Tag Archives: android11

Introducing Android 11 on Android TV

Posted by Wolfram Klein, Product Manager, Android TV

We’ve been turning it up to 11 all summer long, leading up to the launch of Android 11 on mobile. Now, following right behind the mobile release, we are launching Android 11 on Android TV to bring the latest platform features to the big screen.

Android 11 on Android TV introduces performance and privacy improvements, new features tailored for the TV, and updated developer tools, in addition to enabling many of the features we announced during the #11WeeksOfAndroid.

Foundational Improvements

Android TV continues to bring many of the benefits that come with the core Android update to the TV. With Android 11, performance improvements, like enhanced memory management, and privacy features, like one-time permissions, are introduced to make sure TV devices work quickly and securely.

Tailored for the TV

Android 11 emphasizes media by bringing support for Auto Low Latency Mode, and low latency media decoding, along with a new Tuner Framework with updated Media CAS support and extensions to the HAL implementation of HDMI CEC.

With extended gamepad support, silent boot mode for system updates, inactivity prompts, and OEM configurable wake keys, Android 11 allows greater control over TV functions. New framework functionality for managing System LEDs and physical microphone mute buttons also facilitate integrations for far-field microphone enabled devices.

Faster Testing

Testing on the TV is now easier than ever. The addition of test harness mode on Android TV and Play Store support in the Android TV Emulator help you seamlessly inspect your apps as you develop.

Android TV OEM partners will be launching and upgrading devices to Android 11 over the coming months. To help you test your Android TV app implementations for the next generation of devices, Android 11 will be available as a system update to ADT-3 devices today. To learn more about getting your Android TV app ready for Android 11, visit our developers page.

We're looking forward to seeing your apps on Android 11!

Source: Android Developers Blog

Turning it up to 11: Android 11 for developers

Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director, Product Management

Android 11 is here! Today we’re pushing the source to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and officially releasing the newest version of Android. We built Android 11 with a focus on three themes: a People-centric approach to communication, Controls to let users quickly get to and control all of their smart devices, and Privacy to give users more ways to control how data on devices is shared. Read more in our Keyword post.

For developers, Android 11 has a ton of new capabilities. You’ll want to check out conversation notifications, device and media controls, one-time permissions, enhanced 5G support, IME transitions, and so much more. To help you work and develop faster, we also added new tools like compatibility toggles, ADB incremental installs, app exit reasons API, data access auditing API, Kotlin nullability annotations, and many others. We worked to make Android 11 a great release for you, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll build!

Watch for official Android 11 coming to a device near you, starting today with Pixel 2, 3, 3a, 4, and 4a devices. To get started, visit the Android 11 developer site.

People, Controls, Privacy

People

Android 11 is people-centric and expressive, reimagining the way we have conversations on our phones, and building an OS that can recognize and prioritize the most important people in our lives. For developers, Android 11 helps you build deeper conversational and personal interactions into your apps.

Conversation notifications appear in a dedicated section at the top of the shade, with a people-forward design and conversation specific actions, such as opening the conversation as a bubble, creating a conversation shortcut on the home screen, or setting a reminder.
Bubbles - Bubbles help users keep conversations in view and accessible while multitasking on their devices. Messaging and chat apps should use the Bubbles API on notifications to enable this in Android 11.
Consolidated keyboard suggestions let Autofill apps and Input Method Editors (IMEs) securely offer users context-specific entities and strings directly in an IME’s suggestion strip, where they are most convenient for users.

Bubbles and people-centric conversations.

Controls

Android 11 lets users quickly get to and control all of their smart devices in one space. Developers can use new APIs to help users surface smart devices and control media:

Device Controls make it faster and easier than ever for users to access and control their connected devices. Now, by simply long pressing the power button, they’re able to bring up device controls instantly, and in one place. Apps can use a new API to appear in the controls. More here.
Media Controls make it quick and convenient for users to switch the output device for their audio or video content, whether it be headphones, speakers or even their TV. More here.

Device controls and media controls.

Privacy

In Android 11, we’re giving users even more control and transparency over sensitive permissions and working to keep devices more secure through faster updates.

One-time permission - Now users can give an app access to the device microphone, camera, or location, just for one time. The app can request permissions again the next time the app is used. More here.

One-time permission dialog in Android 11.

Background location - Background location now requires additional steps from the user beyond granting a runtime permission. If your app needs background location, the system will ensure that you first ask for foreground location. You can then broaden your access to background location through a separate permission request, and the system will take the user to Settings to complete the permission grant.

Also note that in February we announced that Google Play developers will need to get approval to access background location in their app to prevent misuse. We're giving developers more time to make changes and won't be enforcing the policy for existing apps until 2021.

Permissions auto-reset - if users haven’t used an app for an extended period of time, Android 11 will “auto-reset” all of the runtime permissions associated with the app and notify the user. The app can request the permissions again the next time the app is used. More here.

Scoped storage - We’ve continued our work to better protect app and user data on external storage, and made further improvements to help developers more easily migrate. More here.

Google Play system updates - Launched last year, Google Play system updates help us expedite updates of core OS components to devices in the Android ecosystem. In Android 11, we more than doubled the number of updatable modules, including 12 new modules that will help improve privacy, security, and consistency for users and developers.

BiometricPrompt API - Developers can now use the BiometricPrompt API to specify the biometric authenticator strength required by their app to unlock or access sensitive parts of the app. For backward compatibility, we’ve just added these capabilities to the Jetpack Biometric library. We’ll share further updates as the work progresses.

Identity Credential API - This will unlock new use cases such as mobile drivers licences, National ID, and Digital ID. We’re working with various government agencies and industry partners to make sure that Android 11 is ready for digital-first identity experiences.

You can read about all of the Android 11 privacy features here.

Helpful innovation

Enhanced 5G support - Android 11 includes updated developer support to help you take advantage of the faster speeds and lower latency of 5G networks. You can learn when the user is connected to a 5G network, check whether the connection is metered, and get an estimate of the connection bandwidth. To help you build experiences now for 5G, we’ve also added 5G support in the Android Emulator. To get started with 5G on Android, visit the 5G developer page.

Moving beyond the home, 5G can for example let you enhance your “on-the-go” experience by providing seamless interactions with the world around you from friends and family to businesses.

New screen types - Device makers are continuing to innovate by bringing exciting new device screens to market, such as hole-punch and waterfall screens. Android 11 adds support for these in the platform, with APIs to let you optimize your apps. You can manage both hole-punch and waterfall screens using the existing display cutout APIs. You can set a new window layout attribute to use the entire waterfall screen, and a new waterfall insets API helps you manage interaction near the edges.

