Get the big picture with Large Screens at Google I/O 2024

Posted by Fahd Imtiaz, Product Manager, Android Developer

With Android reaching more devices, from phones to foldables to Chromebooks, building apps that seamlessly adapt to different screen sizes and types has never been more crucial. At this year’s Google I/O, we covered building adaptable apps, increasing user productivity with key inputs like keyboard and stylus, and scaling games across surfaces.

Building adaptive apps

Throughout Google I/O 2024, we’ve talked a lot about how to build adaptive apps. With this shift, some of you may be asking “what makes an app truly adaptive?”

Adaptive apps take advantage of the full screen size they are on - whether that is a phone, a tablet, or a foldable. These apps adjust layout based on conditions, driving how your app’s layout should adapt. These conditions include things like changes to the size of the window, device posture or font size.

Adaptive apps dynamically adjust their layouts by swapping components, showing, or hiding content based on the available window size, compared to simply stretching UI elements. With ever evolving form factors and screen sizes, adaptability for your app to any window size unlocks the seamless experiences users demand today.

Now that you know what they are, how do you get started building adaptive apps? We strongly recommend using WindowSizeClasses as the opinionated breakpoints for your UI and we’re bringing you a variety of new Compose APIs that make it easier to implement common adaptive layouts.

Available now in beta, the new Compose adaptive layout libraries help you to make your UI look good across window sizes. From navigation UI to list/detail and supporting pane style layouts, we’re providing composables to make building an adaptive app easier than ever.

Check out these technical sessions to learn more:

Or get started by checking out the new documentation!

Increase user productivity on tablet and foldables

Tablets and foldables are great for consuming content but even better when it comes to creating content. That’s why leveraging input devices like stylus for more productive experiences is especially important for your users.

Improving your app’s stylus experience

Stylus users on Android can remain more productive with new support for handwriting in text fields. You no longer need to put down your stylus when you need to input some text into a text field. Stylus handwriting and gestures will work automatically if you are using standard text components including BasicTextField in Compose (1.7), EditText in Views and text input elements in WebView.

For stylus users, low latency is key to having a responsive inking experience. Reducing latency minimizes the amount of delay between when you move your stylus and when the ink appears on the screen, giving users a more authentic pen-to-paper experience. Based on developer feedback, we’ve introduced new APIs to make low latency easier for apps that use Canvas for rendering.

A great example of these libraries in practice is Infinite Painter, where the team reduced their inking latency by 5x.

Enhancing productivity with keyboard and mouse support

Next to the stylus, another essential input device is the physical keyboard that really shines when users need to do a lot of text input like long emails, documents or blog posts. As a developer, making it easy for users to navigate your app with keyboard navigation can set your app apart.

Users should be able to navigate to all elements in your app with just their keyboard. It’s also important that frequently used keyboard shortcuts are supported in your app. To help educate your users about shortcuts, consider making your keyboard shortcuts discoverable to users by adding entries to the system KeyboardHelper.

To improve the experience for keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and stylus users, we also recommend implementing hover states and keyboard focus. All interactive components should have a hover state and should show a visual cue to indicate which component has the keyboard focus.

You can learn more about all these improvements and more via the technical session, and our updated documentation and codelab.

Enhance productivity with pane expansion

Although larger window sizes allow showing multiple panes of content at once, users often want to focus on one specific pane at a time. By following the new guidance for pane expansion, users have the choice to see both panes at once, or resize them as they desire.

Google Calendar has added pane expansion to their supporting pane layout on expanded width window sizes, allowing users to resize to see more details of an event, or more information in their schedule.

Although larger window sizes allow showing multiple panes of content at once, users often want to focus on one specific pane at a time. By following the new guidance for pane expansion, users have the choice to see both panes at once, or resize them as they desire.

Google Calendar has added pane expansion to their supporting pane layout on expanded width window sizes, allowing users to resize to see more details of an event, or more information in their schedule.

This feature will be supported by activity embedding in Android 15, and is also planned to be supported by the material3-adaptive library.

