The latest Android and Google Play news for app and game developers.
Posted by Iliyan Malchev, Project Treble Architect
Android P Beta available at android.com/beta
As Android continues to evolve, each new release of the OS brings new features, new user experiences, and better security. It is important that these new releases find their way to mobile devices as fast as possible.
Yesterday, we announced that the following devices, in addition to Pixel and Pixel 2, now support Android P Beta: Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6 and Essential PH‑1. Android P Beta provides an opportunity for developers and early adopters around the world to try the latest Android release, test their apps, and provide feedback.
In this post, we provide an update to Project Treble and the technology that allowed us to bring Android Beta to more phones this year.
Bringing the new Android release quickly to the hands of users takes a combined effort between Google, silicon manufacturers (SM), device manufacturers (OEMs), and carriers. This process is technically challenging and requires aligning the schedules between our industry partners.
To reduce the technical difficulties, we launched Project Treble as part of Android Oreo.
Next, to capitalize on the foundation we built, we collaborated closely with the silicon manufacturers, where the journey of making an Android device always begins.
Any device with the latest version of Android must be based on an SoC with the proper software support for it. This software, commonly referred to as the Board Support Package (BSP), contains not only the chip-specific vendor implementation, but also all of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and pieces of the framework that are missing from AOSP itself (e.g., carrier-specific telephony functionality).
These BSPs are the starting point for all device launches. OEMs adapt the vendor implementation to their hardware and add their own custom framework components.
While silicon manufacturers always want the latest version of Android in their BSPs, the costs have been prohibitive. By making it possible for newer AOSP frameworks to run on older, already-released vendor implementations, Project Treble dramatically reduces the need for continuous investment in older silicon to support each Android release. Silicon manufacturers have to do all this work just once, rather than every time there is a new release of Android.
However, that first time still has to happen. Below is a chart, which illustrates the effort the various actors expend over time as they go through each release. You can think of it as code churn or bug count over time.
The chart shows how there is very little time in the year for Google, silicon manufacturers, and the OEMs to all this work. Any overlap between phases causes code churn and introduces significant schedule risk. For OEMs who target the holiday season, it is often safer to launch on an older BSP with a year-old or even older Android version. This dynamic has been at the heart of the slow uptake of the latest Android release, even on flagship devices.
To solve this, we've worked closely with Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung SLSI to co-develop their BSPs, starting with Android P. Their BSPs are now ready for Android P on a much-accelerated schedule, reducing the overall effort significantly. These silicon manufacturers are now able to provide a stable and high-quality release much earlier than before, allowing OEMs to bring the latest innovations of Android to their customers across the globe.
This is an important step in accelerating the adoption of Android releases that bring numerous benefits to our partners, users, and Android developers. We look forward to seeing many more partners launch or upgrade devices to Android P.
Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Wear OS by Google
At Google I/O, we launched the Wear OS by Google developer preview 2. This update added support for Actions on Google (AoG) and more power-related enhancements including a new battery saver mode.
This developer preview includes updated Android Emulator images and a downloadable system image for the Huawei Watch 2 Bluetooth or Huawei Watch 2 Classic Bluetooth. This preview release is intended for developers only and not for daily or consumer use. Therefore, the preview release is only available via manual download and flash. Please refer to the release notes for known issues before downloading and flashing your device.
We have revamped the Google Assistant on Wear OS to support features such as visual cards, follow-on suggestion chips, and text-to-speech. For developers, we added support for Actions on Google to Wear OS and existing Actions will work on Wear OS out of the box. Be sure to observe best practices for Actions on Google to get the best results such as short concise dialog and adopting to both visual and vocal feedback. This feature does not depend on Android P and is being rolled out to all Wear 2.0 users.
In this Android P developer preview, we are launching an enhanced battery saver mode. While the watch is in this mode, the watch shows a power-efficient watch face and turns off a set of services including radios, the touch screen, and tilt to wake. Users can get the time by pressing the side button. A long press allows the user to switch back to a fully-operational mode and perform tasks such as paying with NFC or replying to a message. Developers should assume that their apps, watch faces, and complication data providers are not available in enhanced battery saver mode.
