto a device or emulator running Android 12 and test.
  • Test your app with opt-in changes - Android 12 has opt-in behavior changes that only affect your app when it’s targeting the new platform. It’s extremely important to understand and assess these changes early. To make it easier to test, you can toggle the changes on and off individually.

We’ll update the preview system images and SDK regularly throughout the Android 12 release cycle. This initial preview release is for developers only and not intended for daily or consumer use, so we're making it available by manual download only. You can flash a factory image to your Pixel device, or you can sideload an OTA image to a Pixel device running Android 11, in which case you won’t need to unlock your bootloader or wipe data. Either way, once you’ve manually installed a preview build, you’ll automatically get future updates over-the-air for all later previews and Betas. More here.

As we get closer to a final product, we'll be inviting consumers to try it out as well, and we'll open up enrollments through Android Beta at that time. Stay tuned for details, but for now please note that Android Beta is not currently available for Android 12.

For complete information, visit the Android 12 developer site.

Quality to match with your user’s expectations

Posted by Hoi Lam, Android App Quality

Since the launch of Android more than 10 years ago, the platform and the user’s expectations have grown. There are improvements from user experience through material design to the importance and advancement in privacy. We know you want your apps to offer a great user experience. At the same time, we also know that it’s not always straightforward to know which area to tackle first. That’s why we are launching a new App Quality section in our developer site to help you keep up-to-date with key aspects of app quality and provide related resources.

In the first release, we have updated the Core App Quality checklist to take into account recent Android releases as well as the current trends of the app ecosystem. Here are some highlights in this update:

  • Visual Experience - We highlight the best practice of using Material Design Components in place of platform components such as buttons. This will give your app a modern look as well as making features such as dark theme easy to implement. In addition to advice on back stack, we have expanded it to preserving the state of the app. This is becoming more important as edge-to-edge screens and gesture navigation are becoming commonplace, even in entry level phones.
  • Functionality - There are three areas where we have updated our guidance. For media applications, we have updated our recommendations around the playback experience as well as support for HEVC video compression for video encoding. For sharing between apps, we highlight the importance of using the Android Sharesheet. This will be critical going forward as apps will have limited visibility to other installed apps in API level 30 by default. Lastly, we expanded our recommendations around background services. Helping users to conserve battery is a priority for Android, and we will continue to share updates on this topic.
  • Performance & Stability - We have added tooling now available such as Android vitals in the Google Play Console. One important point to highlight here is Application Not Responding (ANR). ANRs are caused by threading issues and are something developers can fixed. The ANR troubleshooting guide can help you diagnose and resolve any ANRs that exist in the app.
  • Privacy & Security - We have summarized our latest recommendations to take into account the latest safeguards from runtime permission to securely using WebView. We have also expanded to include privacy norms that users come to expect from protecting private data to not using any non-resettable hardware Ids.
  • Google Play - In this section, we highlight some of the most important policies for developers and link you to more information on the guidelines.

Going forward, we aim to update this list on a quarterly basis to make sure this is up-to-date. In addition, we will be updating the quality checklists for other form factors.

We are working on additional tools and best practices to make it easier for you to build quality applications on Android. We can’t wait to introduce these new improvements to you. Stay tuned!

Announcing Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) Alpha

Posted by Ting-Yuan Huang‎, Software Engineer and David Winer, Product Manager

Android image

Today we are excited to announce the alpha of Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP), an all-new tool for building lightweight compiler plugins in Kotlin. KSP offers similar functionality to KAPT, however it’s up to 2x faster, offers direct access to Kotlin compiler features, and is being developed with multiplatform compatibility in mind.

KSP is compatible with the Kotlin 1.4.30 release and onwards. You can check out the open source code and documentation in the KSP GitHub repository.

Why KSP?

The #1 request we hear from Kotlin developers is to make build speeds faster. Many developers iterate on and deploy apps dozens of times a day, so having to sit around waiting for a slow build can be very time consuming. One of the biggest challenges with compiling Kotlin code is that Kotlin doesn’t have a native annotation processing system. Annotation processors like Room are ubiquitous on Android and rely on Java annotation processing compatibility through the Kotlin Annotation Processing Tool (KAPT). KAPT can be slow to run, though, since it requires generating intermediate Java stubs that can then be ingested by the Java annotation processing system.

