Tag Archives: Google I/O 2025

Upcoming changes to Wear OS watch faces

Posted by François Deschênes Product Manager - Wear OS

Today, we are announcing important changes to Wear OS watch face development that will affect how developers publish and update watch faces on Google Play. As part of our ongoing effort to enhance Wear OS app quality, we are moving towards supporting only the Watch Face Format and removing support for AndroidX / Wearable Support Library (WSL) watch faces.

We introduced Watch Face Format at Google I/O in 2023 to make it easier to create watch faces that are customizable and power-efficient. The Watch Face Format is a declarative XML format, so there is no executable code involved in creating a watch face, and there is no code embedded in the watch face APK.

What's changing?

Developers will need to migrate published watch faces to the Watch Face Format by January 14, 2026. Developers using Watch Face Studio to build watch faces will need to resubmit their watch faces to the Play Store using Watch Face Studio version 1.8.7 or above - see below for more details.

When are these changes coming?

Starting January 27, 2025 (already in effect):

Starting January 14, 2026:

    • Availability: Users will not be able to install legacy watch faces on any Wear OS devices from the Play Store. Legacy watch faces already installed on a Wear OS device will continue to work.
    • Updates: Developers will not be able to publish updates for legacy watch faces to the Play Store.
    • Monetization: The following won’t be possible for legacy watch faces: one-off watch face purchases, in-app purchases, and subscriptions. Existing purchases and subscriptions will continue to work, but they will not renew, including auto-renewals.

What should developers do next?

To prepare for these changes and to continue publishing watch faces to the Play Store, developers using AndroidX or WSL to build watch faces must migrate their watch faces to the Watch Face Format and resubmit to the Play Store by January 14, 2026.

Developers using Watch Face Studio to build watch faces will need to resubmit their watch faces to the Play Store using Watch Face Studio version 1.8.7 or above:

    • Be sure to republish for all Play tracks, including all testing tracks as well as production.
    • Remove any bundles from these tracks that were created using Watch Face Studio versions prior to 1.8.7.

Benefits of the Watch Face Format

Watch Face Format was developed to support developers in creating watch faces. This format provides numerous advantages to both developers and end users:

    • Simplified development: Streamlined workflows and visual design tools make building watch faces easier.
    • Enhanced performance: Optimized for battery efficiency and smooth interactions.
    • Increased security: Robust security features protect user data and privacy.
    • Forward-compatible: Access to the latest features and capabilities of Wear OS.

Resources to help with migration

To get started migrating your watch faces to the Watch Face Format, check out the following developer guidance:

We encourage developers to begin the migration process as soon as possible to ensure a seamless transition and continued availability of your watch faces on Google Play.

We understand that this change requires effort. If you have further questions, please refer to the Wear OS community announcement. Please report any issues using the issue tracker.

A product manager’s guide to adapting Android apps across devices

Posted by Fahd Imtiaz, Product Manager, Android Developer Experience
Today, Android is launching a few updates across the platform! This includes the start of Android 16's rollout, with details for both developers and users, a Developer Preview for enhanced Android desktop experiences with connected displays, and updates for Android users across Google apps and more, plus the June Pixel Drop. We're also recapping all the Google I/O updates for Android developers focused on building excellent, adaptive Android apps.

With new form factors emerging continually, the Android ecosystem is more dynamic than ever.

From phones and foldables to tablets, Chromebooks, TVs, cars, Wear and XR, Android users expect their apps to run seamlessly across an increasingly diverse range of form factors. Yet, many Android apps fall short of these expectations as they are built with UI constraints such as being locked to a single orientation or restricted in resizability.

With this in mind, Android 16 introduced API changes for apps targeting SDK level 36 to ignore orientation and resizability restrictions starting with large screen devices, shifting toward a unified model where adaptive apps are the norm. This is the moment to move ahead. Adaptive apps aren’t just the future of Android, they’re the expectation for your app to stand out across Android form factors.

Why you should prioritize adaptive now

500+ devices including foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, and mobile-app capable cars
Source: internal Google data

Prioritizing optimizations to make your app adaptive isn't just about keeping up with the orientation and resizability API changes in Android 16 for apps targeting SDK 36. Adaptive apps unlock tangible benefits across user experience, development efficiency, and market reach.

    • Mobile apps can now reach users on over 500 million active large screen devices: Mobile apps run on foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, and even compatible cars, with minimal changes. Android 16 will introduce significant advancements in desktop windowing for a true desktop-like experience on large screens, including connected displays. And Android XR opens a new dimension, allowing your existing apps to be available in immersive environments. The user expectation is clear: a consistent, high-quality experience that intelligently adapts to any screen – be it a foldable, a tablet with a keyboard, or a movable, resizable window on a Chromebook.

    • “The new baseline” with orientation and resizability API changes in Android 16: We believe mobile apps are undergoing a shift to have UI adapt responsively to any screen size, just like websites. Android 16 will ignore app-defined restrictions like fixed orientation (portrait-only) and non-resizable windows, beginning with large screens (smallest width of the device is >= 600dp) including tablets and inner displays on foldables. For most apps, it’s key to helping them stretch to any screen size. In some cases if your app isn't adaptive, it could deliver a broken user experience on these screens. This moves adaptive design from a nice-to-have to a foundational requirement.
Side by side displays of non-adaptive app UI with on the left with text reading Goodbye 'mobile-only' apps and adaptive app UI on the right with text reads Hello adaptive apps
    • Increase user reach and app discoverability in Play: Adaptive apps are better positioned to be ranked higher in Play, and featured in editorial articles across form factors, reaching a wider audience across Play search and homepages. Additionally, Google Play Store surfaces ratings and reviews across all form factors. If your app is not optimized, a potential user's first impression might be tainted by a 1-star review complaining about a stretched UI on a device they don't even own yet. Users are also more likely to engage with apps that provide a great experience across their devices.
    • Increased engagement on large screens: Users on large screen devices often have different interaction patterns. On large screens, users may engage for longer sessions, perform more complex tasks, and consume more content.

      • Concepts saw a 70% increase in user engagement on large screens after optimizing.

      Usage for 6 major media streaming apps in the US was up to 3x more for tablet and phone users, as compared to phone only users.

    • More accessible app experiences: According to the World Bank, 15% of the world’s population has some type of disability. People with disabilities depend on apps and services that support accessibility to communicate, learn, and work. Matching the user’s preferred orientation improves the accessibility of applications, helping to create an inclusive experience for all.

Today, most apps are building for smartphones only

A display of varying Android form factors, including a tablet, a desktop monitor, a laptop, a large-screen mobile, hand-held device, and an in-car app screen

“...looking at the number of users, the ROI does not justify the investment”.

That's a frequent pushback from product managers and decision-makers, and if you're just looking at top-line analytics comparing the number of tablet sessions to smartphone sessions, it might seem like a closed case.

While top-line analytics might show lower session numbers on tablets compared to smartphones, concluding that large screens aren't worth the effort based solely on current volume can be a trap, causing you to miss out on valuable engagement and future opportunities.