We received much feedback on the power saving features in the last developer preview. As a result, we have updates on two features:
Smart Reply has been enabled for bridged notifications from the user's smartphone for some time. With the latest developer preview, we are introducing simplified Chinese support for our users in China. This feature is powered by an on-device model using TensorFlow Lite and the model is optimized for low-memory, low-power devices.
To use this feature, developers should set setAllowGeneratedReplies of the reply action to true. Here's a sample code snippet with the important part highlighted in bold:
setAllowGeneratedReplies
NotificationCompat.Action action = new NotificationCompat.Action.Builder(R.drawable.ic_reply_white_24dp, replyLabel, replyPendingIntent) .addRemoteInput(remoteInput) .setAllowGeneratedReplies(true) // <--- true to enable smart replies // Wear OS requires a hint to display the reply action inline. .extend(new NotificationCompat.Action.WearableExtender() .setHintDisplayActionInline(true)) .build();
In addition, for messaging apps, we recommend that developers use MessagingStyle notifications. This can give the algorithm a more structured data set on which to base its recommendations.
MessagingStyle
We expect to provide more updates to this preview before the final production release. Please submit any bugs you find via the Wear OS by Google issue tracker. The earlier you submit them, the higher the likelihood that we can include the fixes in the final release.
Google Play connects a thriving ecosystem of developers to people using more than 2 billion active Android devices around the world. In fact, more than 94 billion apps were installed from Google Play in the last year alone. We’re continuing to empower Android developers with new features in the Play Console to help you improve your app’s performance and grow your business. And, at Google I/O 2018, we’re introducing our vision for a new Android app model that is modular and dynamic.
The Android App Bundle is Android's new publishing format, with which you can more easily deliver a great experience in a smaller app size, and optimize for the wide variety of Android devices and form factors available. The app bundle includes all your app's compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to Google Play. You no longer have to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs.
Google Play's new app serving model, called Dynamic Delivery, uses your app bundle to generate and serve optimized APKs for each user's device configuration. This means people download only the code and resources they need to run your app. People see a smaller install size on the Play Store, can install your app more quickly, and save space on their devices.
(Left) An example of all resources being delivered to a device via a legacy APK. (Right) An example of Dynamic Delivery serving just what’s needed to a device.
With the Android App Bundle, you're also able to add dynamic feature modules to your app. Through Dynamic Delivery, your users can download your app's dynamic features on-demand, instead of during the initial install, further reducing your app's download size. To publish apps with dynamic feature modules, apply to join the beta.
Start using the Android App Bundle in the latest Android Studio canary release. Test your release using the testing tracks in the Play Console before pushing to production. Watch these I/O sessions to hear from the team as they introduce the new app model:
An internal study Google ran last year found that over 40% of one-star reviews on the Play Store mentioned app stability as an issue. Conversely, people consistently reward the best performing apps with better ratings and reviews, leading to better rankings on Google Play and more installs. Not only that, but people tend to be more engaged and willing to spend more time and money in those apps. To help you understand and fix quality issues we're improving a number of features in the Google Play Console.
Watch these I/O sessions where we introduce the new features and share examples of how developers are using them successfully:
The Play Console has tools and reports to help your whole team understand and improve your app's store performance and business metrics. The Play Console's access management controls were recently improved so you can more easily grant access to your whole team while having granular control over which data and tools they can see and use.
Subscriptions continue to see huge growth, with subscribers on Google Play growing over 80% year over year. Google Play Billing offers developers useful features to acquire, engage, and retain subscribers, and gives users a consistent and familiar purchase flow. We're making improvements to help you prepare your subscriptions business for the future and to give users more information on their subscriptions.
Watch our I/O session where we explain the new features:
As we have announced, Google Play will require new apps (from August 2018) and app updates (from November 2018) to target API level 26 or higher. For more information and practical guidance on preparing for the new requirement, watch the I/O session, Migrating your existing app to target Android Oreo and above, and review our migration guide. If you develop an SDK or library that's used by developers, make sure it's ready to target Oreo too and sign up to receive news and updates for SDK providers.