Call screening support - Android 11 helps call-screening apps do more to manage robocalls. Apps can verify an incoming call’s STIR/SHAKEN status (standards that protect against caller ID spoofing) as part of the call details, and they can report a call rejection reason. Apps can also customize a system-provided post call screen to let users perform actions such as marking a call as spam or adding to contacts.

Polish and quality

OS resiliency - In Android 11 we’ve made the OS more dynamic and resilient as a whole by fine-tuning memory reclaiming processes, such as forcing user-imperceptible restarts of processes based on RSS HWM thresholds. Also, to improve performance and memory, Android 11 adds Binder caching, which optimizes highly used IPC calls to system services by caching data for those that retrieve relatively static data. Binder caching also improves battery life by reducing CPU time.

Synchronized IME transitions - New APIs let you synchronize your app’s content with the IME (input method editor, or on-screen keyboard) and system bars as they animate on and offscreen, making it much easier to create natural, intuitive and jank-free IME transitions. For frame-perfect transitions, a new WindowInsetsAnimation.Callback API notifies apps of per-frame changes to insets while the system bars or the IME animate. Additionally, you can use a new WindowInsetsAnimationController API to control system UI types like system bars, IME, immersive mode, and others. More here.

Synchronized IME transition through insets animation listener.

App-driven IME experience through WindowInsetsAnimationController.

HEIF animated drawables - The ImageDecoder API now lets you decode and render image sequence animations stored in HEIF files, so you can make use of high-quality assets while minimizing impact on network data and APK size. HEIF image sequences can offer drastic file-size reductions for image sequences when compared to animated GIFs.

Native image decoder - New NDK APIs let apps decode and encode images (such as JPEG, PNG, WebP) from native code for graphics or post processing, while retaining a smaller APK size since you don’t need to bundle an external library. The native decoder also takes advantage of Android’s process for ongoing platform security updates. See the NDK sample code for examples of how to use the APIs.

Low-latency video decoding in MediaCodec - Low latency video is critical for real-time video streaming apps and services like Stadia. Video codecs that support low latency playback return the first frame of the stream as quickly as possible after decoding starts. Apps can use new APIs to check and configure low-latency playback for a specific codec.

Variable refresh rate - Apps and games can use a new API to set a preferred frame rate for their windows. Most Android devices refresh the display at 60Hz refresh rate, but some support multiple refresh rates, such as 90Hz as well as 60Hz, with runtime switching. On these devices, the system uses the app’s preferred frame rate to choose the best refresh rate for the app. The API is available in both the SDK and NDK. See the details here.

Dynamic resource loader - Android 11 includes a new public API to let apps load resources and assets dynamically at runtime. With the Resource Loader framework you can include a base set of resources in your app or game and then load additional resources, or modify the loaded resources, as needed at runtime.

Neural Networks API (NNAPI) 1.3 - We continue to add ops and controls to support machine learning on Android devices. To optimize common use-cases, NNAPI 1.3 adds APIs for priority and timeout, memory domains, and asynchronous command queue. New ops for advanced models include signed integer asymmetric quantization, branching and loops, and a hard-swish op that helps accelerate next-generation on-device vision models such as MobileNetV3.

Developer friendliness

App compatibility tools - We worked to minimize compatibility impacts on your apps by making most Android 11 behavior changes opt-in, so they won’t take effect until you change the apps’ targetSdkVersion to 30. If you are distributing through Google Play, you’ll have more than a year to opt-in to these changes, but we recommend getting started testing early. To help you test, Android 11 lets you enable or disable many of the opt-in changes individually. More here.

App exit reasons - When your app exits, it’s important to understand why the app exited and what the state was at the time -- across the many device types, memory configurations, and user scenarios that your app runs in. Android 11 makes this easier with an exit reasons API that you can use to request details of the app’s recent exits.

Data access auditing - data access auditing lets you instrument your app to better understand how it accesses user data and from which user flows. For example, it can help you identify any inadvertent access to private data in your own code or within any SDKs you might be using. More here.

ADB Incremental - Installing very large APKs with ADB (Android Debug Bridge) during development can be slow and impact your productivity, especially those developers working on Android Games. With ADB Incremental in Android 11, installing large APKs (2GB+) from your development computer to an Android 11 device is up to 10x faster. More here.

Kotlin nullability annotations - Android 11 adds nullability annotations to more methods in the public API. And, it upgrades a number of existing annotations from warnings to errors. These help you catch nullability issues at build time, rather than at runtime. More here.

Get your apps ready for Android 11

With Android 11 on its way to users, now is the time to finish your compatibility testing and publish your updates.

Flow chart steps for getting your apps ready for Android 11.

Here are some of the top behavior changes to watch for (these apply regardless of your app’s targetSdkVersion):

One-time permission - Users can now grant single-use permission to access location, device microphone and camera. More here.
External storage access - Apps can no longer access other apps’ files in external storage. More here.
Scudo hardened allocator - Scudo is now the heap memory allocator for native code in apps. More here.
File descriptor sanitizer - Fdsan is now enabled by default to detect file descriptor handling issues for native code in apps. More here.

Android 11 also includes opt-in behavior changes - these affect your app once it’s targeting the new platform. We recommend assessing these changes as soon as you’ve published the compatible version of your app. For more information on compatibility testing and tools, check out the resources we shared for Android 11 Compatibility week and visit the Android 11 developer site for technical details.

Enhance your app with new features and APIs

Next, when you're ready, dive into Android 11 and learn about the new features and APIs that you can use. Here are some of the top features to get started with.

We recommend these for all apps:

Dark theme (from Android 10) - Make sure to provide a consistent experience for users who enable system-wide dark theme by adding a Dark theme or enabling Force Dark.
Gesture navigation (from Android 10) - Support gesture navigation by going edge-to-edge and ensure that custom gestures work well with gestures. More here.
Sharing shortcuts (from Android 10) - Apps that want to receive shared data should use the sharing shortcuts APIs to create share targets. Apps that want to send shared data should make sure to use the system share sheet.
Synchronized IME transitions - Provide seamless transitions to your users using the new WindowInsets and related APIs. More here.
New screen types - for devices with hole-punch or waterfall screens, make sure to test and adjust your content for these screens as needed. More here.

We recommend these if relevant for your app:

Conversations - Messaging and communication apps can participate in the conversation experience by providing long-lived sharing shortcuts and surfacing conversations in notifications. More here.
Bubbles - Bubbles are a way to keep conversations in view and accessible while multitasking. Use the Bubbles API on notifications to enable this.
5G - If your app or content can benefit from the faster speeds and lower latency of 5G, explore our developer resources to see what you can build.
Device controls - If your app supports external smart devices, make sure those devices are accessible from the new Android 11 device controls area. More here.
Media controls - For media apps, we recommend supporting the Android 11 media controls so users can manage playback and resumption from the Quick Settings shade. More here.