Let's take a deeper look into why:

      1. The user experience ‘chicken and egg’ loop: Is it possible that the low usage is a symptom rather than the root cause? Users are quick to abandon apps that feel clunky or broken. If your app on large screens is a stretched-out phone interface, the app likely provides a negative user experience. The lack of users might reflect the lack of a good experience, not always necessarily lack of potential users.

      2. Beyond user volume, look at user engagement: Don't just count users, analyze their worth. Users interact with apps on large screens differently. The large screen often leads to longer sessions and more immersive experiences. As mentioned above, usage data shows that engagement time increases significantly for users who interact with apps on both their phone and tablet, as compared to phone only users.

      3. Market evolution: The Android device ecosystem is continuing to evolve. With the rise of foldables, upcoming connected displays support in Android 16, and form factors like XR and Android Auto, adaptive design is now more critical than ever. Building for a specific screen size creates technical debt, and may slow your development velocity and compromise the product quality in the long run.

Okay, I am convinced. Where do I start?

A three-step workflow outlines how to optimize your Android app to be adaptive

For organizations ready to move forward, Android offers many resources and developer tools to optimize apps to be adaptive. See below for how to get started:

      1.Check how your app looks on large screens today: Begin by looking at your app’s current state on tablets, foldables (in different postures), Chromebooks, and environments like desktop windowing. Confirm if your app is available on these devices or if you are unintentionally leaving out these users by requiring unnecessary features within your app.

      2. Address common UI issues: Assess what feels awkward in your app UI today. We have a lot of guidance available on how you can easily translate your mobile app to other screens.

          a. Check the Large screens design gallery for inspiration and understanding how your app UI can evolve across devices using proven solutions to common UI challenges.

          b. Start with quick wins. For example, prevent buttons from stretching to the full screen width, or switch to a vertical navigation bar on large screens to improve ergonomics.

          c. Identify patterns where canonical layouts (e.g. list-detail) could solve any UI awkwardness you identified. Could a list-detail view improve your app's navigation? Would a supporting pane on the side make better use of the extra space than a bottom sheet?

      3. Optimize your app incrementally, screen by screen: It may be helpful to prioritize how you approach optimization because not everything needs to be perfectly adaptive on day one. Incrementally improve your app based on what matters most – it's not all or nothing.

          a. Start with the foundations. Check out the large screen app quality guidelines which tier and prioritize the fixes that are most critical to users. Remove orientation restrictions to support portrait and landscape, and ensure support for resizability (for when users are in split screen), and prevent major stretching of buttons, text fields, and images. These foundational fixes are critical, especially with API changes in Android 16 that will make these aspects even more important.

          b. Implement adaptive layout optimizations with a focus on core user journeys or screens first.

              i. Identify screens where optimizations (for example a two-pane layout) offer the biggest UX win

              ii. And then proceed to screens or parts of the app that are not as often used on large screens

          c. Support input methods beyond touch, including keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and stylus input. With new form factors and connected displays support, this sets users up to interact with your UI seamlessly.

          d. Add differentiating hero user experiences like support for tabletop mode or dual-screen mode on foldables. This can happen on a per-use-case basis - for example, tabletop mode is great for watching videos, and dual screen mode is great for video calls.

While there's an upfront investment in adopting adaptive principles (using tools like Jetpack Compose and window size classes), the long-term payoff may be significant. By designing and building features once, and letting them adapt across screen sizes, the benefits outweigh the cost of creating multiple bespoke layouts. Check out the adaptive apps developer guidance for more.

Unlock your app's potential with adaptive app design

The message for my fellow product managers, decision-makers, and businesses is clear: adaptive design will uplevel your app for high-quality Android experiences in 2025 and beyond. An adaptive, responsive UI is the scalable way to support the many devices in Android without developing on a per-form factor basis. If you ignore the diverse device ecosystem of foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, and emerging form factors like XR and cars, your business is accepting hidden costs from negative user reviews, lower discovery in Play, increased technical debt, and missed opportunities for increased user engagement and user acquisition.

Maximize your apps' impact and unlock new user experiences. Learn more about building adaptive apps today.

Top 3 updates for building excellent, adaptive apps at Google I/O ‘25

Posted by Mozart Louis – Developer Relations Engineer
Today, Android is launching a few updates across the platform! This includes the start of Android 16's rollout, with details for both developers and users, a Developer Preview for enhanced Android desktop experiences with connected displays, and updates for Android users across Google apps and more, plus the June Pixel Drop. We're also recapping all the Google I/O updates for Android developers focused on building excellent, adaptive Android apps.

Google I/O 2025 brought exciting advancements to Android, equipping you with essential knowledge and powerful tools you need to build outstanding, user-friendly applications that stand out.

If you missed any of the key #GoogleIO25 updates and just saw the release of Android 16 or you're ready to dive into building excellent adaptive apps, our playlist is for you. Learn how to craft engaging experiences with Live Updates in Android 16, capture video effortlessly with CameraX, process it efficiently using Media3's editing tools, and engage users across diverse platforms like XR, Android for Cars, Android TV, and Desktop.

Check out the Google I/O playlist for all the session details.

Here are three key announcements directly influencing how you can craft deeply engaging experiences and truly connect with your users:

#1: Build adaptively to unlock 500 million devices

In today's diverse device ecosystem, users expect their favorite applications to function seamlessly across various form factors, including phones, tablets, Chromebooks, automobiles, and emerging XR glasses and headsets. Our recommended approach for developing applications that excel on each of these surfaces is to create a single, adaptive application. This strategy avoids the need to rebuild the application for every screen size, shape, or input method, ensuring a consistent and high-quality user experience across all devices.

The talk emphasizes that you don't need to rebuild apps for each form factor. Instead, small, iterative changes can unlock an app's potential.

Here are some resources we encourage you to use in your apps:

New feature support in Jetpack Compose Adaptive Libraries

    • We’re continuing to make it as easy as possible to build adaptively with Jetpack Compose Adaptive Libraries. with new features in 1.1 like pane expansion and predictive back. By utilizing canonical layout patterns such as List Detail or Supporting Pane layouts and integrating your app code, your application will automatically adjust and reflow when resized.

Navigation 3

    • The alpha release of the Navigation 3 library now supports displaying multiple panes. This eliminates the need to alter your navigation destination setup for separate list and detail views. Instead, you can adjust the setup to concurrently render multiple destinations when sufficient screen space is available.

Updates to Window Manager Library

    • AndroidX.window 1.5 introduces two new window size classes for expanded widths, facilitating better layout adaptation for large tablets and desktops. A width of 1600dp or more is now categorized as "extra large," while widths between 1200dp and 1600dp are classified as "large." These subdivisions offer more granularity for developers to optimize their applications for a wider range of window sizes.

Support all orientations and be resizable

Extend to Android XR

Upgrade your Wear OS apps to Material 3 Design

You should build a single, adaptive mobile app that brings the best experiences to all Android surfaces. By building adaptive apps, you meet users where they are today and in the future, enhancing user engagement and app discoverability. This approach represents a strategic business decision that optimizes an app’s long-term success.

#2: Enhance your app’s performance optimization

Get ready to take your app's performance to the next level! Google I/O 2025, brought an inside look at cutting-edge tools and techniques to boost user satisfaction, enhance technical performance metrics, and drive those all-important key performance indicators. Imagine an end-to-end workflow that streamlines performance optimization.