To find out more about all these new features, learn best practices, understand how other developers are finding success, and hear from the teams building these features, watch the Android & Play sessions at I/O 2018. For more developer resources about how to improve your app's performance on Google Play, read this guide to the Google Play Console and visit the Android developers website. Finally, to stay up to date, sign up to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium where we post regularly.
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Today at Google I/O 2018 we announced the latest preview of Android Studio 3.2 which includes an exciting set of features that support the Android P Developer Preview, the new Android App Bundle, and Android Jetpack. Download Android Studio 3.2 from our canary release channel today to explore one of the most feature rich releases of the year.
Android Jetpack is a set of libraries, developer tools and architectural guidance to help make it quick and easy to build great Android apps. It provides common infrastructure code so you can focus on what makes your app unique. Android Studio 3.2 includes a wide set of tools that support Jetpack from a visual Navigation Editor that uses the Navigation API, templates for Android Slices APIs, to refactoring tools to migrate to the new Android support libraries in Jetpack — AndroidX.
The canary 14 release of Android Studio 3.2 also supports the new Android app model that is the evolution of the APK format, the Android App Bundle. With no code changes, Android Studio 3.2 will help you create a new Android App Bundle and have it ready for publishing on Google Play.
There are 20 major features in this release of Android Studio spanning from ultra fast Android Emulator Snapshots, Sample Data in the Layout Editor, to a brand new Energy Profiler to measure battery impact of your app. If any of these features sound interesting, download the preview of Android Studio 3.2 today.
To see these features demoed in action and to get a sneak peak at other features we are working on, check out the Google I/O 2018 session - What's new in Android Development Tools.
Below is a full list of new features in Android Studio 3.2, organized by key developer flows.
Navigation Editor
android.enableJetifier = true
gradle.properties
AndroidX Refactoring Support
Design Time Sample Data
New Material Design Components
Slices Provider Template
CMakeList Code Completion
What's New Assistant
com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.2.0-alpha14
Build Android App Bundle
android.enableR8=true
Enable R8 in Android Studio
./adb emu avd snapshot load snap_2018-04-29_00-01-12
Android Emulator Snapshots
./adb emu screenrecord start --time-limit 10 /sample_video.webm
Screen record in Android Emulator
Virtual Scene Camera in Android Emulator
ADB Connection Assistant
Energy Profiler
System Trace
Profiler Sessions
startMethodTracing(String tracePath)
stopMethodTracing()
JNI Reference Tracking
To recap, the latest canary of Android Studio 3.2 includes these new major features:
Build
Optimize
Check out the preview release notes for more details.
Download the latest version of Android Studio 3.2 from the canary channel download page. If you are using a previous canary release of Android Studio, make sure you update to Android Studio Canary 14 or higher. If you want to maintain a stable version of Android Studio, you can run the stable release version and canary release versions of Android Studio at the same time. Learn more.
To use the mentioned Android Emulator features make sure you are running at least Android Emulator v27.3+ downloaded via the Android Studio SDK Manager.
We appreciate any early feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. Please note, to ensure we maintain product quality, the features you see in the canary channel may not be available in the next stable release channel until they are ready for stable usage. If you find a bug or issue, feel free to file an issue. Connect with us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on our Google+ page or on Twitter.
Posted by Chris Sells, Benjamin Poiesz, Karen Ng, Product Management, Android Developer Tools
Today we're excited to introduce Android Jetpack, the next generation of components, tools and architectural guidance to accelerate your Android app development.
Android Jetpack was inspired by the Support Library, a set of components to make it easy to take advantage of new Android features while maintaining backwards compatibility; it's currently used by 99% of every app in the Play Store. Following on that success, we introduced the Architecture Components, designed to make it easier to deal with data in the face of changes and the complications of the app lifecycle. Since we introduced those components at I/O just one year ago, an overwhelming number of you have adopted them. Companies such as LinkedIn, Zillow and iHeartRadio are seeing fewer bugs, higher testability and more time to focus on what makes their app unique.
