There aren’t many places where you can create something and quickly reach billions of people all over the world, not just on their phones, but also on their TVs, vehicles, tablets, watches, and other devices. Today at Google I/O, we talked about how Android can help you take advantage of this potential, and how Modern Android Development can help you develop experiences that are tailored to all of the many displays we use in our everyday lives.
We’ve compiled a list of the top 13 things Android developers should be aware of, ranging from Jetpack Compose to tablets to Wear OS and, of course, Android 13! Keep an eye out for Android’s entire schedule of 26 technical sessions and four workshops on Day 2 of Google I/O.
#1: Jetpack Compose Beta 1.2, providing support for more sophisticated use cases.
With features like LiveEdit, Recomposition Debugging, and Animation Preview, Android’s contemporary UI toolkit, Jetpack Compose, continues to offer the APIs you need to enable increasingly complex use cases like downloaded fonts, LazyGrids, window insets, nested scrolling interop, and more tools support.
#2: Introducing Live Edit with Android Studio
With Android Studio Dolphin Beta and Electric Eel Canary, you can get more done in less time. New capabilities and enhancements for Jetpack Compose and Wear OS development, as well as an enhanced Logcat experience, are included in Android Studio Dolphin. The new Google Play SDK Index and Firebase Crashlytics are also integrated into Android Studio Electric Eel. It also includes a new resizable emulator for testing your app on wide displays, as well as a new Live Edit functionality for deploying code changes made within composable functions right away.
#3: Baseline Profiles – reduce the time it takes for your program to load!
The speed with which your software loads after installation can have a significant impact on user retention. Baseline Profiles were established to improve that experience. Baseline Profiles allow apps and libraries to give metadata about code path usage to the Android runtime, which it utilizes to prioritize compilation ahead of time. We’ve witnessed up to a 30% improvement in app launch speeds just by introducing baseline profiles, with no further code modifications necessary! We already employ baseline profiles in Jetpack: baselines have been introduced to popular libraries like Fragments and Compose to improve the end-user experience.
#4: Making a big splash with Android tablets
Google is fully committed to tablets. We released Android 12L, a version focused on large-screen optimizations since the previous Google I/O, and Android 13 contains all of those enhancements and more. We also revealed the Pixel tablet, which will be available next year. There’s never been a better opportunity to go through your apps and make sure they’re ready for big displays with Android 13. With amazing new hardware, an updated operating system and Google apps, improved guidelines and libraries, and exciting changes to the Play store, there has never been a better time to review your apps and get them ready for large screens and Android 13. That’s why we’ve got four presentations and a workshop at this year’s Google I/O to guide you from design through execution for huge displays.
#5: Wear OS: Compose and more!
You may rethink what’s possible when creating wearables thanks to the newest Wear OS improvements. Jetpack Compose for Wear OS is now available in beta, allowing you to develop stunning Wear OS apps with fewer lines of code. Health Services is currently in beta, delivering a slew of new features to the health and fitness developer community. Last but not least, we announced the debut of The Google Pixel Watch, which combines the best of Fitbit and Wear OS and will be available this Fall. Watch the Wear OS technical presentation and read our Jetpack Compose for Wear OS announcement to learn more about all of the most exciting advancements for wearables.
#6: Welcome to Health Connect
Health Connect is a new platform developed in close collaboration between Google and Samsung that makes it easier to connect applications and reach more people with less effort, allowing you to securely access and share user health and fitness data across apps and devices. Health Connect is now available through Jetpack Health—read our announcement or watch the I/O session to learn more!
#7: Android Auto and Android TV
In the United States and globally, the popularity of Android for Cars and Android TV OS is growing. We’re offering new capabilities this year to make developing applications for vehicles and TV easier, as more consumers drive connected or tune in.
#8: Add Voice Across Devices
We’re increasing developer access to the Shortcuts API for Android for Cars, with support for Wear OS apps coming later this year, to make it easier for people to access your apps through speech across devices with Google Assistant. With Smarter Custom Intents, we’re making it even easier to create such experiences, allowing Assistant to better recognize larger instances of user inquiries using machine learning without the need for any NLU training. Additionally, we’re introducing enhancements that drive app discovery via voice on Mobile, starting with Brandless Queries, which drive app usage even when the user hasn’t explicitly said your app’s name, and App Install Suggestions, which appear if your app hasn’t been installed yet–both of these are automatically enabled for existing App Actions today.
#9: Check out what’s new in Play!
Get the latest Google Play news, including new ways to use Play to help your business thrive. The option to deep-link and generate up to 50 bespoke listings is one of the highlights, as is our LiveOps beta, which will let more developers submit content for consideration on the Play Store; and even more freedom in selling subscriptions.
Google Play SDK Index (#10)
With the new Google Play SDK index, you can see if an SDK is appropriate for your project. This new public portal displays over 100 of the most extensively used commercial SDKs, together with details such as which app permissions the SDK needs, app use data, and
#11: Android’s Privacy Sandbox
On Android, the Privacy Sandbox allows new advertising strategies to improve user privacy without jeopardizing free content and services. To give you an early peek at the SDK Runtime and Topics API, we have published the first Privacy Sandbox on Android Developer Preview. You may perform some early testing with these new technologies and see how they might fit into your solutions.
#12: Google’s new Wallet API
The new Google Wallet app for Android and Wear OS allows customers quick and safe access to everyday goods. We’re expanding the Google Wallet API, formerly known as the Google Pay Passes API, to include generic passes, pass grouping and mixing (for example, grouping an event ticket with a voucher), and a new Android SDK that lets you save passes directly from your app without requiring a backend integration.
#13: And then there’s Android 13!
Android 13’s second Beta is now available! Prepare your apps for new privacy and security features, including new notification permission, a privacy-protecting photo picker, and enhanced permissions for pairing with adjacent devices and accessing media files. Add features like app-specific language support and customized app icons to your app. HDR visuals and Bluetooth LE audio is among the current features. Enroll your Pixel device here or test Android 13 Beta on certain phones, tablets, and foldable to get started.