Redesigned UiAutomator API

    • To make benchmarking reliable and reproducible, there's the brand new UiAutomator API. Write robust test code and run it on your local devices or in Firebase Test Lab, ensuring consistent results every time.

Macrobenchmarks

    • Once your tests are in place, it's time to measure and understand. Macrobenchmarks give you the hard data, while App Startup Insights provide actionable recommendations for improvement. Plus, you can get a quick snapshot of your app's health with the App Performance Score via DAC. These tools combined give you a comprehensive view of your app's performance and where to focus your efforts.

R8, More than code shrinking and obfuscation

    • You might know R8 as a code shrinking tool, but it's capable of so much more! The talk dives into R8's capabilities using the "Androidify" sample app. You'll see how to apply R8, troubleshoot any issues (like crashes!), and configure it for optimal performance. It'll also be shown how library developers can include "consumer Keep rules" so that their important code is not touched when used in an application.

#3: Build Richer Image and Video Experiences

In today's digital landscape, users increasingly expect seamless content creation capabilities within their apps. To meet this demand, developers require robust tools for building excellent camera and media experiences.

Media3Effects in CameraX Preview

    • At Google I/O, developers delve into practical strategies for capturing high-quality video using CameraX, while simultaneously leveraging the Media3Effects on the preview.

Google Low-Light Boost

    • Google Low Light Boost in Google Play services enables real-time dynamic camera brightness adjustment in low light, even without device support for Low Light Boost AE Mode.

New Camera & Media Samples!

Learn more about how CameraX & Media3 can accelerate your development of camera and media related features.

Learn how to build adaptive apps

Want to learn more about building excellent, adaptive apps? Watch this playlist to learn more about all the session details.

Peacock built adaptively on Android to deliver great experiences across screens

Posted by Sa-ryong Kang and Miguel Montemayor - Developer Relations Engineers

Peacock is NBCUniversal’s streaming service app available in the US, offering culture-defining entertainment including live sports, exclusive original content, TV shows, and blockbuster movies. The app continues to evolve, becoming more than just a platform to watch content, but a hub of entertainment.

Today’s users are consuming entertainment on an increasingly wider array of device sizes and types, and in particular are moving towards mobile devices. Peacock has adopted Jetpack Compose to help with its journey in adapting to more screens and meeting users where they are.

Disclaimer: Peacock is available in the US only. This video will only be viewable to US viewers.

Adapting to more flexible form factors

The Peacock development team is focused on bringing the best experience to users, no matter what device they’re using or when they want to consume content. With an emerging trend from app users to watch more on mobile devices and large screens like foldables, the Peacock app needs to be able to adapt to different screen sizes. As more devices are introduced, the team needed to explore new solutions that make the most out of each unique display permutation.

The goal was to have the Peacock app to adapt to these new displays while continually offering high-quality entertainment without interruptions, like the stream reloading or visual errors. While thinking ahead, they also wanted to prepare and build a solution that was ready for Android XR as the entertainment landscape is shifting towards including more immersive experiences.

quote card featuring a headshot of Diego Valente, Head of Mobile, Peacock & Global Streaming, reads 'Thinking adaptively isn't just about supporting tablets or large screens - it's about future proofing your app. Investing in adaptability helps you meet user's expectations of having seamless experiencers across all their devices and sets you up for what's next.'

Building a future-proof experience with Jetpack Compose

In order to build a scalable solution that would help the Peacock app continue to evolve, the app was migrated to Jetpack Compose, Android’s toolkit for building scalable UI. One of the essential tools they used was the WindowSizeClass API, which helps developers create and test UI layouts for different size ranges. This API then allows the app to seamlessly switch between pre-set layouts as it reaches established viewport breakpoints for different window sizes.

The API was used in conjunction with Kotlin Coroutines and Flows to keep the UI state responsive as the window size changed. To test their work and fine tune edge case devices, Peacock used the Android Studio emulator to simulate a wide range of Android-based devices.

Jetpack Compose allowed the team to build adaptively, so now the Peacock app responds to a wide variety of screens while offering a seamless experience to Android users. “The app feels more native, more fluid, and more intuitive across all form factors,” said Diego Valente, Head of Mobile, Peacock and Global Streaming. “That means users can start watching on a smaller screen and continue instantly on a larger one when they unfold the device—no reloads, no friction. It just works.”

Preparing for immersive entertainment experiences

In building adaptive apps on Android, John Jelley, Senior Vice President, Product & UX, Peacock and Global Streaming, says Peacock has also laid the groundwork to quickly adapt to the Android XR platform: “Android XR builds on the same large screen principles, our investment here naturally extends to those emerging experiences with less developmental work.”

The team is excited about the prospect of features unlocked by Android XR, like Multiview for sports and TV, which enables users to watch multiple games or camera angles at once. By tailoring spatial windows to the user’s environment, the app could offer new ways for users to interact with contextual metadata like sports stats or actor information—all without ever interrupting their experience.

Build adaptive apps

Learn how to unlock your app's full potential on phones, tablets, foldables, and beyond.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


16 things to know for Android developers at Google I/O 2025

Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer

Today at Google I/O, we announced the many ways we’re helping you build excellent, adaptive experiences, and helping you stay more productive through updates to our tooling that put AI at your fingertips and throughout your development lifecycle. Here’s a recap of 16 of our favorite announcements for Android developers; you can also see what was announced last week in The Android Show: I/O Edition. And stay tuned over the next two days as we dive into all of the topics in more detail!

Building AI into your Apps

1: Building intelligent apps with Generative AI

Generative AI enhances apps' experience by making them intelligent, personalized and agentic. This year, we announced new ML Kit GenAI APIs using Gemini Nano for common on-device tasks like summarization, proofreading, rewrite, and image description. We also provided capabilities for developers to harness more powerful models such as Gemini Pro, Gemini Flash, and Imagen via Firebase AI Logic for more complex use cases like image generation and processing extensive data across modalities, including bringing AI to life in Android XR, and a new AI sample app, Androidify, that showcases how these APIs can transform your selfies into unique Android robots! To start building intelligent experiences by leveraging these new capabilities, explore the developer documentation, sample apps, and watch the overview session to choose the right solution for your app.

New experiences across devices

2: One app, every screen: think adaptive and unlock 500 million screens

Mobile Android apps form the foundation across phones, foldables, tablets and ChromeOS, and this year we’re helping you bring them to cars and XR and expanding usages with desktop windowing and connected displays. This expansion means tapping into an ecosystem of 500 million devices – a significant opportunity to engage more users when you think adaptive, building a single mobile app that works across form factors. Resources, including Compose Layouts library and Jetpack Navigation updates, help make building these dynamic experiences easier than before. You can see how Peacock, NBCUniveral’s streaming service (available in the US) is building adaptively to meet users where they are.

Disclaimer: Peacock is available in the US only. This video will only be viewable to US viewers.