The Android developer community has been clear -- not only do you like what we've done with these existing components, but we know that you want more! And so more is what you get.
Android Jetpack is a set of components, tools and guidance to make great Android apps. The Android Jetpack components bring together the existing Support Library and Architecture Components and arranges them into four categories:
Android Jetpack components are provided as "unbundled" libraries that are not part of the underlying Android platform. This means that you can adopt each component at your own speed, at your own time. When new Android Jetpack functionality is available, you can add it to your app, deploy your app to the Play Store and give users the new features all in a single day (if you're quick)! The unbundled Android Jetpack libraries have all been moved into the new androidx.* namespace (as described in detail in this post).
androidx.*
In addition, your app can run on various versions of the platform because Android Jetpack components are built to provide their functionality independent of any specific version, providing backwards compatibility.
Further, Android Jetpack is built around modern design practices like separation of concerns and testability as well as productivity features like Kotlin integration. This makes it far easier for you to build robust, high quality apps with less code. While the components of Android Jetpack are built to work together, e.g. lifecycle awareness and live data, you don't have to use all of them -- you can integrate the parts of Android Jetpack that solve your problems while keeping the parts of your app that are already working great.
We know that these benefits are important to you because of feedback like this:
"We had been thinking of trying out MVVM in our code base. Android Architecture Components gave us an easy template to implement it. And it's helped make our code more testable as well; the ability to unit test ViewModels has definitely increased code robustness."
-- Sumiran Pradhan, Sr. Engineer, Zillow
If you want to learn more about how companies are using Android Jetpack components, you can read the developer stories on the Android Developer site.
And finally, as you can see from the Android Jetpack diagram above, today we're announcing new components as well.
Android Jetpack comes with five new components:
The WorkMananager component is a powerful new library that provides a one-stop solution for constraint-based background jobs that need guaranteed execution, replacing the need to use things like jobs or SyncAdapters. WorkManager provides a simplified, modern API, the ability to work on devices with or without Google Play Services, the ability to create graphs of work, and the ability to query the state of your work. Early feedback is very encouraging but we love to make sure that your use cases are covered, too. You can see what we have so far and provide feedback on our alpha on the WorkManager component.
While activities are the system provided entry points into your app's UI, their inflexibility when it comes to sharing data between each other and transitions has made them a less than ideal architecture for constructing your in-app navigation. Today we are introducing the Navigation component as a framework for structuring your in-app UI, with a focus on making a single-Activity app the preferred architecture. With out of the box support for Fragments, you get all of the Architecture Components benefits such as Lifecycle and ViewModel while allowing Navigation to handle the complexity of FragmentTransactions for you. Further, the Navigation component allows you to declare transitions that we handle for you, automatically builds the correct Up and Back behavior, includes full support for deep links, and provides helpers for connecting Navigation into the appropriate UI widgets, like the navigation drawer and bottom navigation. But that's not all! The Navigation Editor in Android Studio 3.2 allows you to see and manage your navigation properties visually:
The Navigation component is also in alpha and we'd love your feedback.
Data presented in an app can be large and costly to load, so it's important to avoid downloading, creating, or presenting too much at once. The Paging component version 1.0.0 makes it easy to load and present large data sets with fast, infinite scrolling in your RecyclerView. It can load paged data from local storage, the network, or both, and lets you define how your content gets loaded. It works out of the box with Room, LiveData, and RxJava.
And finally, to round out the set of new features making their debut in Android Jetpack is the Slices component. A "slice" is a way to surface your app's UI inside of the Google Assistant as a result of a search:
You can learn all about the Slices component and how to integrate it into your app on the Android Developer website.
And last but not least, one goal of Android Jetpack takes advantage of Kotlin language features that make you more productive. Android KTX lets you transform Kotlin code like this:
view.viewTreeObserver.addOnPreDrawListener( object : ViewTreeObserver.OnPreDrawListener { override fun onPreDraw(): Boolean { viewTreeObserver.removeOnPreDrawListener(this) actionToBeTriggered() return true } });
into more concise Kotlin code like the following:
view.doOnPreDraw { actionToBeTriggered() }
This is just the first step in bringing Kotlin support to Android Jetpack components; our goal is to make Android Jetpack great for Kotlin developers (and of course Java developers!).You can read more about Android KTX on the Android Developer web site.