When designing KSP, we thought about what annotation processing would look like for Kotlin if we built it from the ground up. KSP offers a powerful and yet simple API for parsing Kotlin code directly, dramatically reducing the build speed tax imposed by KAPT’s stub generation. Indeed, initial benchmarks with the Room library show that KSP is approximately 2x faster than KAPT.

Getting started

To see what KSP looks like in action, download the KSP playground project from GitHub. In it you’ll find:

  • Library: A toy test-processor library that implements the builder pattern as a KSP processor
  • Consuming project: A workload directory that shows how to use the builder processor in a real-world Kotlin project

All of the logic for implementing the builder is in test-processor — for the consumer (workload), the only difference between using KAPT and KSP is a two-line build file change:

This is the goal of KSP: most Android app developers don’t need to worry about its internals; other than this one line change, a library that supports KSP looks just like a normal annotation processor, only it’s up to 2x faster. That said, using KAPT and KSP in the same module will likely slow down your build initially, so during this alpha period, it is best to use KSP and KAPT in separate modules.

As more annotation processors adopt KSP, we expect most of your modules to be able to use KSP as a near drop-in replacement for KAPT. For now, you can check out which annotation processors offer KSP support in this table. If a library that supports or is implementing support for KSP is missing from the table, please submit a pull request with your suggestion!

If you are an author of a library that currently uses annotation processing, you can find more information on how to make your library compatible with KSP in the quickstart and README guides.

For library authors, now that KSP is in alpha, it’s a great time to start looking closely at it and giving us feedback on the API in the KSP issue tracker. In addition, we regularly post release updates in the #ksp channel on Kotlin Slack. Since the developer preview last June, we’ve closed over 100 bugs and issues, dozens of which have been reported by the amazing community of Kotlin library developers.

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Announcing Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) Alpha

Posted by Ting-Yuan Huang‎, Software Engineer and David Winer, Product Manager

Android image

Today we are excited to announce the alpha of Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP), an all-new tool for building lightweight compiler plugins in Kotlin. KSP offers similar functionality to KAPT, however it’s up to 2x faster, offers direct access to Kotlin compiler features, and is being developed with multiplatform compatibility in mind.

KSP is compatible with the Kotlin 1.4.30 release and onwards. You can check out the open source code and documentation in the KSP GitHub repository.

Why KSP?

The #1 request we hear from Kotlin developers is to make build speeds faster. Many developers iterate on and deploy apps dozens of times a day, so having to sit around waiting for a slow build can be very time consuming. One of the biggest challenges with compiling Kotlin code is that Kotlin doesn’t have a native annotation processing system. Annotation processors like Room are ubiquitous on Android and rely on Java annotation processing compatibility through the Kotlin Annotation Processing Tool (KAPT). KAPT can be slow to run, though, since it requires generating intermediate Java stubs that can then be ingested by the Java annotation processing system.

When designing KSP, we thought about what annotation processing would look like for Kotlin if we built it from the ground up. KSP offers a powerful and yet simple API for parsing Kotlin code directly, dramatically reducing the build speed tax imposed by KAPT’s stub generation. Indeed, initial benchmarks with the Room library show that KSP is approximately 2x faster than KAPT.

Getting started

To see what KSP looks like in action, download the KSP playground project from GitHub. In it you’ll find:

  • Library: A toy test-processor library that implements the builder pattern as a KSP processor
  • Consuming project: A workload directory that shows how to use the builder processor in a real-world Kotlin project

All of the logic for implementing the builder is in test-processor — for the consumer (workload), the only difference between using KAPT and KSP is a two-line build file change:

This is the goal of KSP: most Android app developers don’t need to worry about its internals; other than this one line change, a library that supports KSP looks just like a normal annotation processor, only it’s up to 2x faster. That said, using KAPT and KSP in the same module will likely slow down your build initially, so during this alpha period, it is best to use KSP and KAPT in separate modules.

As more annotation processors adopt KSP, we expect most of your modules to be able to use KSP as a near drop-in replacement for KAPT. For now, you can check out which annotation processors offer KSP support in this table. If a library that supports or is implementing support for KSP is missing from the table, please submit a pull request with your suggestion!

If you are an author of a library that currently uses annotation processing, you can find more information on how to make your library compatible with KSP in the quickstart and README guides.