Read more about all of the Android 11 features at developer.android.com/11.

Coming to a device near you!

Android 11 will begin rolling out today on select Pixel, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO and realme phones, with more partners launching and upgrading devices over the coming months. If you have a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, 4, or 4a phone, including those enrolled in this year’s Beta program, watch for the over-the-air update arriving soon!

Android 11 factory system images for Pixel devices are also available through the Android Flash Tool, or you can download them here. As always, you can get the latest Android Emulator system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio. For broader testing on other Treble-compliant devices, Generic System Images (GSI) are available here.

If you're looking for the Android 11 source code, you'll find it here in the Android Open Source Project repository under the Android 11 branches.

What’s next?

We’ll soon be closing the preview issue tracker and retiring open bugs logged against Developer Preview or Beta builds, but please keep the feedback coming! If you still see an issue that you filed in the preview tracker, just file a new issue against Android 11 in the AOSP issue tracker.

Thanks again to the many developers and early adopters who participated in the preview program this year! You gave us great feedback to help shape the release, and you filed thousands of issues that have made Android 11 a better platform for everyone.

We're looking forward to seeing your apps on Android 11!

Source: Android Developers Blog

Android 11 final Beta update, official release coming soon!

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

It’s already August and the official Android 11 release is coming very soon! As we put the finishing touches on the new platform, today we’re bringing you Beta 3, our last update in this year’s preview cycle. For developers, now is the time to make sure your apps are ready, before we bring the official release to consumers.

You can get Beta 3 today on Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4 devices (and coming soon, Pixel 4a!). Just enroll here for an over-the-air update. If you’re already enrolled, you’ll automatically get the update soon. As always, let us know your feedback, and thank you for all of the input you’ve provided so far.

Watch for more information on the official Android 11 release coming soon!

What’s in Beta 3?

Today’s update includes a release candidate build of Android 11 for Pixel devices and the Android Emulator. We reached platform stability at Beta 2, so all app-facing surfaces and behaviors are final, including SDK and NDK APIs, app-facing system behaviors, and restrictions on non-SDK interfaces. With these and the latest fixes and optimizations, Beta 3 gives you everything you need to complete your testing.

As we bring Android 11 to final form, we’re also taking this opportunity to update Android with the Exposure Notifications System in mind. Starting in Beta 3, users will be able to run Exposure Notification apps on Android 11 without needing to turn on the device location setting. This is an exception we’re making for the Exposure Notification System only, given that it has been designed in such a way that apps using it can’t infer device location through Bluetooth scanning. To protect user privacy, all other apps will still be prohibited from performing Bluetooth scanning unless the device location setting is on and the user has granted them location permission. You can read more in our Update on Exposure Notifications post.

Get your apps ready for Android 11!

With the official Android 11 release on the way, we’re asking all Android app and game developers to finish your compatibility testing and publish your updates soon. For SDK, library, tools, and game engine developers, it’s even more important to release a compatible version right away, since your downstream app and game developers may be blocked until they receive your updates.

As we covered in depth at Beta 2, here’s how to test for compatibility with Android 11.

For testing your current app, read behavior changes for all apps to identify areas where platform changes might affect your apps. Here are some of the top changes to watch for (these apply regardless of your app’s targetSdkVersion):

One-time permission - Users can now grant single-use permission to access location, device microphone and camera. Details here.
External storage access - Apps can no longer access other apps’ files in external storage. Details here.
Scudo hardened allocator - Scudo is now the heap memory allocator for native code in apps. Details here.
File descriptor sanitizer - Fdsan is now enabled by default to detect file descriptor handling issues for native code in apps. Details here.

Remember to test the libraries and SDKs in your app for compatibility. If you find an issue, try updating to the latest version of the SDK, or reach out to the developer for help.

For more information on compatibility testing and tools, check out the resources we shared for Android 11 Compatibility week and visit the Android 11 developer site for technical details.

Explore the new features and APIs

Android 11 has a ton of new features to build new experiences for users around people, controls, and privacy. When you’re ready to dive in, check out our #Android11 Beta post for a recap of all of the developer features, and you can also visit the Beta Launch page to see talks from the Android team on what’s new in their areas. For complete details on Android 11 features and APIs, visit the Android 11 developer site.

Also make sure to try the Android 11 features in Android Studio that can improve your productivity and workflow, like ADB incremental for faster installs of large APKs, and additional nullability annotations on platform APIs. You can give these a try by downloading the latest Android Studio Beta or Canary version. Instructions for configuring Android Studio for Android 11 are here.

How do I get Beta 3?

It’s easy! Just enroll here to get the Beta 3 update over-the-air on your Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 device (and coming soon, Pixel 4a). If you're already enrolled, you'll receive the update soon and no action is needed on your part. Alternatively, you can give Android Flash Tool a try for easy on-demand updates, and if you’d rather flash manually, downloadable system images are also available. If you don't have a Pixel device, you can use the Android Emulator in Android Studio or try a GSI image to run Android 11 on supported Treble-compliant devices.

What’s next?

Stay tuned for the official Android 11 launch coming in the weeks ahead! In the meantime, we recommend finishing your testing and publishing your compatible updates as soon as possible. Feel free to share your feedback using our hotlists for filing platform issues (including privacy and behavior changes), app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues. You've given us great feedback so far -- thank you again!

A huge thank you to our developer community for your participation in our recent Android 11 AMA and Android Studio AMA on r/anddroiddev! It’s great to hear what’s important to you and we hope we were able to help!

Source: Android Developers Blog

11 Weeks of Android: Android 11 Compatibility

Posted by Dirk Dougherty, Android Developer Relations

This blog post is part of a weekly series for #11WeeksOfAndroid. Each week we’re diving into a key area of Android so you don’t miss anything. This week, we spotlighted Android 11 Compatibility; here’s a look at what you should know.

The big news

With Beta 2 now in the hands of users and developers, Android 11 is moving quickly toward the final release later in Q3. For developers, now is the time to make sure your apps are ready! With that in mind, this week we highlighted some resources that can help you get started with app compatibility testing and use some of the new tools in Android 11. Here’s a quick rundown of topics that we covered.
Platform stability
In Android 11 we added a new release milestone called Platform Stability to clearly signal to developers that all APIs and system behaviors are complete. This week, with Beta 2, Android 11 reached Platform Stability, so it’s a great time to do your final compatibility testing and updates. The Beta 2 and Platform Stability blog post goes into more detail on what this milestone means for developers, and you can also read about it in the Android 11 timeline.