You can get started with Android Jetpack at developer.android.com/jetpack. You'll find docs and videos for Android Jetpack, see what's new in Android Jetpack components, participate in the community and give us feedback. We've also created a YouTube playlist devoted to Android Jetpack, so you can tune in for information about Android Jetpack, components, tools and best practices.
Getting Started with Android Jetpack will tell you how to bring the Android Jetpack components into your existing apps and help you get started with new Android Jetpack apps. Android Studio 3.2 has great tooling support for Android Jetpack. For building new apps, use the Activity & Fragment+ViewData activity, which you can get to from File | New | New Project in Android Studio:
With Android Jetpack, we're taking the benefits of the Support Library and the Architecture Components and turning it up a notch with new components, Android Studio integration and Kotlin support. And while Android Jetpack provides the next generation components, tools and guidance to accelerate your Android development, we've got a lot more that we want to do and we want your help. Please go to developer.android.com/jetpack and let us know what we can do to make your experience building Android apps even better.
Posted By Dave Burke, VP of Engineering
Earlier today we unveiled a beta version of Android P, the next release of Android. Android P puts AI at the core of the operating system and focuses on intelligent and simple experiences. You can read more about the new user features here.
For developers, Android P beta offers a range of ways to take advantage of these new smarts, especially when it comes to increasing engagement with your apps.
You can get Android P beta on Pixel devices by enrolling here. And thanks to Project Treble, you can now get the beta on top devices from our partners as well -- Essential, Nokia, Oppo, Sony, Vivo, and Xiaomi, with others on the way.
Visit android.com/beta for the full list of devices, and details on how to get Android P beta on your device. To get started developing with Android P beta, visit developer.android.com/preview.
Android P makes a smartphone smarter, helping it learn from and adapt to the user. Your apps can take advantage of the latest in machine intelligence to help you reach more users and offer new kinds of experiences.
Battery is the number one priority we hear from mobile phone users, regardless of the device they are using. In Android P we've partnered with DeepMind on a new feature we call Adaptive Battery that optimizes how apps use battery.
Adaptive Battery uses machine learning to prioritize access to system resources for the apps the user cares about most. It puts running apps into groups with different restrictions using four new "App Standby buckets" ranging from "active" to "rare". Apps will change buckets over time, and apps not in the "active" bucket will have restrictions in: jobs, alarms, network and high-priority Firebase Cloud Messages.
If your app is optimized for Doze, App Standby, and Background Limits, Adaptive Battery should work well for you right out of the box. We recommend testing your app in each of the four buckets. Check out the documentation for the details.
App Actions are a new way to raise the visibility of your app to users as they start their tasks. They put your app's core capabilities in front of users as suggestions to handle their tasks, from key touch-points across the system like the Launcher and Smart Text Selection, Google Play, Google Search app, and the Assistant.
Actions use machine learning to surface just the right apps to users based on their context or recent interactions. Because Actions highlight your app where and when it's most relevant, they're a great way to reach new users and re-engage with existing users.
To support App Actions, just define your app's capabilities as semantic intents. App Actions use the same catalog of common intents as conversational Actions for the Google Assistant, which surface on voice-activated speakers, Smart displays, cars, TVs, headphones, and more. There's no API surface needed for App Actions, so they will work on any supported Android platform version.
Actions will be available soon for developers to try, sign up here if you'd like to be notified.
Along with App Actions we're introducing Slices, a new way for your apps to provide remote content to users. With Slices you can surface rich, templated UI in places like Google Search and Assistant. Slices are interactive with support for actions, toggles, sliders, scrolling content, and more.
Slices are a great new way to engage users and we wanted them to be available as broadly as possible. We added platform support in Android P, and we built the developer APIs and templates into Android Jetpack, our new set of libraries and tools for building great apps. Through Jetpack, your Slices implementation can target users all the way back to Kitkat -- across 95% of active Android devices. We'll also be able to update the templates regularly to support new use cases and interactions (such as text input).