For library authors, now that KSP is in alpha, it’s a great time to start looking closely at it and giving us feedback on the API in the KSP issue tracker. In addition, we regularly post release updates in the #ksp channel on Kotlin Slack. Since the developer preview last June, we’ve closed over 100 bugs and issues, dozens of which have been reported by the amazing community of Kotlin library developers.

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Announcing Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) Alpha

Posted by Ting-Yuan Huang‎, Software Engineer and David Winer, Product Manager

Android image

Today we are excited to announce the alpha of Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP), an all-new tool for building lightweight compiler plugins in Kotlin. KSP offers similar functionality to KAPT, however it’s up to 2x faster, offers direct access to Kotlin compiler features, and is being developed with multiplatform compatibility in mind.

KSP is compatible with the Kotlin 1.4.30 release and onwards. You can check out the open source code and documentation in the KSP GitHub repository.

Why KSP?

The #1 request we hear from Kotlin developers is to make build speeds faster. Many developers iterate on and deploy apps dozens of times a day, so having to sit around waiting for a slow build can be very time consuming. One of the biggest challenges with compiling Kotlin code is that Kotlin doesn’t have a native annotation processing system. Annotation processors like Room are ubiquitous on Android and rely on Java annotation processing compatibility through the Kotlin Annotation Processing Tool (KAPT). KAPT can be slow to run, though, since it requires generating intermediate Java stubs that can then be ingested by the Java annotation processing system.

When designing KSP, we thought about what annotation processing would look like for Kotlin if we built it from the ground up. KSP offers a powerful and yet simple API for parsing Kotlin code directly, dramatically reducing the build speed tax imposed by KAPT’s stub generation. Indeed, initial benchmarks with the Room library show that KSP is approximately 2x faster than KAPT.

Getting started

To see what KSP looks like in action, download the KSP playground project from GitHub. In it you’ll find:

  • Library: A toy test-processor library that implements the builder pattern as a KSP processor
  • Consuming project: A workload directory that shows how to use the builder processor in a real-world Kotlin project

All of the logic for implementing the builder is in test-processor — for the consumer (workload), the only difference between using KAPT and KSP is a two-line build file change:

This is the goal of KSP: most Android app developers don’t need to worry about its internals; other than this one line change, a library that supports KSP looks just like a normal annotation processor, only it’s up to 2x faster. That said, using KAPT and KSP in the same module will likely slow down your build initially, so during this alpha period, it is best to use KSP and KAPT in separate modules.

As more annotation processors adopt KSP, we expect most of your modules to be able to use KSP as a near drop-in replacement for KAPT. For now, you can check out which annotation processors offer KSP support in this table. If a library that supports or is implementing support for KSP is missing from the table, please submit a pull request with your suggestion!

If you are an author of a library that currently uses annotation processing, you can find more information on how to make your library compatible with KSP in the quickstart and README guides.

For library authors, now that KSP is in alpha, it’s a great time to start looking closely at it and giving us feedback on the API in the KSP issue tracker. In addition, we regularly post release updates in the #ksp channel on Kotlin Slack. Since the developer preview last June, we’ve closed over 100 bugs and issues, dozens of which have been reported by the amazing community of Kotlin library developers.

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

New curriculum for educators to teach Android app development

Posted by Kat Kuan, Developer Advocate, Android

We strive to make Android development content accessible to all, so that anyone can become an Android developer. Over the years, millions of students at all different levels have consumed our learning content and worked through courses and codelabs to advance their skills. We continue to update and release new content as the ever-changing industry continues to evolve.

As demand for skilled Android developers increases in the job marketplace, there is an even greater need for educators to train the next generation of Android developers. That is why we created these resources to help support and empower educators.

New Android Development with Kotlin instructor-led curriculum

Today we’re announcing the launch of our new instructor-led curriculum for Android Development with Kotlin. This is for classroom learning (virtual or in-person) with an instructor delivering lectures on important Android concepts, and students receiving hands-on practice through codelabs. The official course materials are now available and can be freely modified by instructors to adapt to their students’ needs.

This is a major update to the curriculum we released in 2018. The updates account for the most recent changes in the Android platform, from the release of the Android Jetpack libraries to Android development becoming Kotlin-first. The Kotlin programming language helps developers become more productive with more concise syntax and improved code safety. Over 60% of professional Android developers already use Kotlin, and it’s Google’s recommended programming language for new developers building Android apps. While instructors do not need Android or Kotlin experience to teach the curriculum, prior programming experience is recommended.