3: Material 3 Expressive: design for intuition and emotion

The new Material 3 Expressive update provides tools to enhance your product's appeal by harnessing emotional UX, making it more engaging, intuitive, and desirable for users. Check out the I/O talk to learn more about expressive design and how it inspires emotion, clearly guides users toward their goals, and offers a flexible and personalized experience.

moving image of Material 3 Expressive demo

4: Smarter widgets, engaging live updates

Measure the return on investment of your widgets (available soon) and easily create personalized widget previews with Glance 1.2. Promoted Live Updates notify users of important ongoing notifications and come with a new Progress Style standardized template.

moving image of Material 3 Expressive demo

5: Enhanced Camera & Media: low light boost and battery savings

This year's I/O introduces several camera and media enhancements. These include a software low light boost for improved photography in dim lighting and native PCM offload, allowing the DSP to handle more audio playback processing, thus conserving user battery. Explore our detailed sessions on built-in effects within CameraX and Media3 for further information.

6: Build next-gen app experiences for Cars

We're launching expanded opportunities for developers to build in-car experiences, including new Gemini integrations, support for more app categories like Games and Video, and enhanced capabilities for media and communication apps via the Car App Library and new APIs. Alongside updated car app quality tiers and simplified distribution, we'll soon be providing improved testing tools like Android Automotive OS on Pixel Tablet and Firebase Test Lab access to help you bring your innovative apps to cars. Learn more from our technical session and blog post on new in-car app experiences.

7: Build for Android XR's expanding ecosystem with Developer Preview 2 of the SDK

We announced Android XR in December, and today at Google I/O we shared a bunch of updates coming to the platform including Developer Preview 2 of the Android XR SDK plus an expanding ecosystem of devices: in addition to the first Android XR headset, Samsung’s Project Moohan, you’ll also see more devices including a new portable Android XR device from our partners at XREAL. There’s lots more to cover for Android XR: Watch the Compose and AI on Android XR session, and the Building differentiated apps for Android XR with 3D content session, and learn more about building for Android XR.

product image of XREAL’s Project Aura against a nebulous black background
XREAL’s Project Aura

8: Express yourself on Wear OS: meet Material Expressive on Wear OS 6

This year we are launching Wear OS 6: the most powerful and expressive version of Wear OS. Wear OS 6 features Material 3 Expressive, a new UI design with personalized visuals and motion for user creativity, coming to Wear, Android, and Google apps later this year. Developers gain access to Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS by utilizing new Jetpack libraries: Wear Compose Material 3, which provides components for apps and Wear ProtoLayout Material 3 which provides components and layouts for tiles. Get started with Material 3 libraries and other updates on Wear.

moving image displays examples of Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS experiences
Some examples of Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS experiences

9: Engage users on Google TV with excellent TV apps

You can leverage more resources within Compose's core and Material libraries with the stable release of Compose for TV, empowering you to build excellent adaptive UIs across your apps. We're also thrilled to share exciting platform updates and developer tools designed to boost app engagement, including bringing Gemini capabilities to TV in the fall, opening enrollment for our Video Discovery API, and more.

Developer productivity

10: Build beautiful apps faster with Jetpack Compose

Compose is our big bet for UI development. The latest stable BOM release provides the features, performance, stability, and libraries that you need to build beautiful adaptive apps faster, so you can focus on what makes your app valuable to users.

moving image of compose adaptive layouts updates in the Google Play app
Compose Adaptive Layouts Updates in the Google Play app

11: Kotlin Multiplatform: new Shared Template lets you build across platforms, easily

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) enables teams to reach new audiences across Android and iOS with less development time. We’ve released a new Android Studio KMP shared module template, updated Jetpack libraries and new codelabs (Getting started with Kotlin Multiplatform and Migrating your Room database to KMP) to help developers who are looking to get started with KMP. Shared module templates make it easier for developers to craft, maintain, and own the business logic. Read more on what's new in Android's Kotlin Multiplatform.

12: Gemini in Android Studio: AI Agents to help you work

Gemini in Android Studio is the AI-powered coding companion that makes Android developers more productive at every stage of the dev lifecycle. In March, we introduced Image to Code to bridge the gap between UX teams and software engineers by intelligently converting design mockups into working Compose UI code. And today, we previewed new agentic AI experiences, Journeys for Android Studio and Version Upgrade Agent. These innovations make it easier to build and test code. You can read more about these updates in What’s new in Android development tools.

13: Android Studio: smarter with Gemini

In this latest release, we're empowering devs with AI-driven tools like Gemini in Android Studio, streamlining UI creation, making testing easier, and ensuring apps are future-proofed in our ever-evolving Android ecosystem. These innovations accelerate development cycles, improve app quality, and help you stay ahead in a dynamic mobile landscape. To take advantage, upgrade to the latest Studio release. You can read more about these innovations in What’s new in Android development tools.

moving image of Gemini in Android Studio Agentic Experiences including Journeys and Version Upgrade

And the latest on driving business growth

14: What’s new in Google Play

Get ready for exciting updates from Play designed to boost your discovery, engagement and revenue! Learn how we’re continuing to become a content-rich destination with enhanced personalization and fresh ways to showcase your apps and content. Plus, explore powerful new subscription features designed to streamline checkout and reduce churn. Read I/O 2025: What's new in Google Play to learn more.

a moving image of three mobile devices displaying how content is displayed on the Play Store

15: Start migrating to Play Games Services v2 today

Play Games Services (PGS) connects over 2 billion gamer profiles on Play, powering cross-device gameplay, personalized gaming content and rewards for your players throughout the gaming journey. We are moving PGS v1 features to v2 with more advanced features and an easier integration path. Learn more about the migration timeline and new features.

16: And of course, Android 16

We unpacked some of the latest features coming to users in Android 16, which we’ve been previewing with you for the last few months. If you haven’t already, make sure to test your apps with the latest Beta of Android 16. Android 16 includes Live Updates, professional media and camera features, desktop windowing and connected displays, major accessibility enhancements and much more.

Check out all of the Android and Play content at Google I/O

This was just a preview of some of the cool updates for Android developers at Google I/O, but stay tuned to Google I/O over the next two days as we dive into a range of Android developer topics in more detail. You can check out the What’s New in Android and the full Android track of sessions, and whether you’re joining in person or around the world, we can’t wait to engage with you!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


Android’s Kotlin Multiplatform announcements at Google I/O and KotlinConf 25

Posted by Ben Trengrove - Developer Relations Engineer, Matt Dyor - Product Manager

Google I/O and KotlinConf 2025 bring a series of announcements on Android’s Kotlin and Kotlin Multiplatform efforts. Here’s what to watch out for:

Announcements from Google I/O 2025

Jetpack libraries

Our focus for Jetpack libraries and KMP is on sharing business logic across Android and iOS, but we have begun experimenting with web/WASM support.

We are adding KMP support to Jetpack libraries. Last year we started with Room, DataStore and Collection, which are now available in a stable release and recently we have added ViewModel, SavedState and Paging. The levels of support that our Jetpack libraries guarantee for each platform have been categorised into three tiers, with the top tier being for Android, iOS and JVM.

Tool improvements

We're developing new tools to help easily start using KMP in your app. With the KMP new module template in Android Studio Meerkat, you can add a new module to an existing app and share code to iOS and other supported KMP platforms.

In addition to KMP enhancements, Android Studio now supports Kotlin K2 mode for Android specific features requiring language support such as Live Edit, Compose Preview and many more.