Check out the Getting Started guide to learn how to build with Slices -- you can use the SliceViewer tool to see how your Slices look. Over time we plan to expand the number of places that your Slices can appear, including remote display in other apps.
The Smart Reply feature in Gmail and Inbox are excellent examples of how machine intelligence can positively transform an app experience. In Android P we've brought Smart Replies to Notifications with an API to let you provide this optimization to your users. To make it easier to populate replies in your notifications, you'll soon be able to use ML Kit -- see developers.google.com/mlkit for details.
In Android P we've extended the ML models that identify entities in content or text input to support more types like Dates and Flight Numbers and we're making those improvements available to developers through the TextClassifier API. We're also updating the Linkify API that automatically creates links to take advantage of these TextClassification models and have enriched the options the user has for quick follow on actions. Developers will have additional options of linkifying any of the entities recognized by the TextClassifier service. Smart Linkify has significant improvements in accuracy and precision of detection and performance.
Even better, the models are now updated directly from Google Play, so your apps can take advantage of model improvements using the same APIs. Once the updated models are installed, all of the entity recognition happens on-device and data is not sent over the network.
We put a special emphasis on simplicity in Android P, evolving Android's UI to streamline and enhance user tasks. For developers, the changes help improve the way users find, use, and manage your apps.
We're introducing a new system navigation in Android P that gives users easier access to Home, Overview, and the Assistant from a single button on every screen. The new navigation simplifies multitasking and makes discovering related apps much easier. In the Overview, users have a much larger view of what they were doing when they left each app, making it much easier to see and resume the activity. The Overview also provides access to search, predicted apps, and App Actions, and takes users to All Apps with another swipe.
In Android P we've also added a new Magnifier widget, designed to make it easier to select text and manipulate the text cursor in text. By default, classes that extend TextView automatically support the magnifier, but you can use the Magnifier API to attach it to any custom View, which opens it up to a variety of uses.
We're making it simple for users to identify and manage apps that are using battery in the background. From our work on Android Vitals, Android can detect battery-draining app behaviors such as excessive wake locks and others. Now in Android P, Battery Settings lists such apps and lets users restrict their background activities with a single tap.
When an app is restricted, its background jobs, alarms, services, and network access are affected. To stay off of the list, pay attention to your Android Vitals dashboard in the Play Console, which can help you understand performance and battery issues.
Background Restrictions ensures baseline behaviors that developers can build for across devices and manufacturers. Although device makers can add restrictions on top of the core set, they must provide user controls via Battery Settings.
We've added a standard API to let apps check whether they are restricted, as well as new ADB commands to let you manually apply restrictions to your apps for testing. See the documentation for details. We also plan to add restrictions related metrics to your Play Console Android Vitals dashboard in the future.
Android P introduces a new Dynamics Processing Effect in the Audio Framework that lets developers improve audio quality. With Dynamics Processing, you can isolate specific frequencies and lower loud or increase soft sounds to enhance the acoustic quality of your application. For example, your app can improve the sound of someone who speaks quietly in a loud, distant or otherwise acoustically challenging environment.
The Dynamics Processing API gives you access to a multi-stage, multi-band dynamics processing effect that includes a pre-equalizer, a multi-band compressor, a post-equalizer and a linked limiter. It lets you modify the audio coming out of Android devices and optimize it according to the preferences of the listener or the ambient conditions. The number of bands and active stages is fully configurable, and most parameters can be controlled in realtime, such as gains, attack/release times, thresholds, etc.
To see what you can do with the Dynamics Processing Effect, please see the documentation.
Android P provides a standard authentication experience across the growing range of biometric sensors. Apps can use the new BiometricPrompt API instead of displaying their own biometric auth dialogs. This new API replaces the FingerprintDialog API added in DP1. In addition to supporting Fingerprints (including in-display sensors), it also supports Face and Iris authentication, providing a system-wide consistent experience. There is a single USE_BIOMETRIC permission that covers all device-supported biometrics. FingerprintManager and the corresponding USE_FINGERPRINT permission are now deprecated, so please switch to BiometricPrompt as soon as possible.