We’ve partnered with universities and skilling partners in India such as Shivaji University, I. K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, Chandigarh University, Ganpat University, Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK), and Information and Communication Technology Academy of Kerala, who will be some of the first to offer this curriculum to their students in the Spring, with more universities to follow in the Fall and coming semesters. With the curriculum now available publicly, educators are welcome to start teaching Android development.

“As it’s mostly a hands-on course, students learn implementations which helps them in their placements in Mobile app companies.” -Dr. Kavita S. Oza, Shivaji University

Android Study Jams content now available for all developers

Outside a formal classroom, learning in a peer group has also been shown as an effective way to learn Android. That is why we’re also making the Android Study Jams program available to all developers today. Android Study Jams enables a group of people to come together and learn Android development through hands-on codelabs in an online curriculum. An instructor is not needed to deliver lectures, but it is recommended to have a facilitator to organize the group meetings. No programming experience is needed to get started. Over 38,000 students in Google Developer Student Clubs around the globe have already participated in this program.

“Introducing people to Kotlin and being by their side at this first step which could touch their lives created great happiness and excitement for us.” - Ceren Tunay and Serkan Alc, Developer Student Club Turkey

With many paths to learning, it is always interesting to see the different journeys of students who become Android developers, and exciting to see the resulting personal success, innovative apps, and entrepreneurial pursuits they have. The following video highlights two developers and how learning Android development has shaped their careers.

For more details on these new offerings, check out the Android Development Resources for Educators.

For independent learners, we also offer self-paced learning content, Udacity courses and Nanodegrees, YouTube videos, and more resources on developer.android.com. Keep us posted on how your learning journey goes!

#AndroidDevJourney spotlight – January edition

Posted by Luli Perkins, Developer Relations Program Manager


Header image with text saying Android Dev Journey

We kicked off the #AndroidDevJourney to give members of our community the opportunity to share their stories through our social platforms. Each Saturday from January through June we’ll feature a new developer on our Twitter account. We have received an overwhelming number of inspirational stories and hope you enjoy reading through the ones we’ve selected below.

For a chance to be featured in our February spotlight series, tweet us your story using #AndroidDevJourney.

Head shot of Niharika Arora

Niharika Arora

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

My journey started in the field of Android when I was in my 4th year of undergrad studies. I got an internship in a startup named GreenAppleSolutions. There I got a chance to work on an Android project from scratch and luckily my first project went live on the Play Store. During this whole internship, I found Android so interesting because everything you code, you can see the results live in front of you on your device. I started loving Android and decided to take Android as my career path.

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

I am a big fan of Android Lint, which has saved me many times from manually finding deprecated calls/APIs. It has also helped me in following the best practices and making my code more optimized, secure, and highly performant.

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

Actually, there are two,

  • Clearing a small doubt is equally as important even if you think that is a stupid one. Ask as many queries as you can till the time you are satisfied with the answer.
  • Reading tutorials is good, but start exploring the documentations in depth. Initially, it might look too much to start with, but it will build you up to be a good developer in the long run.
Head shot of Walmyr Carvalho

Walmyr Carvalho

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

Funny thing! I started working with mobile on iOS, in 2010, but then in 2011 my college final project was an app for civil construction and nobody on the team had a Mac, so we did it for Android (We got a 10, btw!)! At that time I was teaching technology to some government people and wasn’t into coding that much, but then after project in 2011 I got my first job as Junior Android Developer and it got me so hooked on the platform that I couldn’t leave!

I was able to work with Java on Eclipse + ADT, Holo, ActionBarSherlock, the beginnings of Material Design and was attending Google I/O ’13 when Google announced Android Studio, which was a very humbling but insightful experience to me, not only because of the learning but also the people I met that helped me a lot as well!

Since then, I’ve been working with mobile and, mostly, with Android for more than 10 years now, helping a lot of Brazilian tech companies and unicorns with their Android projects and since 2016 I’m one of the Google Developer Experts for Android around here.

Also, I love development and design communities, so I try to be involved with that as much as I can. I’m a former organizer of GDG São Paulo and the creator and organizer of Kotlin Meetup São Paulo and Android Dev BR - the biggest brazilian/lusophone Android community in the world, with more than 7.500 members!

Lastly, I’m also involved with the national startup community, as a mentor for ACE Startups and Google For Startups Accelerator programs in Brazil.