App compatibility
As we talked about in our Beta 2 post this week, Android 11 compatibility means that your app is validated to run properly on Android 11 with all of the functionality and features that users expect. To get started, all you need is your app and a device or emulator running Android 11.
When making sure an app is compatible, the goal is to test your app and make the minimum changes to maintain your app’s functionality on Android 11, then publish the compatible version to users by the Android 11 final release. In most cases you should be able to do this without changing your targetSdkVersion or compiling against the new APIs.
It isn’t just for apps and games either - if you develop SDKs, libraries, tools, or even frameworks, now is the time to test those against Android 11 and release a compatible version. App and game developers using your products could be blocked until they can get your Android 11 compatible versions.
For more details on app compatibility, take a look at the migration guide and the list of behavior changes that could affect your apps.
Tools for testing your apps
We highlighted some new tools for you to use as you get started with compatibility testing. Our blog post “Testing app compatibility in Android 11” went into the details.
First is the compatibility framework, a new feature that helps with managing the platform changes that can affect apps. It provides standard metadata for changes, standard gating based on targetSdkVersion, and standard log output to help you identify a change affecting your app. You can toggle behavioral changes in a debuggable app, either through Developer options in Settings or through adb. This helps you isolate changes and test against them individually.
Isolating regressions across devices and API levels can be time-consuming and complex. Now with Android Studio 4.2, you can run instrumentation tests in parallel across multiple physical or virtual devices at once, then compare all of the results in a single Test Matrix. You can run tests on more devices in less time, and catch issues earlier.
Android Generic System Image (GSI) is a great way to expand your Android 11 testing across a broader set of devices and we’ve released an updated Android GSI codelab to help you get started. Through GSI, you can install a generic version of Android 11 on any unlocked, Treble-compliant device that shipped with Android 9 or higher. This includes not only Pixel devices, but many other popular devices in use across the global Android ecosystem.

App compatibility toggles in Developer options.

Ecosystem updates and app compatibility
In our “Accelerating Android updates” blog post, we looked at how we’re continuing to get the latest OS to reach critical mass by expanding Android’s updatability architecture. With technology like Project Treble and Google Play system updates, we can deliver updates across more devices faster, and increase consistency across the ecosystem.
The work we’ve been doing with Project Treble is making it dramatically faster and easier to bring up new versions of Android on new and existing devices. It also makes it possible for device-makers to run their own Developer Preview programs, in some cases in parallel with Android’s own ongoing development. These programs help device makers get their OS updates ready sooner and engage earlier with the Android developer community.
With Google Play system updates (Project Mainline) the goal is to directly update core OS components across devices in the Android ecosystem to improve security, privacy, and consistency across the ecosystem. In Android 11, we’ve added more updatable modules to standardize behaviors in key app-facing areas such as permissions, media, NNAPI, and others.
Other improvements include a Generic Kernel Image (GKI) and Virtual A/B, a new over-the-air update mechanism that combines the benefits of seamless updates with smaller storage requirements. We’re working closely with device makers to bring these to Android 11 devices.
Over time, these will help reduce your development and testing costs to make your app compatible across platform versions and devices.

Taking center stage

A common reason for unexpected app compatibility issues is apps and games depending on Android non-SDK interfaces. In Android 11 we're continuing our long-term effort to move apps to using public APIs instead.
This week we highlighted Excelliance Tech, who recently moved their LeBian SDK away from non-SDK interfaces, toward stable, official APIs. Their collaboration with the Android team also led to a new public API for resource loading that all developers can use - the ResourcesLoader API in Android 11.
Check out the Excelliance Tech story in this blog post.

The Excelliance Tech team.

What to watch

During Android 11 Compatibility week we posted three short videos to help you plan for compatibility and test your apps. View the playlist here.
The video below gives you a quick overview of Android’s annual release timeline and what the phases mean for developers.
Next, here’s a video that introduces the compatibility framework, a new testing and debugging feature for developers in Android 11. It shows what it is, why it is useful, and how to use it. You’ll walk through an example that shows how you’d enable a specific change, test your app with the change, and then look for the log output to help you identify the change that affected the app.
Last, this video takes you through a new feature in Android Studio that lets you run instrumentation tests in parallel on multiple devices. It shows you how to set up a device set, run tests on the devices, and then jump into the Text Matrix to compare and analyze results. It’s a great way to do your app compatibility testing in Android Studio.

Learning path

If you’re looking for an easy way to pick up the highlights of this week, check out the Compatibility pathway. A pathway is an ordered tutorial that allows users to complete a pre-defined module that culminates in a quiz. A badge is awarded to each user who passes the quiz and can be saved to your Google Developer Profile. Test your knowledge about Android 11 Compatibility to earn a limited edition Android 11 Compatibility badge.

Key takeaways

With each release, we’re working to reduce the impact of compatibility testing on your apps. In Android 11, we’ve added new processes, developer tools, and release milestones to make it easier. We hope the resources we provided this week are helpful as you get started with your compatibility testing. Here are this week’s key takeaways for developers:

Android 11 has reached Platform Stability and all app-facing APIs and behaviors are now complete.
App and game developers should start compatibility testing now and release updates by the Android 11 final release later this year.
SDK, library, and tool developers should complete testing and release compatible versions as soon as possible to avoid blocking downstream developers.
New tools and resources are available to help. See below for highlights and visit developer.android.com/11 for complete details.

Resources

You can find the entire playlist of #11WeeksOfAndroid video content here. We’ll continue to spotlight new areas each week, so keep an eye out and follow us on Twitter and YouTube. Below are the links to resources we talked about during Android 11 Compatibility week.
Blog posts
Testing app compatibility in Android 11
Excelliance Tech: moving to new Android APIs for long-term compatibility
Android 11 Beta 2 and Platform Stability
Accelerating Android updates
Videos
Android 11 Compatibility playlist
Android 11 Compatibility week preview
Testing platform changes in Android 11
Testing app compatibility with Android Studio
Platform Stability and the Android release timeline
Codelabs
Installing Android 11 GSI
Learning Paths
Android 11 - Week 4 - Compatibility
Reddit AMA
Android Platform Team AMA
Related documentation
Android 11 timeline
Get Android 11
Android 11 migration guide
Android 11 behavior changes
Testing app compatibility
Non-SDK restrictions in Android 11
Feedback and issues
Android 11 Developer Site

Source: Android Developers Blog

Accelerating Android Updates

Posted by Eddie Hsu (Technical Program Manager), Brent VerWeyst (Product Manager), Maya Ben Ari (Product Manager), Amith Dsouza (Technical Account Manager), Iliyan Malchev (Project Treble Architect)

Over the past few years we’ve introduced new capabilities that enable us to deliver updates more uniformly, quickly, and efficiently to Android devices. These capabilities include:

Oreo’s introduction of Project Treble created a system/vendor split for a much cleaner separation of OEM and SoC dependencies from the rest of the code base. This effort sped up the adoption of Android Pie by 2.5X. Every Android device that preloads the Google Play Store has been Treble compliant since that point.
In Pie, we started publishing the Generic System Images (GSI) so that developers can use them for app-compat testing on real hardware. Treble compliance means that every device is compatible with our GSIs, even if it does not ship with them. We also worked with our major partners to launch an OEM developer preview program. As a result, we saw a further 1.5X increase in the adoption of Android 10.
In Android 10, we started updating components of the OS directly via Google Play system updates (Project Mainline). Mainline provides security and privacy updates for the OS in a way that’s similar to apps – through Google Play. For example, in our most recent deployment, we directly updated 285 million devices with fixes for security vulnerabilities.
Google Play is also responsible for updating critical applications and services, such as authentication, push notifications, and Google Play Protect. A good example is the launch of the Exposure Notification API. Exposure Notifications are a tool to help public-health agencies in the fight against COVID-19. The API was deployed in May via Google Play to over 2 billion devices in the space of just 4 weeks.

Android 10 Adoption

Thanks to these efforts, the adoption of Android 10 has been faster than any previous versions of Android. Android 10 was running on 100 million devices 5 months post launch – 28% faster than Android Pie.

Updatability in Android 11

Below are the major themes in updatability this year:

OEM Developer Previews: In Android 11, device makers (OEMs) are continuing their developer previews ahead of the official launch. Seven OEMs have released Developer Preview builds on 13 devices to provide app developers with diverse hardware as they test for compatibility.

Google Play system update: 21 OS components are now updatable, including 9 additions in Android 11 focused on improving privacy, security, and developer consistency across devices. Highlights include an enhanced permissions component that standardizes user and developer access to critical privacy controls on Android devices, a Neural Networks API (NNAPI) component that optimizes performance and guarantees consistent APIs across devices, and a Tethering component for improved interoperability. The new updatable OS components in Android 11 are: Tethering, NNAPI, Cell Broadcast Receiver, adbd, Internet Key Exchange, Media Provider, statsd, WiFi, and SDK extension.

Generic Kernel Image: Our ongoing updatability work extends to the Linux kernel itself, with initiatives such as 6-year LTS support. In Android 11, we are further isolating common code in the Android Linux kernel to create a Generic Kernel Image (GKI) that works across all Android devices, as well as to enable faster security deployments. Stay tuned for a more detailed post on GKI in the coming months.

Virtual A/B: Most OS updates are not delivered via Google Play. Instead, they use separate third-party Over-the-Air (OTA) services that differ among the various OEMs. These services use a mechanism that, while very space efficient, has the disadvantage of being slow to apply, rendering the device inoperable for the duration. To solve this problem, in Android Nougat we launched a mechanism called "A/B OTA" (aka Seamless Updates). A/B OTAs have the advantage of appearing to be near-instant from the user's perspective, since they apply in the background and become active on the next reboot. However, they doubled the amount of storage reserved for the OS itself, limiting adoption among OEMs.

We’ve developed a new OTA mechanism – Virtual A/B – that combines the benefits of the previous two: being seamless from the user's perspective while requiring less storage. We are working closely with our OEM partners to begin implementing Virtual A/B in Android 11 devices, making OTAs as frictionless as possible. Going forward, Virtual A/B will be the only supported OTA mechanism in Android.

Looking to the Future

We’re excited by the increased adoption of Android and are grateful for the close collaborations with our chipset and OEM partners to deploy updates earlier. We continue to work on a number of enhancements in the platform and infrastructure to make it easier for developers and users to benefit from the latest versions of Android.

Reminder that the Android engineering team will host a Reddit AMA today at 12:00PM PST to answer your technical questions about Android 11. See this post for details and to submit your questions.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Android 11 Beta 2 and Platform Stability

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

A few weeks ago we unwrapped the first Beta of Android 11 with a focus on people, controls, and privacy. As we highlighted in the #Android11Beta Launch, we’re making Android more people-centric and expressive, helping users control their smart devices, and giving them even more control over sensitive permissions. Developers can use APIs like Conversations, Bubbles, Device Controls, and Media Controls, to integrate these experiences into their apps.

Today we’re pushing out the second Beta of Android 11 for you to try. This release takes us to the Platform Stability milestone, which means that Android 11’s APIs and behaviors are finalized. For developers, it’s time to get started on your final compatibility updates and publish them in time for the official release later in Q3.

This week’s theme in #11 Weeks of Android is Android 11 Compatibility and we’ll be sharing helpful content and materials all week. You can find them on the #11 Weeks page or follow Android Developers on Twitter and Youtube.

You can get Beta 2 today on your Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4 device by enrolling here for over-the-air updates, and downloads are also available. If you previously enrolled for Beta 1, you will automatically get the over-the-air update. Let us know what you think, and thanks for the feedback you’ve provided so far!

Platform Stability

Beta 2 brings Android 11 to Platform Stability, a new release milestone that we added this year just for developers, based on your feedback.

Platform Stability means that all app-facing surfaces and behaviors are now final in Android 11. This includes not only final SDK and NDK APIs, but also final system behaviors and restrictions on non-SDK interfaces that may affect apps. So from Beta 2, you can release compatibility updates with confidence that the platform won’t change. More on the timeline is here.

With the platform now stable, we’re encouraging all app and game developers to start your final compatibility testing and publish your updates ahead of the final release.

For all SDK, library, tools, and game engine developers, it’s even more important to start testing now and release your compatible updates as soon as possible -- your downstream app and game developers may be blocked until they receive your updates. When you’ve released a compatible update, be vocal and let developers know!

Why app compatibility is important

For Android, the term app compatibility means that your app runs properly on a specific version of the platform, typically the latest version. You can check this right now by installing your production app on a device or emulator running Android 11. Just test all of the user flows and features, and if the app looks and runs properly, then you’re done, it’s compatible!

It sounds simple, but sometimes there’s more to it. With each release, we make integral changes that improve privacy and security, as well as implement changes that evolve the overall user experience across the OS. Sometimes these can affect your apps, so it’s important to take a look at the behavior changes and test against them, then publish the compatible update to users. It’s a basic but critical level of quality.

App compatibility comes into play as users update to the latest version of Android, whether they’ve purchased a new device or installed an update on their current device. They’re excited to explore the latest version of Android, and they want to experience it with their favorite apps. If the apps don’t work properly, it’s a major issue - for users and for all of us.