How Google is using KMP

Last year, Google Workspace began experimenting with KMP, and this is now running in production in the Google Docs app on iOS. The app’s runtime performance is on par or better than before1.

It’s been helpful to have an app at this scale test KMP out, because we’re able to identify issues and fix issues that benefit the KMP developer community.

For example, we've upgraded the Kotlin Native compiler to LLVM 16 and contributed a more efficient garbage collector and string implementation. We're also bringing the static analysis power of Android Lint to Kotlin targets and ensuring a unified Gradle DSL for both AGP and KGP to improve the plugin management experience.

New guidance

We're providing comprehensive guidance in the form of two new codelabs: Getting started with Kotlin Multiplatform and Migrating your Room database to KMP, to help you get from standalone Android and iOS apps to shared business logic.

Kotlin Improvements

Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP2) is stable to better support new Kotlin language features and deliver better performance. It is easier to integrate with build systems, is thread-safe, and has better support for debugging annotation processors. In contrast to KSP1, KSP2 has much better compatibility across different Kotlin versions. The rewritten command line interface also becomes significantly easier to use as it is now a standalone program instead of a compiler plugin.

KotlinConf 2025

Google team members are presenting a number of talks at KotlinConf spanning multiple topics:

Talks

    • Deploying KMP at Google Workspace by Jason Parachoniak, Troels Lund, and Johan Bay from the Workspace team discusses the challenges and solutions, including bugs and performance optimizations, encountered when launching Kotlin Multiplatform at Google Workspace, offering comparisons to ObjectiveC and a Q&A. (Technical Session)

    • The Life and Death of a Kotlin/Native Object by Troels Lund offers a high-level explanation of the Kotlin/Native runtime's inner workings concerning object instantiation, memory management, and disposal. (Technical Session)

    • APIs: How Hard Can They Be? presented by Aurimas Liutikas and Alan Viverette from the Jetpack team delves into the lifecycle of API design, review processes, and evolution within AndroidX libraries, particularly considering KMP and related tools. (Technical Session)

    • Project Sparkles: How Compose for Desktop is changing Android Studio and IntelliJ with Chris Sinco and Sebastiano Poggi from the Android Studio team introduces the initiative ('Project Sparkles') aiming to modernize Android Studio and IntelliJ UIs using Compose for Desktop, covering goals, examples, and collaborations. (Technical Session)

    • JSpecify: Java Nullness Annotations and Kotlin presented by David Baker explains the significance and workings of JSpecify's standard Java nullness annotations for enhancing Kotlin's interoperability with Java libraries. (Lightning Session)

    • Lessons learned decoupling Architecture Components from platform specific code features Jeremy Woods and Marcello Galhardo from the Jetpack team sharing insights from the Android team on decoupling core components like SavedState and System Back from platform specifics to create common APIs. (Technical Session)

    • KotlinConf’s Closing Panel, a regular staple of the conference, returns, featuring Jeffrey van Gogh as Google’s representative on the panel. (Panel)

Live Workshops

If you are at KotlinConf in person, we will have guided live workshops with our new codelabs from above.


    • The codelab Migrating Room to Room KMP, also led by Matt Dyor, and Dustin Lam, Tomáš Mlynarič, demonstrates the process of migrating an existing Room database implementation to Room KMP within a shared module.

We love engaging with the Kotlin community. If you are attending KotlinConf, we hope you get a chance to check out our booth, with opportunities to chat with our engineers, get your questions answered, and learn more about how you can leverage Kotlin and KMP.

Learn more about Kotlin Multiplatform

To learn more about KMP and start sharing your business logic across platforms, check out our documentation and the sample.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


1 Google Internal Data, March 2025

Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3

Posted by Don Turner - Developer Relations Engineer

Navigating between screens in your app should be simple, shouldn't it? However, building a robust, scalable, and delightful navigation experience can be a challenge. For years, the Jetpack Navigation library has been a key tool for developers, but as the Android UI landscape has evolved, particularly with the rise of Jetpack Compose, we recognized the need for a new approach.

Today, we're excited to introduce Jetpack Navigation 3, a new navigation library built from the ground up specifically for Compose. For brevity, we'll just call it Nav3 from now on. This library embraces the declarative programming model and Compose state as fundamental building blocks.

Why a new navigation library?

The original Jetpack Navigation library (sometimes referred to as Nav2 as it's on major version 2) was initially announced back in 2018, before AndroidX and before Compose. While it served its original goals well, we heard from you that it had several limitations when working with modern Compose patterns.

One key limitation was that the back stack state could only be observed indirectly. This meant there could be two sources of truth, potentially leading to an inconsistent application state. Also, Nav2's NavHost was designed to display only a single destination – the topmost one on the back stack – filling the available space. This made it difficult to implement adaptive layouts that display multiple panes of content simultaneously, such as a list-detail layout on large screens.

illustration of single pane and two-pane layouts showing list and detail features
Figure 1. Changing from single pane to multi-pane layouts can create navigational challenges

Founding principles

Nav3 is built upon principles designed to provide greater flexibility and developer control:

    • You own the back stack: You, the developer, not the library, own and control the back stack. It's a simple list which is backed by Compose state. Specifically, Nav3 expects your back stack to be SnapshotStateList<T> where T can be any type you choose. You can navigate by adding or removing items (Ts), and state changes are observed and reflected by Nav3's UI.
    • Get out of your way: We heard that you don't like a navigation library to be a black box with inaccessible internal components and state. Nav3 is designed to be open and extensible, providing you with building blocks and helpful defaults. If you want custom navigation behavior you can drop down to lower layers and create your own components and customizations.
    • Pick your building blocks: Instead of embedding all behavior within the library, Nav3 offers smaller components that you can combine to create more complex functionality. We've also provided a "recipes book" that shows how to combine components to solve common navigation challenges.

illustration of the Nav3 display observing changes to the developer-owned back stack
Figure 2. The Nav3 display observes changes to the developer-owned back stack.

Key features

    • Adaptive layouts: A flexible layout API (named Scenes) allows you to render multiple destinations in the same layout (for example, a list-detail layout on large screen devices). This makes it easy to switch between single and multi-pane layouts.
    • Modularity: The API design allows navigation code to be split across multiple modules. This improves build times and allows clear separation of responsibilities between feature modules.

      moving image demonstrating custom animations and predictive back features on a mobile device
      Figure 3. Custom animations and predictive back are easy to implement, and easy to override for individual destinations.

      Basic code example

      To give you an idea of how Nav3 works, here's a short code sample.

      // Define the routes in your app and any arguments.
data object Home
data class Product(val id: String)

// Create a back stack, specifying the route the app should start with.
val backStack = remember { mutableStateListOf<Any>(ProductList) }

// A NavDisplay displays your back stack. Whenever the back stack changes, the display updates.
NavDisplay(
    backStack = backStack,

    // Specify what should happen when the user goes back
    onBack = { backStack.removeLastOrNull() },

    // An entry provider converts a route into a NavEntry which contains the content for that route.
    entryProvider = { route ->
        when (route) {
            is Home -> NavEntry(route) {
                Column {
                    Text("Welcome to Nav3")
                    Button(onClick = {
                        // To navigate to a new route, just add that route to the back stack
                        backStack.add(Product("123"))
                    }) {
                        Text("Click to navigate")
                    }
                }
            }
            is Product -> NavEntry(route) {
                Text("Product ${route.id} ")
            }
            else -> NavEntry(Unit) { Text("Unknown route: $route") }
        }
    }
)

      Get started and provide feedback

      To get started, check out the developer documentation, plus the recipes repository which provides examples for:

        • common navigation UI, such as a navigation rail or bar
        • conditional navigation, such as a login flow
        • custom layouts using Scenes

      We plan to provide code recipes, documentation and blogs for more complex use cases in future.