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

There’s a simple but powerful shortcut on Android Studio that I use a lot, which is the multi-cursor occurrence selection, which can be achieved using Ctrl + G (macOS) / Alt + J (Windows + Linux) for incremental occurrences selection and/or Ctrl + Cmd + G / Shift + Ctrl + Alt + J to select all occurrences once. Seems silly, but this shortcut helps me so much to get going on my code, especially when it comes to refactoring. I use it everyday!

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

I think I would resume my advice in two words: learn and share.

Learn as much as you can, not only with the amazing content available on official documentation, and from the community, but also learn from your own mistakes through consistent practice. There’s a lot of content available for free on the internet, and also both Google and GDEs (Google Developer Experts) like me can get you going, so keep practicing and get your knowledge online!

And once you learn, share with other people! If I’m where I am today is because I was able to share what I couldn’t find when I was learning, so please, share your knowledge! The Android community is amazing and super helpful, you can reach literally the creators of the APIs and libraries you use on Twitter, Reddit and many other places. Write an article, record a podcast or a video, there are many formats that you could use.

The internet is such a powerful tool for learning and sharing and I really recommend you to do that there, and I’m definitely here to help if needed! :)

Head shot of Nate Washington

Nate Washington

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

I became an Android developer in 2015, while working on my first business idea. I couldn’t afford to go back to school, so I decided to try my hand at starting a business instead. I launched a web application, but my customers insisted on having a native app for their needs as well. I originally looked for someone with more experience, but ultimately decided to just teach myself how to build an Android app. Fast forward to 2017, and my cofounder Christian and I launched the Android app for our company, Qoins, on the Google Play Store. Since then, we’ve served tens of thousands of Android customers and raised a few rounds of funding.

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

Being able to test my Android builds on virtual devices is a lifesaver. There are a lot of different scenarios to account for when building Android apps for thousands of different devices. Tools such as Firebase Test Labs, as well as other virtual device services allow me to create specific scenarios for hands-on testing that I can’t achieve with the physical Android devices that I own.

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

Making mistakes is OK; it's all part of the process.

Headshot of Yuki Anzai

Yuki Anzai

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

My journey began when I got my very first Android device, the HTC Magic, at Google Developer Day 2009. At that time, I was a college student and writing my personal application with JavaFX, so I had experience and familiarity with Java. Then I soon started to port my app to Android. After graduation I worked at a software company and wanted to develop Android apps as my job. But there seemed no opportunity at that company. So I created my own small company that is the agency to develop Android apps.

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

There are many. If I had to pick one, it would be Android Studio. I always appreciate the awesomeness of Android Studio because I started Android app development with Eclipse. (Also I can't live without Kotlin, RecyclerView, ConstraintLayout ...)

The shortcut of Android Studio that I can't live without is Command + B （Declaration or Usages. This allows us to jump between the declaration and usages. It's very useful to read source codes including Android platform and libraries codes.

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

Read official documents. Read source codes of platform, libraries that you use. One of the ways to accelerate learning is to create an app through first to end (until release to the market).

Don't rely on libraries too much especially that affect the whole structure of your app. Your app might live longer than libraries.

Head shot of Madona Syombua

Madona Syombua

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

My Android Journey started back in early 2014; before that, I worked as a junior Java developer for a small firm building inventory systems. However, that did not interest me, and I kept looking for something great to do with my Java knowledge. I bought my first phone, a Nokia, and saw apps in the phone and wondered how they made those apps. I researched and learned that apps were actually written in Java, and that's how my journey began.

I recall building my first application, Simple Math, with only activities since fragments were not there; what an improvement we've had over the years. Simple Math had 500 downloads with a 4.5 rating, and this really motivated me to build more applications. I later won the Grow With Google Scholarship (2018), which boosted my career. During this one-year scholarship, I launched my second application, Budgeting Buddy, on the Google Play Store and has a 4.5 rating with over five thousand downloads. I currently work for Streem as an Android Engineer, and I indeed love how far Android has come and how the technology and maintenance have improved over the years. Especially the Emulator.

What's one Android development shortcut, tip, or hack you can't live without.

A shortcut I can't live without is [options + Command + L ] and [Options + Command + O]; this really helps me during my pull request process. An amazing hack that I have learned to appreciate is the git local history option, WOW lifesaver. Sometimes you might forget what you had changed, but this hack always saves my life.