So while there are a ton of new APIs and capabilities to explore, and more changes to consider when you’re ready to change your app’s targeting, start by testing your current app and releasing a compatible update first.

Updates to Pixel and other devices will get started as soon as Android 11 reaches the final release to Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which we expect later in Q3. Multiple partner devices are also in active public previews now to support your compatibility testing.

Making app compatibility easier in Android 11

With each release, we’re working to reduce the work you’ll need to do to get your apps ready. In Android 11, we’ve added new processes, developer tools, and release milestones to minimize the impact of platform updates and make it easier for apps to stay compatible.

Minimizing the impact of behavior changes - we’re making a conscious effort to minimize platform changes that could affect apps by making them opt-in, wherever possible, until you set targetSdkVersion to Android 11 in your app. If you are distributing through Google Play, you’ll have more than a year to opt-in to these changes.
Easier testing and debugging - To help you test for compatibility, we’ve made many of the breaking changes toggleable - meaning that you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from Developer options or adb. With this change, there’s no longer a need to change targetSdkVersion or recompile your app for basic testing. Check out the details here.
App compatibility toggles in Developer options.

Restrictions on non-SDK interfaces - as part of our ongoing effort to gradually move developers away from non-SDK APIs, we’ve updated the lists of restricted non-SDK interfaces, and as always your feedback and requests for public API equivalents are welcome.
Dynamic resource loader - As part of their migration away from non-SDK interfaces, developers asked us for a public API to load resources and assets dynamically at runtime. We’ve now added a Resource Loader framework in Android 11, and thank you to the developers who gave us this input!
Platform stability milestone - As mentioned, this is a new milestone we’ve added to our release process to give developers a clear date for final changes. It includes not only final SDK/NDK APIs, but also final internal APIs and system behaviors that may affect apps.

Get your apps ready for Android 11!

Now that Android 11 is stable, make your apps compatible as soon as possible. Here’s how to do it.

For testing your current app, start with the behavior changes for all apps to see where it could be affected. Here are the top changes (these apply regardless of your app’s targetSdkVersion):

One-time permission - Users can now grant single-use permission to access location, device microphone and camera. Details here.
External storage access - Apps can no longer access other apps’ files in external storage. Details here.
Scudo hardened allocator - Now the heap memory allocator for native code in apps. Details here.
File descriptor sanitizer - Now enabled by default to detect file descriptor handling issues for native code in apps. Details here.

Remember to test the libraries and SDKs in your app for compatibility. If you find an issue, try updating to the latest version of the SDK, or reach out to the developer for help.

Later, after you’ve published the compatible version of your current app, you can start the process of updating your app's targetSdkVersion. Review the behavior changes for Android 11 apps and try the compatibility framework to help find impacts. Here are some of the top changes to test for (these apply only to targetSdkVersion 30+):

Scoped storage - New storage restrictions, behaviors, and APIs for apps reading and writing files. Details here.
Background location - Changes to how apps request background location and how users grant it. Details here.
Package visibility - Changes to how apps can query and interact with other installed apps. Details here.
Compressed resource files - Apps can’t be installed or updated if they contain a compressed resources.arsc file, or if the file is not aligned on a 4-byte boundary. Details here.
APK Signature Scheme v2 - Apps must now be signed using APK Signature Scheme v2 or higher. Details here.
Heap pointer tagging - For 64-bit processes, native heap allocations have a tag set in the top byte of the pointer that should not be modified by apps. Details here.

During testing, watch for uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces in your app and move those to public SDK equivalents instead. You can read about the restricted APIs here.

Explore the new features and APIs

As soon as you’re ready, dive into Android 11 and learn about the new experiences you can build. Our #Android11 Beta post has a recap of new features for developers, and you can also visit the Beta Launch page to see talks from the Android team on what’s new in their areas.

Android Studio also has new features for Android 11 also, to improve your productivity and workflow, such as ADB incremental for faster installs of large APKs, and additional nullability annotations on platform APIs. You can give these a try by downloading the latest Android Studio Beta or Canary version. Instructions for configuring Android Studio for Android 11 are here.

For complete details on Android 11 features and APIs, visit the Android 11 developer site.

How do I get Beta 2?

It’s easy! You can enroll here to get Android 11 Beta updates over-the-air for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4 devices. Alternatively, give Android Flash Tool a try for easy on-demand updates, and downloadable system images are also available. If you don't have a Pixel device, you can use the Android Emulator in Android Studio or try a GSI image to run Android 11 on supported Treble-compliant devices.

As always, your feedback is critical, so please let us know what you think. You can use our hotlists for filing platform issues (including privacy and behavior changes), app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues. You've shared great feedback with us so far -- thank you!

Android 11 compatibility week

This week in #11 Weeks of Android, we’re highlighting Android 11 Compatibility, a theme that’s important for all developers now that the platform has reached stability.

We’re sharing resources to help you with compatibility testing here, and you can follow Android Developers on Twitter and Youtube to catch helpful content and materials in this area all this week!

Also, the Android engineering team will host a Reddit AMA on r/androiddev tomorrow, July 9 at 12:00PM PST, to answer your technical questions about Android 11. See this post for details and to submit your questions.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Excelliance Tech: moving to new Android dynamic resource loading APIs for long-term compatibility

This blogpost is a collaboration between Google and Excelliance Tech. Authored by Zhuo Chen with support from Zhihai Wang, Gao Huang from Excelliance Tech.

Excelliance Tech improved the stability and compatibility of their LeBian SDK by moving away from non-SDK APIs, toward stable, official APIs. Their collaboration with the Android team during the process also led to a new public API for resource loading that all developers can use - the ResourcesLoader API in Android 11.

Helping game developers keep users engaged

Games are becoming increasingly complex, and a loading progress bar is not only a countdown to a new adventure, but also a bridge which connects players and developers.

Players want the game to load right away, so "loading" has its own priorities: resources that will be used in the first few minutes need to be packed into the APK, while the rest of the content can be downloaded in the background after the game starts.

Developers are always creating new content for their games, so "change" is the only constant: different campaigns bring different launch screens and themes, keeping the game experience fresh for players.

Excelliance Tech’s LeBian (乐变) game assets streaming service helps game developers meet players’ needs by loading fresh resources dynamically while the game is loading or being played.

Meteor, Butterfly And a Sword (流星群侠传) by NetEase Games, Duoduo Auto Chess (多多自走棋) by Dragonest Game, Langrisser (梦幻模拟战) by ZlongGames, Junior Three Kingdom 2 (少年三国志 2) by Yoozoo Games - these games are created by different developers and have different look and feel, but one thing they have in common: they all use LeBian game streaming service to load resources.

