Now in Android #86
Welcome to Now in Android, your ongoing guide to what’s new and notable in the world of Android development.
Most of the content of this post is available in the form of a video or podcast, so feel free to watch or listen rather than read on. (Or do all three to help you remember! There won’t be a quiz.)
Top things to know from Google Play at Google I/O ’23 🚉
Continuing our I/O coverage, we released a short video, and blog detailing the top three things to know from Google Play at Google I/O 2023:
- New custom store listing features. We’ve made three big updates to custom store listings, giving you more ways to deliver personalized content to a wider audience.
- Generative AI and machine learning for store listings. Draft better content with less effort with our new experimental integrated AI helper.
- Price experiments. We launched price experiments for in-app products, which allows you to A/B test price points to better reach both new and existing buyers.
Check out the blog, video, and the Google Play at Google I/O 2023 playlist to learn more.
The new Pixel Fold & Pixel Tablet are here 🎉
We have new content you should check out to get your application ready for large and foldable screens:
- Developers Guide to Pixel Fold & Pixel Tablet: for specific recommendations on how to get ready for these new Pixel devices.
- Detecting device type: how to know if a device is a foldable or a tablet.
- The top 3 things to know in multi-device from Google I/O: our round-up in the world of large screens, Wear OS and TV from Google I/O
- Also, hear how Peloton increased its multi-device support and saw an uptick in user engagement.
AndroidX releases 🚀
We had a bunch of exciting new features and behavior changes related to Compose show up in Android Jetpack!
First of all, Compose UI 1.6 Alpha 1 and Compose Material 1.6 Alpha 1 now have includeFontPadding switched to false by default. The default LineHeightStyle has also been changed to Trim.None and Alignment.Center. These changes might impact your screenshot tests, you can read an in-depth explanation on includeFontPadding in the Fixing Font Padding in Compose Text blog post. Start testing your app switching to includeFontPadding false today.
Wear Compose 1.3 Alpha 1 release is also changing the DefaultTextStyle to turn off font padding to be consistent across the Android Platform.
Compose UI and Compose Animation 1.6 Alpha 1 includes support for lookahead in LazyList. This allows LazyList in the lookahead pass to bypass any animation and to calculate the lookahead size and position for all children.
Finally, Compose Foundation Version 1.6 Alpha 1 introduced a new AnchoredDraggable API in Foundation, this API replaces Material’s Swipeable API.
You can see all the AndroidX release notes here.
What it means to be a Google Developer Expert 🔦
Since launching the Google Developer Expert spotlight series in early June, we’ve released many more interviews with Android GDEs around the world, including interviews with Ahmed, a Software Engineer from the Netherlands, Zarah, an Android Developer from Australia, Annyce, Vice President of Engineering from the USA, and Harun, a Software Engineer from Kenya.
Podcast on Location Location Location 🎙️
Check out episode 198 of the Android Developers Backstage podcast, on location location location!
Since the original episode on location nearly nine years ago, a lot has happened in the location support for Android. In this episode, Wyatt Riley and Roy Want answer all of Tor’s questions about how it works, cover recent developments like indoor location and elevation, and go over tips for using location in your app.
You can check out the episode in podcast or video form, and you can watch this short clip on how to avoid a common location developer mistake.
Now then… 👋
That’s it for this week with Google Play, Pixel Fold & Pixel Tablet, multi-device support, Jetpack Compose, Google Developer Expert, Location and more!
Check back soon for the next update from the Android developer universe! 💫