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

Actually, when I transitioned into mobile completely, I felt the learning curve was something I would have to accommodate In my life, which has really helped me a lot. Always staying in front of the game by always learning what is new, what is being recommended, and why it is needed. For instance, having Room was an amazing advancement, now dagger Hilt, and many more. So if I can turn this around and advise new developers, be ready to learn and you will enjoy Android Development.

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

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Join a chapter near you here.

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Become a member here.

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Learn more about the program here.

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Expanding the reach of your Android Auto apps

Posted by Eric Bahna, Product Manager

In December, we opened the Google Play Store for publishing new Android Auto apps to closed testing. Today, you can reach more drivers by publishing navigation, parking, and charging apps to open testing tracks in the Google Play Store. With open testing, there’s no limit to the number of users who can download your app and you don’t need to manage lists of email addresses. This is an important milestone that gets us closer to making these apps available to all users in production. Get started with the Android for Cars App Library and choose an open testing track in the Play Console.

TomTom AmiGO, one of our early access partners

To give you a peek at what’s ahead, we’re working on adding the library to Android Jetpack! This will give you more consistency with other Jetpack APIs and visibility into new features. When the Jetpack library is ready, migrating your app from the existing library will be straightforward - change the namespace and tweak some API calls. After we stabilize the library in Jetpack, we’ll prepare the Google Play Store to publish these new apps to production tracks.

You can get started today - you don’t need to wait for the Jetpack library.

  1. Design your app’s experience using our developer guide and app quality guidelines.
  2. Develop using today’s beta library so you can get user feedback from now.
  3. Test using the desktop head unit.
  4. Publish to the Google Play Store, now up to open testing tracks.

We’re excited to see what you’ve built and take it for a spin!

Expanding the reach of your Android Auto apps

Posted by Eric Bahna, Product Manager

In December, we opened the Google Play Store for publishing new Android Auto apps to closed testing. Today, you can reach more drivers by publishing navigation, parking, and charging apps to open testing tracks in the Google Play Store. With open testing, there’s no limit to the number of users who can download your app and you don’t need to manage lists of email addresses. This is an important milestone that gets us closer to making these apps available to all users in production. Get started with the Android for Cars App Library and choose an open testing track in the Play Console.

TomTom AmiGO, one of our early access partners

To give you a peek at what’s ahead, we’re working on adding the library to Android Jetpack! This will give you more consistency with other Jetpack APIs and visibility into new features. When the Jetpack library is ready, migrating your app from the existing library will be straightforward - change the namespace and tweak some API calls. After we stabilize the library in Jetpack, we’ll prepare the Google Play Store to publish these new apps to production tracks.

You can get started today - you don’t need to wait for the Jetpack library.

  1. Design your app’s experience using our developer guide and app quality guidelines.
  2. Develop using today’s beta library so you can get user feedback from now.
  3. Test using the desktop head unit.
  4. Publish to the Google Play Store, now up to open testing tracks.

We’re excited to see what you’ve built and take it for a spin!

Expanding the reach of your Android Auto apps

Posted by Eric Bahna, Product Manager

In December, we opened the Google Play Store for publishing new Android Auto apps to closed testing. Today, you can reach more drivers by publishing navigation, parking, and charging apps to open testing tracks in the Google Play Store. With open testing, there’s no limit to the number of users who can download your app and you don’t need to manage lists of email addresses. This is an important milestone that gets us closer to making these apps available to all users in production. Get started with the Android for Cars App Library and choose an open testing track in the Play Console.

TomTom AmiGO, one of our early access partners

To give you a peek at what’s ahead, we’re working on adding the library to Android Jetpack! This will give you more consistency with other Jetpack APIs and visibility into new features. When the Jetpack library is ready, migrating your app from the existing library will be straightforward - change the namespace and tweak some API calls. After we stabilize the library in Jetpack, we’ll prepare the Google Play Store to publish these new apps to production tracks.

You can get started today - you don’t need to wait for the Jetpack library.

  1. Design your app’s experience using our developer guide and app quality guidelines.
  2. Develop using today’s beta library so you can get user feedback from now.
  3. Test using the desktop head unit.
  4. Publish to the Google Play Store, now up to open testing tracks.

We’re excited to see what you’ve built and take it for a spin!