Android P introduces Android Protected Confirmation, which use the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to guarantee that a given prompt string is shown and confirmed by the user. Only after successful user confirmation will the TEE then sign the prompt string, which the app can verify.
We've added StrongBox as a new KeyStore type, providing API support for devices that provide key storage in tamper-resistant hardware with isolated CPU, RAM, and secure flash. You can set whether your keys should be protected by a StrongBox security chip in your KeyGenParameterSpec.
Bringing a new version of Android to users takes a combined effort across Google, silicon manufacturers (SM), device manufacturers (OEMs), and carriers. The process is technically challenging and can take time -- to make it easier, we launched Project Treble last year as part of Android Oreo. Since then we've been working with partners on the initial bring-up and now we're seeing proof of what Treble can do.
Today we announced that 6 of our top partners are joining us to release Android P Beta on their devices -- Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21UD and X21, and Essential PH‑1. We're inviting early adopters and developers around the world to try Android P Beta on any of these devices -- as well as on Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel, and Pixel XL.
You can see the full list of supported partner and Pixel devices at android.com/beta. For each device you'll find specs and links to the manufacturer's dedicated site for downloads, support, and to report issues. For Pixel devices, you can now enroll your device in the Android Beta program and automatically receive the latest Android P Beta over-the-air.
Try Android P Beta on your favorite device today and let us know your feedback! Stay tuned for updates on Project Treble coming soon.
With more users starting to get Android P Beta on their devices, now is the time to test your apps for compatibility, resolve any issues, and publish an update as soon as possible. See the migration guide for steps and a recommended timeline.
To test for compatibility, just install your current app from Google Play onto a device or emulator running Android P Beta and work through the user flows. The app should run and look great, and handle the Android P behavior changes properly. In particular, pay attention to adaptive battery, Wi-Fi permissions changes, restrictions on use of camera and sensors from the background, stricter SELinux policy for app data, and changes in TLS enabled by default, and Build.SERIAL restriction.
It's important to test your apps for uses of non-SDK interfaces. As noted previously, in Android P we're starting a gradual process to restrict access to selected non-SDK interfaces, asking developers -- including app teams inside Google -- to use the public equivalents instead.
If your apps are using private Android interfaces and libraries, you should move to using public APIs from the Android SDK or NDK. The first developer preview displayed a toast warning for uses of non-SDK interfaces -- starting in Android P Beta, uses of non-SDK interfaces that are not exempted will generate errors in your apps -- so you'll now get exceptions thrown instead of a warning.
To help you identify reflective usage of non-SDK APIs, we've added two new methods in StrictMode. You can use detectNonSdkApiUsage() to warn when your app accesses non-SDK APIs via reflection or JNI, and you can use permitNonSdkApiUsage() to suppress StrictMode warnings for those accesses. This can help you understand your app's use of non-SDK APIs -- even if the APIs are exempted at this time, it's best to plan for the future and eliminate their use.
In cases where there is no public API that meets your use-case, please let us know immediately. We want to make sure that the initial rollout only affects interfaces where developers can easily migrate to public alternatives. More about the restrictions is here.
It's also important to test your app with display cutout. Now you can use several of our partner devices running Android Beta to make sure your app looks its best with a display cutout. You can also use the emulated cutout support that's available on any Android P device through Developer options.
When you're ready, dive into Android P and learn about the many new features and APIs you can take advantage of in your apps. To make it easier to explore the new APIs, take a look at the API diff reports (API 27->DP2, DP1->DP2) along with the Android P API reference. Visit the Developer Preview site for details. Also check out this video highlighting what's new for developers in Android P Beta.
To get started with Android P, download the P Developer Preview SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.1 or use the latest version of Android Studio 3.2. If you don't have a device that runs Android P Beta, you can use the Android emulator to run and test your app.
As always, your feedback is critical, so please let us know what you think — the sooner we hear from you, the more of your feedback we can integrate. When you find issues, please report them here. We have separate hotlists for filing platform issues, app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues.
Play Console