      Nav3 is currently in alpha, which means that the API is liable to change based on feedback. If you have any issues, or would like to provide feedback, please file an issue.

      Nav3 offers a flexible and powerful foundation for building modern navigation in your Compose applications. We're really excited to see what you build with it.

      Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.

Updates to the Android XR SDK: Introducing Developer Preview 2

Posted by Matthew McCullough – VP of Product Management, Android Developer

Since launching the Android XR SDK Developer Preview alongside Samsung, Qualcomm, and Unity last year, we’ve been blown away by all of the excitement we’ve been hearing from the broader Android community. Whether it's through coding live-streams or local Google Developer Group talks, it's been an outstanding experience participating in the community to build the future of XR together, and we're just getting started.

Today we’re excited to share an update to the Android XR SDK: Developer Preview 2, packed with new features and improvements to help you develop helpful and delightful immersive experiences with familiar Android APIs, tools and open standards created for XR.

At Google I/O, we have two technical sessions related to Android XR. The first is Building differentiated apps for Android XR with 3D content, which covers many features present in Jetpack SceneCore and ARCore for Jetpack XR. The future is now, with Compose and AI on Android XR covers creating XR-differentiated UI and our vision on the intersection of XR with cutting-edge AI capabilities.

Android XR sessions at Google I/O 2025
Building differentiated apps for Android XR with 3D content and The future is now, with Compose and AI on Android XR

What’s new in Developer Preview 2

Since the release of Developer Preview 1, we’ve been focused on making the APIs easier to use and adding new immersive Android XR features. Your feedback has helped us shape the development of the tools, SDKs, and the platform itself.

With the Jetpack XR SDK, you can now play back 180° and 360° videos, which can be stereoscopic by encoding with the MV-HEVC specification or by encoding view-frames adjacently. The MV-HEVC standard is optimized and designed for stereoscopic video, allowing your app to efficiently play back immersive videos at great quality. Apps built with Jetpack Compose for XR can use the SpatialExternalSurface composable to render media, including stereoscopic videos.

Using Jetpack Compose for XR, you can now also define layouts that adapt to different XR display configurations. For example, use a SubspaceModifier to specify the size of a Subspace as a percentage of the device’s recommended viewing size, so a panel effortlessly fills the space it's positioned in.

Material Design for XR now supports more component overrides for TopAppBar, AlertDialog, and ListDetailPaneScaffold, helping your large-screen enabled apps that use Material Design effortlessly adapt to the new world of XR.

An app adapts to XR using Material Design for XR with the new component overrides
An app adapts to XR using Material Design for XR with the new component overrides

In ARCore for Jetpack XR, you can now track hands after requesting the appropriate permissions. Hands are a collection of 26 posed hand joints that can be used to detect hand gestures and bring a whole new level of interaction to your Android XR apps:

moving image demonstrates how hands bring a natural input method to your Android XR experience.
Hands bring a natural input method to your Android XR experience.

For more guidance on developing apps for Android XR, check out our Android XR Fundamentals codelab, the updates to our Hello Android XR sample project, and a new version of JetStream with Android XR support.

The Android XR Emulator has also received updates to stability, support for AMD GPUs, and is now fully integrated within the Android Studio UI.

the Android XR Emulator in Android STudio
The Android XR Emulator is now integrated in Android Studio

Developers using Unity have already successfully created and ported existing games and apps to Android XR. Today, you can upgrade to the Pre-Release version 2 of the Unity OpenXR: Android XR package! This update adds many performance improvements such as support for Dynamic Refresh Rate, which optimizes your app’s performance and power consumption. Shaders made with Shader Graph now support SpaceWarp, making it easier to use SpaceWarp to reduce compute load on the device. Hand meshes are now exposed with occlusion, which enables realistic hand visualization.

Check out Unity’s improved Mixed Reality template for Android XR, which now includes support for occlusion and persistent anchors.

We recently launched Android XR Samples for Unity, which demonstrate capabilities on the Android XR platform such as hand tracking, plane tracking, face tracking, and passthrough.

moving image of Google’s open-source Unity samples demonstrating platform features and showing how they’re implemented
Google’s open-source Unity samples demonstrate platform features and show how they’re implemented

The Firebase AI Logic for Unity is now in public preview! This makes it easy for you to integrate gen AI into your apps, enabling the creation of AI-powered experiences with Gemini and Android XR. The Firebase AI Logic fully supports Gemini's capabilities, including multimodal input and output, and bi-directional streaming for immersive conversational interfaces. Built with production readiness in mind, Firebase AI Logic is integrated with core Firebase services like App Check, Remote Config, and Cloud Storage for enhanced security, configurability, and data management. Learn more about this on the Firebase blog or go straight to the Gemini API using Vertex AI in Firebase SDK documentation to get started.

Continuing to build the future together

Our commitment to open standards continues with the glTF Interactivity specification, in collaboration with the Khronos Group. which will be supported in glTF models rendered by Jetpack XR later this year. Models using the glTF Interactivity specification are self-contained interactive assets that can have many pre-programmed behaviors, like rotating objects on a button press or changing the color of a material over time.

Android XR will be available first on Samsung’s Project Moohan, launching later this year. Soon after, our partners at XREAL will release the next Android XR device. Codenamed Project Aura, it’s a portable and tethered device that gives users access to their favorite Android apps, including those that have been built for XR. It will launch as a developer edition, specifically for you to begin creating and experimenting. The best news? With the familiar tools you use to build Android apps today, you can build for these devices too.

product image of XREAL’s Project Aura against a nebulous black background
XREAL’s Project Aura

The Google Play Store is also getting ready for Android XR. It will list supported 2D Android apps on the Android XR Play Store when it launches later this year. If you are working on an Android XR differentiated app, you can get it ready for the big launch and be one of the first differentiated apps on the Android XR Play Store:

And we know many of you are excited for the future of Android XR on glasses. We are shaping the developer experience now and will share more details on how you can participate later this year.

To get started creating and developing for Android XR, check out developer.android.com/develop/xr where you will find all of the tools, libraries, and resources you need to work with the Android XR SDK. In particular, try out our samples and codelabs.

We welcome your feedback, suggestions, and ideas as you’re helping shape Android XR. Your passion, expertise, and bold ideas are vital as we continue to develop Android XR together. We look forward to seeing your XR-differentiated apps when Android XR devices launch later this year!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


Google I/O 2025: Build adaptive Android apps that shine across form factors

Posted by Fahd Imtiaz – Product Manager, Android Developer

If your app isn’t built to adapt, you’re missing out on the opportunity to reach a giant swath of users across 500 million devices! At Google I/O this year, we are exploring how adaptive development isn’t just a good idea, but essential to building apps that shine across the expanding Android device ecosystem. This is your guide to meeting users wherever they are, with experiences that are perfectly tailored to their needs.