The resource loading technology is so useful that Excelliance Tech is even using it in the LeBian SDK itself, bringing a better experience for developers. Dynamic resource loading makes the SDK much easier to use. By dynamically updating its internal resources when needed, the library doesn’t require developers to update the SDK for new resources.

Before Android 11 introduced the ResourcesLoader API, Excelliance Tech had to build their dynamic resource loading capability the hard way, using non-SDK interfaces.

Building the initial product

When Excelliance was first building their product, Android did not offer public APIs for the dynamic resource loading use-case. The team did what they could, but ended up using non-SDK interfaces to add the external resources. While this met the technical need initially, the implementation was fragile - it depended on non-SDK interfaces, which don’t have the same compatibility guarantees as official SDK APIs and can change without notice.

As a result, Excelliance found that compatibility issues would surface unexpectedly as new versions of Android were released. These required additional testing and development to assure the stability of the product. Over many iterations, it took the Excelliance team six engineer-months and a lot of code to stabilize their solution, while knowing that it might break again in the next Android release. With Android tightening restrictions on non-SDK interfaces to achieve better stability and app compatibility, relying on those non-SDK interfaces became no longer an option.

Working toward a sustainable solution

As the Android team increased its focus on moving apps to public APIs, Excelliance saw an opportunity to migrate to a stronger foundation. They reached out to the Android team to give their feedback and highlighted their use case and need for public SDK APIs.

Over time, their collaboration led to the development of the ResourcesLoader public API that’s available for the first time in Android 11. Excelliance Tech has already moved to the new ResourcesLoader API and they’ve seen better productivity and product quality as a result. Excelliance believes the ResourcesLoader API provides advantages including the following:

Easy to use. The development team migrated the solution to the new API in 2 days, testing included.
No performance loss. In some cases, the loading speed even increased because ResourcesLoader can load uncompressed resources much faster.
Easy to develop. Before using the ResourcesLoader API, the team had to assign a senior engineer to 1) understand how AssetManager works, 2) find private APIs and find out how they work on different Android versions, 3) learn zip file structure, etc. Now it only takes a junior engineer who can read the API documentation.
Much less code. Before the ResourcesLoader API, the solution took more than 1,000 lines of code, now it has less than 50 lines of code, with the essential code down to just a few lines.
Forward compatibility. By using official public APIs that will continue to be supported by the Android team, the developer’s solution will have much better compatibility on the future Android platforms.

String sdkroot = getApplicationInfo().dataDir + "/lebian";
ResourcesLoader rl = new ResourcesLoader();
rl.addProvider(ResourcesProvider.loadFromDirectory(sdkroot, null));
Resources res = getResources();
res.addLoaders(rl);
final AssetManager assetManager = res.getAssets();

After moving to the new ResourcesLoader API, the essential code has just a few lines (down from hundreds of lines of code across a number of source files).

Improving performance

Excelliance Tech did a comparison test, loading 16,028 files (uncompressed 1.47GB, compressed 1.36GB) in 4 ways:

Load resources directly from APK
Load resources using non-SDK interfaces
Load APK using ResourcesLoader
Load resources directly from a directory using ResourcesLoader

Resources are compressed in option 1, 2 and 3, and the average loading times are around 19 seconds. Option 4 loads uncompressed resources directly from a directory using ResourcesLoader, the average loading time is about 3 seconds - a 6x performance improvement!

Summarizing the overall impact of ResourcesLoader, Huang Gao, CEO & Product Lead at Excelliance Tech, said “The new ResourcesLoader API dramatically reduces development and maintenance costs and allows us to focus more on product and business innovation."

Co-creating the future

The Excelliance Tech team.

"On the Android platform, we've created some valuable products and services, which makes us want to invest more to create innovative products", Excelliance Tech stated, "We hope to have more opportunities to participate in the building of the Android ecosystem and contribute our efforts to make a better Android both for consumers and developers."

Excelliance Tech made an investment for the long-term compatibility of the LeBian SDK. Moving to the ResourcesLoader API has already yielded stability and performance benefits, reduced the complexity of their code, and reduced risks of future compatibility issues as Android rolls out new versions of the platform. The ResourcesLoader API is part of Android 11’s public APIs, benefitting the entire Android developer community.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Excelliance Tech: moving to new Android dynamic resource loading APIs for long-term compatibility

This blogpost is a collaboration between Google and Excelliance Tech. Authored by Zhuo Chen with support from Zhihai Wang, Gao Huang from Excelliance Tech.

Helping game developers keep users engaged

Games are becoming increasingly complex, and a loading progress bar is not only a countdown to a new adventure, but also a bridge which connects players and developers.

Excelliance Tech’s LeBian (乐变) game assets streaming service helps game developers meet players’ needs by loading fresh resources dynamically while the game is loading or being played.

Before Android 11 introduced the ResourcesLoader API, Excelliance Tech had to build their dynamic resource loading capability the hard way, using non-SDK interfaces.

Building the initial product

Working toward a sustainable solution

Easy to use. The development team migrated the solution to the new API in 2 days, testing included.
No performance loss. In some cases, the loading speed even increased because ResourcesLoader can load uncompressed resources much faster.
Easy to develop. Before using the ResourcesLoader API, the team had to assign a senior engineer to 1) understand how AssetManager works, 2) find private APIs and find out how they work on different Android versions, 3) learn zip file structure, etc. Now it only takes a junior engineer who can read the API documentation.
Much less code. Before the ResourcesLoader API, the solution took more than 1,000 lines of code, now it has less than 50 lines of code, with the essential code down to just a few lines.
Forward compatibility. By using official public APIs that will continue to be supported by the Android team, the developer’s solution will have much better compatibility on the future Android platforms.

String sdkroot = getApplicationInfo().dataDir + "/lebian";
ResourcesLoader rl = new ResourcesLoader();
rl.addProvider(ResourcesProvider.loadFromDirectory(sdkroot, null));
Resources res = getResources();
res.addLoaders(rl);
final AssetManager assetManager = res.getAssets();

After moving to the new ResourcesLoader API, the essential code has just a few lines (down from hundreds of lines of code across a number of source files).

Improving performance

Excelliance Tech did a comparison test, loading 16,028 files (uncompressed 1.47GB, compressed 1.36GB) in 4 ways:

Load resources directly from APK
Load resources using non-SDK interfaces
Load APK using ResourcesLoader
Load resources directly from a directory using ResourcesLoader

Co-creating the future

The Excelliance Tech team.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Excelliance Tech: moving to new Android dynamic resource loading APIs for long-term compatibility

This blogpost is a collaboration between Google and Excelliance Tech. Authored by Zhuo Chen with support from Zhihai Wang, Gao Huang from Excelliance Tech.