Building great games across surfaces

Gamers appreciate premium, immersive experiences and with Android tablets, foldables, desktops, and Chromebooks your game can reach more players than ever. Creating meaningful experiences on each of these devices is key to ensuring your game stands out.

Diablo Immortal saw significantly increased engagement across all aspects of the game by users who play on multiple devices.

During this year’s Google I/O, we are highlighting the best practices for rendering, managing assets, and windowing in resizable contexts to build quality experiences and impress your players across form factors.

With the wide variety of devices and hardware configurations, provide configurable graphics options for your players. And, for the best experience right out of the box, define default graphics options for different devices. Additionally, consider trade offs like storage size, performance, and compatibility across platforms when deciding what texture compression formats to use.

Large screen devices support different window sizes with configurations like multi-window mode and on orientation change and fold/unfold. By default, Android provides a compatibility mode - but, for the most seamless experience, declare and handle configuration events. Display cutouts, hinges, and even system UI can also occlude your game window, so support edge-to-edge windowing and ensure no key game content is occluded. If you really want to take your game to the next level, consider using the Jetpack WindowManager library to support dynamic layouts on foldable devices.

To provide smoother gameplay and reduce input latency consider using frame pacing. Also consider enabling wide color gamut support so that vivid colors are rendered properly while also maximizing contrast and brightness on large screen HDR displays to improve realism and immersion for your players.

With the changing mobile landscape and transition from OpenGL to Vulkan, handle swapchain recreation after window configuration changes. If you rely on any device specific hardware features like host visible device local memory have fallback implementations for other platforms.

Learn more about the rendering best practices and how to level up your game across surfaces by tuning into this technical session and be sure to check out our multiplatform optimization guide.

Get started building adaptable apps from phones to tablets and foldables

You can get started building adaptable apps that look great across tablets, foldables, Chromebooks and more by checking out the “Building adaptive Android apps” technical session or heading to the large screens gallery for content tailored to your specific app type - from productivity apps to games… and more!

I/O 2024: What’s new in Android security and privacy

Posted by Dave Kleidermacher, VP Engineering, Android Security and Privacy

Our commitment to user safety is a top priority for Android. We’ve been consistently working to stay ahead of the world’s scammers, fraudsters and bad actors. And as their tactics evolve in sophistication and scale, we continually adapt and enhance our advanced security features and AI-powered protections to help keep Android users safe.

In addition to our new suite of advanced theft protection features to help keep your device and data safe in the case of theft, we’re also focusing increasingly on providing additional protections against mobile financial fraud and scams.

Today, we’re announcing more new fraud and scam protection features coming in Android 15 and Google Play services updates later this year to help better protect users around the world. We’re also sharing new tools and policies to help developers build safer apps and keep their users safe.

Google Play Protect live threat detection

Google Play Protect now scans 200 billion Android apps daily, helping keep more than 3 billion users safe from malware. We are expanding Play Protect’s on-device AI capabilities with Google Play Protect live threat detection to improve fraud and abuse detection against apps that try to cloak their actions.

With live threat detection, Google Play Protect’s on-device AI will analyze additional behavioral signals related to the use of sensitive permissions and interactions with other apps and services. If suspicious behavior is discovered, Google Play Protect can send the app to Google for additional review and then warn users or disable the app if malicious behavior is confirmed. The detection of suspicious behavior is done on device in a privacy preserving way through Private Compute Core, which allows us to protect users without collecting data. Google Pixel, Honor, Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, Oppo, Sharp, Transsion, and other manufacturers are deploying live threat detection later this year.

Stronger protections against fraud and scams

We’re also bringing additional protections to fight fraud and scams in Android 15 with two key enhancements to safeguard your information and privacy from bad apps:

  • Protecting One-time Passwords from Malware: With the exception of a few types of apps, such as wearable companion apps, one-time passwords are now hidden from notifications, closing a common attack vector for fraud and spyware.
  • Expanded Restricted Settings: To help protect more sensitive permissions that are commonly abused by fraudsters, we’re expanding Android 13’s restricted settings, which require additional user approval to enable permissions when installing an app from an Internet-sideloading source (web browsers, messaging apps or file managers).