The advantage of building adaptive

In today's multi-device world, users expect their favorite applications to work flawlessly and intuitively, whether they're on a smartphone, tablet, or Chromebook. This expectation for seamless experiences isn't just about convenience; it's an important factor for user engagement and retention.

For example, entertainment apps (including Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu) users on both phone and tablet spend almost 200% more time in-app (nearly 3x engagement) than phone-only users in the US*.

Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service has seen a trend of users moving between mobile and large screens and building adaptively enables a single build to work across the different form factors.

“This allows Peacock to have more time to innovate faster and deliver more value to its customers.”
– Diego Valente, Head of Mobile, Peacock and Global Streaming

Adaptive Android development offers the strategic solution, enabling apps to perform effectively across an expanding array of devices and contexts through intelligent design choices that emphasize code reuse and scalability. With Android's continuous growth into new form factors and upcoming enhancements such as desktop windowing and connected displays in Android 16, an app's ability to seamlessly adapt to different screen sizes is becoming increasingly crucial for retaining users and staying competitive.

Beyond direct user benefits, designing adaptively also translates to increased visibility. The Google Play Store actively helps promote developers whose apps excel on different form factors. If your application delivers a great experience on tablets or is excellent on ChromeOS, users on those devices will have an easier time discovering your app. This creates a win-win situation: better quality apps for users and a broader audience for you.

examples of form factors across small phones, tablets, laoptops, and auto

Latest in adaptive Android development from Google I/O

To help you more effectively build compelling adaptive experiences, we shared several key updates at I/O this year.

Build for the expanding Android device ecosystem

Your mobile apps can now reach users beyond phones on over 500 million active devices, including foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, and even compatible cars, with minimal changes. Android 16 introduces significant advancements in desktop windowing for a true desktop-like experience on large screens and when devices are connected to external displays. And, Android XR is opening a new dimension, allowing your existing mobile apps to be available in immersive virtual environments.

The mindset shift to Adaptive

With the expanding Android device ecosystem, adaptive app development is a fundamental strategy. It's about how the same mobile app runs well across phones, foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, connected displays, XR, and cars, laying a strong foundation for future devices and differentiating for specific form factors. You don't need to rebuild your app for each form factor; but rather make small, iterative changes, as needed, when needed. Embracing this adaptive mindset today isn't just about keeping pace; it's about leading the charge in delivering exceptional user experiences across the entire Android ecosystem.

examples of form factors including vr headset

Leverage powerful tools and libraries to build adaptive apps:

    • Compose Adaptive Layouts library: This library makes adaptive development easier by allowing your app code to fit into canonical layout patterns like list-detail and supporting pane, that automatically reflow as your app is resized, flipped or folded. In the 1.1 release, we introduced pane expansion, allowing users to resize panes. The Socialite demo app showcased how one codebase using this library can adapt across six form factors. New adaptation strategies like "Levitate" (elevating a pane, e.g., into a dialog or bottom sheet) and "Reflow" (reorganizing panes on the same level) were also announced in 1.2 (alpha). For XR, component overrides can automatically spatialize UI elements.

    • Jetpack Navigation 3 (Alpha): This new navigation library simplifies defining user journeys across screens with less boilerplate code, especially for multi-pane layouts in Compose. It helps handle scenarios where list and detail panes might be separate destinations on smaller screens but shown together on larger ones. Check out the new Jetpack Navigation library in alpha.

    • Jetpack Compose input enhancements: Compose's layered architecture, strong input support, and single location for layout logic simplify creating adaptive UIs. Upcoming in Compose 1.9 are right-click context menus and enhanced trackpad/mouse functionality.

    • Window Size Classes: Use window size classes for top-level layout decisions. AndroidX.window 1.5 introduces two new width size classes – "large" (1200dp to 1600dp) and "extra-large" (1600dp and larger) – providing more granular breakpoints for large screens. This helps in deciding when to expand navigation rails or show three panes of content. Support for these new breakpoints was also announced in the Compose adaptive layouts library 1.2 alpha, along with design guidance.

    • Compose previews: Get quick feedback by visualizing your layouts across a wide variety of screen sizes and aspect ratios. You can also specify different devices by name to preview your UI on their respective sizes and with their inset values.

    • Testing adaptive layouts: Validating your adaptive layouts is crucial and Android Studio offers various tools for testing – including previews for different sizes and aspect ratios, a resizable emulator to test across different screen sizes with a single AVD, screenshot tests, and instrumental behavior tests. And with Journeys with Gemini in Android Studio, you can define tests using natural language for even more robust testing across different window sizes.

Ensuring app availability across devices

Avoid unnecessarily declaring required features (like specific cameras or GPS) in your manifest, as this can prevent your app from appearing in the Play Store on devices that lack those specific hardware components but could otherwise run your app perfectly.

Handling different input methods

Remember to handle various input methods like touch, keyboard, and mouse, especially with Chromebook detachables and connected displays.

Prepare for orientation and resizability API changes in Android 16

Beginning in Android 16, for apps targeting SDK 36, manifest and runtime restrictions on orientation, resizability, and aspect ratio will be ignored on displays that are at least 600dp in both dimensions. To meet user expectations, your apps will need layouts that work for both portrait and landscape windows, and support resizing at runtime. There's a temporary opt-out manifest flag at both the application and activity level to delay these changes until targetSdk 37, and these changes currently do not apply to apps categorized as "Games". Learn more about these API changes.

Adaptive considerations for games

Games need to be adaptive too and Unity 6 will add enhanced support for configuration handling, including APIs for screenshots, aspect ratio, and density. Success stories like Asphalt Legends Unite show significant user retention increases on foldables after implementing adaptive features.

examples of form factors including vr headset

Start building adaptive today

Now is the time to elevate your Android apps, making them intuitively responsive across form factors. With the latest tools and updates we’re introducing, you have the power to build experiences that seamlessly flow across all devices, from foldables to cars and beyond. Implementing these strategies will allow you to expand your reach and delight users across the Android ecosystem.

Get inspired by the “Adaptive Android development makes your app shine across devices” talk, and explore all the resources you’ll need to start your journey at developer.android.com/adaptive-apps!

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.


*Source: internal Google data

I/O 2025: What’s new in Google Play

Posted by Paul Feng, VP of Product Management, Google Play

At Google Play, we're dedicated to helping people discover experiences they'll love, while empowering developers like you to bring your ideas to life and build successful businesses.

At this year’s Google I/O, we unveiled the latest ways we’re empowering your success with new tools that provide robust testing and actionable insights. We also showcased how we’re continuing to build a content-rich Play Store that fosters repeat engagement alongside new subscription capabilities that streamline checkout and reduce churn.

Check out all the exciting developments from I/O below and learn how they'll help you grow your business on Google Play.

Helping you succeed every step of the way

Last month, we introduced our latest Play Console updates focused on improving quality and performance. A redesigned app dashboard centered around four developer objectives (Test and release, Monitor and improve, Grow users, Monetize) and new Android vitals metrics offer quick insights and actionable suggestions to proactively improve the user experience.