Helping game developers keep users engaged

Games are becoming increasingly complex, and a loading progress bar is not only a countdown to a new adventure, but also a bridge which connects players and developers.

Excelliance Tech’s LeBian (乐变) game assets streaming service helps game developers meet players’ needs by loading fresh resources dynamically while the game is loading or being played.

Before Android 11 introduced the ResourcesLoader API, Excelliance Tech had to build their dynamic resource loading capability the hard way, using non-SDK interfaces.

Building the initial product

Working toward a sustainable solution

Easy to use. The development team migrated the solution to the new API in 2 days, testing included.
No performance loss. In some cases, the loading speed even increased because ResourcesLoader can load uncompressed resources much faster.
Easy to develop. Before using the ResourcesLoader API, the team had to assign a senior engineer to 1) understand how AssetManager works, 2) find private APIs and find out how they work on different Android versions, 3) learn zip file structure, etc. Now it only takes a junior engineer who can read the API documentation.
Much less code. Before the ResourcesLoader API, the solution took more than 1,000 lines of code, now it has less than 50 lines of code, with the essential code down to just a few lines.
Forward compatibility. By using official public APIs that will continue to be supported by the Android team, the developer’s solution will have much better compatibility on the future Android platforms.

String sdkroot = getApplicationInfo().dataDir + "/lebian";
ResourcesLoader rl = new ResourcesLoader();
rl.addProvider(ResourcesProvider.loadFromDirectory(sdkroot, null));
Resources res = getResources();
res.addLoaders(rl);
final AssetManager assetManager = res.getAssets();

After moving to the new ResourcesLoader API, the essential code has just a few lines (down from hundreds of lines of code across a number of source files).

Improving performance

Excelliance Tech did a comparison test, loading 16,028 files (uncompressed 1.47GB, compressed 1.36GB) in 4 ways:

Load resources directly from APK
Load resources using non-SDK interfaces
Load APK using ResourcesLoader
Load resources directly from a directory using ResourcesLoader

Co-creating the future

The Excelliance Tech team.

Source: Android Developers Blog

Bringing modern storage to Viber’s users

This blogpost is a collaboration between Google and Viber. Authored by Kseniia Shumelchyk from Google and Anton Novikov, Sergey Kozlov from Viber.

As a messaging app, Viber needs to store, process and share a significant amount of data. Viber aims to give its users an easy, fast, reliable and secure communication platform by providing an intuitive interface and operating with files in a privacy-preserving way. We believe the modern scoped storage paradigm provides this foundation for app developers and users.

Scoped storage was introduced in Android 10 with further improvements in Android 11 to provide better protection to app and user data on a platform level. Due to Viber's complexity, the team opted to incrementally implement the changes that were required to comply with scoped storage.

In this article, we’ll share how Viber handled the migration to scoped storage, focusing on what they did to optimize working with media files and other data in the app.

Managing storage across Android versions

Android’s storage model has evolved to adapt to changing privacy considerations, leading to the changes in the storage system APIs. Let’s take a look at key platform changes that affected the legacy Viber implementation.

Media directories

Scoped storage changes the way that apps store and access files on a device's external storage. Viber needed to evaluate the differences between the existing app's storage model and updated platform guidelines, followed by gradual application changes to work with files in scoped storage. Therefore Viber invoked the requestLegacyExternalStorage flag to temporarily opt-out of scoped storage on Android 10 until the app was fully compatible.

In order to adjust their app experience to scoped storage, Viber now contributes public media files to well-defined media collections using the MediaStore API. This way, the files are accessible in a device gallery, and can be read by other apps with the storage permission. Private media files are stored in the app-specific directory on external storage and are accessed via the internal ContentProvider.

Storage permissions

The other notable update is related to changes in the storage permissions model: Apps in scoped storage have unrestricted access to their app-specific directories on external storage and can contribute to well-defined media collections without requesting a runtime permission. This change will help Viber provide more granular control to their users:

“This addition supports our efforts to provide our users with the best security and privacy solutions we can provide supported by the Android OS, users will benefit from this added security later without needing to opt-in. We also added a new ‘Save to gallery’ option allowing users to choose to make their photos readable by other apps or not. Because chats may contain private images or videos, it’s important to give users the ability to hide these files from the gallery. This change gives users additional control over the content included in their Viber messages.“ said Anton Novikov and Sergey Kozlov from Viber.

Accessing files outside of app-specific directory

Previously, Viber created and consumed files in a custom top level directory and depended on file path access. With scoped storage, saving app files to a top level directory became an anti-pattern, so Viber has followed best practices to update their implementation to store media files from the chats only in locations that are accessible in scoped storage.

However, to reduce the complexity of migration, Viber decided to keep their own top level directory for Android 10 and below, storing only the media files that are not exposed to the device’s Gallery app, while for Android 11 and above this directory is used in read-only mode to provide backward compatibility.

Another use case that Viber has been refining is sharing files in the chats. The updated storage runtime permission gives read access only to the images, videos and audio files that are available through MediaProvider. Starting from Android 11, the only way for Viber to access non-media files created by other apps is by using the Storage Access Framework document picker, which they had already utilized in a different part of their app.

App-specific files within external storage

In the scoped storage environment, app-specific directories on external storage are becoming private from other apps. This change has helped Viber leverage its use of external storage for storing private user files:

”We find change to app-specific directories to be useful, because it will help to ensure that personal chats are protected and backed with platform security.” said Anton Novikov from Viber. Learn more about how to access app-specific files.

Single interface to access storage

Because Viber targets a large audience running on Android 4.2 and above, they introduced an abstraction layer that aids them in managing storage access efficiently across all supported Android versions and with their use cases in mind.

Previously, Viber heavily used File API to access files, including files in legacy storage locations. Further, they stored absolute file paths for entries in the local database to keep the user's conversation history.

To standardize access to this conversation history and thus ensure that users don’t lose access to their files, Viber replaced absolute file paths with content URIs. In the new implementation, the app is accessing files only via content providers:

Internal FileProvider for Viber app-specific directories.
External file providers available in the Android framework, such as MediaStore or Storage Access Framework, or those belong to another app that shares files with Viber through Intent.ACTION_SEND.

By using a consistent ContentProvider layer, the ContentResolver gives the app a unified interface to access the file content.

This approach has also helped Viber optimize the network layer and define a universal Loader abstraction to upload/fetch and to read/store different types of media files like voice messages, chat images and stickers.

Summary

Android 11 further enhances scoped storage, which provides better protection of app and user data and makes the transition easier for developers. It’s amazing to see many apps like Viber are migrating to take advantage of scoped storage since Android 10.

We hope Viber’s story is useful and will inspire you to modernize your Android apps as well. Learn more about Android storage use cases and best practices.