We are continuing to develop new, AI-powered protections, like the scam call detection capability that we’re testing, which uses on-device Gemini-Nano AI to warn users in real-time when it detects conversation patterns commonly associated with fraud and scams.

Protecting against screen-sharing social engineering attacks

We’re also tightening controls for screen sharing in Android 15 to limit social engineering attacks that try to view your screen and steal information, while introducing new safeguards to further shield your sensitive information:

  • Automatically Hidden Notifications and One-time Passwords (OTPs): During screen sharing, private notification content will be hidden, preventing remote viewers from seeing details in a user's notifications. Apps that post OTPs in notifications will be automatically protected from remote viewers when you’re screen sharing, helping thwart attempts to steal sensitive data.
  • Safer Logins: Your screen will be hidden when you enter credentials like usernames, passwords and credit card numbers during a screen-share session.
  • Choose What You Share: Currently available on Pixel, other Android devices will also have the ability to share just one app's content rather than your whole screen to help preserve your screen privacy.

Having clear content sharing indicators is important for users to understand when their data is visible. A new, more prominent screen indicator coming to Android devices later this year will always let you know when screen sharing is active, and you can stop sharing with a simple tap.

Advanced cellular security to fight fraud and surveillance

We’re adding new advanced cellular protections in Android 15 to defend against abuse by criminals using cell site simulators to snoop on users or send them SMS-based fraud messages.

  • Cellular Cipher Transparency: We’ll notify you if your cellular network connection is unencrypted, potentially exposing voice and SMS traffic to radio interception, and potentially visible to others. This can help warn users if they’re being targeted by criminals who are trying to intercept their traffic or inject a fraud SMS message.
  • Identifier Disclosure Transparency: We’ll help at risk-users like journalists or dissidents by alerting them if a potential false cellular base station or surveillance tool is recording their location using a device identifier.

These features require device OEM integration and compatible hardware. We are working with the Android ecosystem to bring these features to users. We expect OEM adoption to progress over the next couple of years.

More security tools for developers to fight fraud and scams

Safeguarding apps from scams and fraud is an ongoing battle for developers. The Play Integrity API lets developers check that their apps are unmodified and running on a genuine Android device so that they can detect fraudulent or risky behavior and take actions to prevent attacks and abuse. We’ve updated the API with new in-app signals to help developers secure their apps against new threats:

  • Risk From Screen Capturing or Remote Access: Developers can check if there are other apps running that could be capturing the screen, creating overlays, or controlling the device. This is helpful for apps that want to hide sensitive information from other apps and protect users from scams.
  • Risk From Known Malware: Developers can check if Google Play Protect is active and the user device is free of known malware before performing sensitive actions or handling sensitive data. This is particularly valuable for financial and banking apps, adding another layer of security to protect user information.
  • Risk From Anomalous Devices: Developers can also opt-in to receive recent device activity to check if a device is making too many integrity checks, which could be a sign of an attack.

Developers can decide how their apps respond to these signals, such as prompting the user to close risky apps or turn on Google Play Protect before continuing.

Upgraded policies and tools for developers to enhance user privacy

We’re working to make photo permissions even more private for users. Starting this year, apps on Play must demonstrate that they require broad access to use the photo or video permissions. Google Play will start enforcing this policy in August. We’ve updated photo picker, Android’s preferred solution for granting individual access to photos and videos without requiring broad permissions. Photo picker now includes support for cloud storage services like Google Photos. It’s much easier to find the right photo by browsing albums and favorites. Coming later this year, photo picker will support local and cloud search as well.

Always evolving our multi-layered protections

Android's commitment to user safety is unwavering. We're constantly evolving our multi-layered user protections – combining the power of advanced AI with close partnerships across OEMs, the Android ecosystem, and the security research community. Building a truly secure Android experience is a collaborative effort, and we'll continue to work tirelessly to safeguard your device and data.

Chrome Beta for Android Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Beta 125 (125.0.6422.53) for Android. It's now available on Google Play.

You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Krishna Govind
Google Chrome