Get more actionable insights with new Play Console overview pages

Building on these updates, we've launched dedicated overview pages for two developer objectives: Test and release and Monitor and improve. These new pages bring together more objective-related metrics, relevant features, and a "Take action" section with contextual, dynamic advice. Overview pages for Grow and Monetize will be coming soon.

Halt fully-rolled out releases when needed

Historically, a release at 100% live meant there was no turning back, leaving users stuck with a flawed version until a new update rolled out. Soon, you'll be able to halt fully-live releases, through Play Console and the Publishing API to stop the distribution of problematic versions to new users.

a moving screen grab of release manager in Play Console
You'll soon be able to halt fully live releases directly from Play Console and the Publishing API, stopping the distribution of problematic versions to new users.

Optimize your store listings with better management tools and metrics

We launched two tools to enhance your store listings. The asset library makes it easy to upload, edit, and view your visual assets. Upload them from Google Drive, organize with tags, and crop for repurposing. And with new open metrics, you gain deeper insights into listing performance so you can better understand how they attract, engage, and re-engage users.

Stay ahead of threats with the Play Integrity API

We're committed to robust security and preventing abuse so you can thrive on Play’s trusted platform. The Play Integrity API continuously evolves to combat emerging threats, with these recent enhancements:

    • Stronger abuse detection for all developers that leverages the latest Android hardware-security with no developer effort required.
    • Device security update checks to safeguard your app’s sensitive actions like transfers or data access.
    • Public beta for device recall which enables you to detect if a device is being reused for abuse or repeated actions, even after a device reset. You can express interest in this beta.

Unlocking more discovery and engagement for your apps and its content

Last year, we shared our vision for a content-rich Google Play that has already delivered strong results. Year-over-year, Apps Home has seen over a 25% increase in average monthly visitors with apps seeing a 10% growth in acquisitions and double-digit growth in app spend for those monetizing on Google Play. Building on that vision, we're introducing even more updates to elevate your discovery and engagement, both on and off the store.

For example, curated spaces, launched last year, celebrate seasonal interests like football (soccer) in Brazil and cricket in India, and evergreen interests like comics in Japan. By adding daily content—match highlights, promotions, and editorial articles directly on the Apps Home—these spaces foster discovery and engagement. Curated spaces are a hit with over 920,000 highly engaged users in Japan returning to the comics space monthly. Building on this momentum, we are expanding to more locations and categories this year.

a moving image of three mobile devices displaying curated spaces on the Play Store
Our curated spaces add daily content to foster repeat discovery and engagement.

We're launching new topic browse pages that feature timely, relevant, and visually engaging content. Users can find them throughout the Store, including Apps Home, store listing pages, and search. These pages debut this month in the US with Media & Entertainment, showcasing over 100,000 shows, movies, and select sports. More localized topic pages will roll out globally later this year.

a moving image of two mobile devices displaying new browse pages for media and entertainment in the Play Store
New topic browse pages for media and entertainment are rolling out this month in the US.

We’re expanding Where to Watch to more markets, including the UK, Korea, Indonesia, and Mexico, to help users find and deep-link directly into their subscribed apps for movies and TV. Since launching in the US in November 2024, we've seen promising results: People who view app content through Where to Watch return to Play more frequently and increase their content search activity by 30%.

We're also enhancing how your content is displayed on the Play Store. Starting this July, all app developers can add a hero content carousel and a YouTube playlist carousel to their store listings. These formats will help showcase your best content and drive greater user engagement and discovery.

For apps best experienced through sound, we're launching audio samples on the Apps Home. A simple tap offers users a brief escape into your audio content. In early testing, audio samples made users 3x more likely to install or open an app! This feature is now available for all Health & Wellness app developers with users in the US, with more categories and markets coming soon. You can express your interest in promoting audio content.

a moving image of three mobile devices displaying how content is displayed on the Play Store
We're enhancing how your content is displayed on the Play Store, 
offering new ways to showcase your app and drive user engagement.

Helping you take advantage of deeper engagement on Play, on and off the Store

Last year, we introduced Engage SDK, a unified solution to deliver personalized content and guide users to relevant in-app experiences. Integrating it unlocks surfaces like Collections, our immersive full-screen experience bringing content directly to the user's home screen.

We're rolling out updates to expand your content’s reach even further:

    • Engage SDK content is coming to the Play Store this summer, in addition to existing spaces like Collections and Entertainment Space on select Android tablets.
    • New content categories are now supported, starting today with Travel.
    • Collections are rolling out globally to Google Play markets starting today, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Mexico.

Integrate with Engage SDK today to take advantage of this new expansion and boost re-engagement. Try our codelab to test the ease of publishing content with Engage SDK and express interest in the developer preview.

a mobile device displaying Collections on the Play Store
Engage SDK now supports Collections for Travel. 
Users can find timely itineraries and recent searches, all in one convenient place.

Maximizing your revenue with subscriptions enhancements

With over a quarter-billion subscriptions, Google Play is one of the world's largest subscriptions platforms. We're committed to helping you turn engaged users into revenue growth by continually enhancing our tools to meet evolving customer needs.

To streamline your purchase flow, we’re introducing multi-product checkout for subscriptions. This lets you sell subscription add-ons alongside base subscriptions, all under a single, aligned payment schedule. Users get a simplified experience with one price and one transaction, while you gain more control over how subscribers upgrade, downgrade, or manage their add-ons.

a mobile devices displaying multi-checkout where a base subscription plus add ons in shown a singluar transaction on the Play Store
You can now sell base subscriptions and add-ons together 
in a single, streamlined transaction.

To help you retain more of your subscribers, we’re now showcasing subscription benefits in more places across Play – including the Subscriptions Center, in reminder emails, and during purchase and cancellation flows. This increased visibility has already reduced voluntary churn by 2%. Be sure to enter your subscription benefits in Play Console so you can leverage this powerful new capability.

five mobile devices showing subscriptions in Play
To help reduce voluntary churn, we’re showcasing your subscriptions benefits across Play.

Reducing involuntary churn is a key factor in optimizing your revenue. When payment methods unexpectedly decline, users might unintentionally cancel. Now, instead of immediate cancellation, you can now choose a grace period (up to 30 days) or an account hold (up to 60 days). Developers who increased the decline recovery period – from 30 to 60 days – saw an average 10% reduction in involuntary churn for renewals.

On top of this, we're expanding our commitment to get more buyers ready for purchases throughout their entire journey. This includes prompting users to set up payment methods and verification right at device setup. After setup, we've integrated prompts into highly visible areas like the Play and Google account menus. And as always, we’re continuously enabling payments in more markets and expanding payment options. Plus, our AI models now help optimize in-app transactions by suggesting the right payment method at the right time, and we're bringing buyers back with effective cart abandonment reminders.

Grow your business on Google Play

Our latest updates reinforce our commitment to fostering a thriving Google Play ecosystem. From enhanced discovery and robust tools to new monetization avenues, we're empowering you to innovate and grow. We're excited for the future we're building together and encourage you to use these new capabilities to create even more impactful experiences. Thank you for being an essential part of the Google Play community.

Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on io.google starting May 22.