The Android growth staff at the moment introduced the primary beta for the upcoming Android 16, which is anticipated to be launched in Q2 of 2025.
At present, it’s anticipated that Android 16 will attain platform stability in March, at which level the Android staff will ship the ultimate SDK and NDK APIs in addition to last inner APIs and app-facing system behaviors.
“This construct contains assist for the way forward for app adaptivity, Dwell Updates, the Superior Skilled Video format, and extra. We’re trying ahead to listening to what you suppose, and thanks prematurely on your continued assist in making Android a platform that works for everybody,” Matthew McCullough, VP of Product Administration for Android Developer at Google, wrote in a weblog put up.
To raised assist adaptive apps — apps that change layouts primarily based on the scale of the display screen — the Android staff has determined to start phasing out the power for apps to limit display screen orientation and resizability for big screens. For screens which are bigger than 600dp extensive, apps concentrating on API degree 36 may have app home windows that resize, and due to this fact, it’s endorsed builders verify their apps to make sure the UI scales seamlessly.
The Android staff can be introducing Dwell Updates, that are notifications that assist “customers monitor and rapidly entry vital ongoing actions.” There’s now a ProgressStyle notification template that can be utilized to construct most of these notifications for rideshare, supply, and navigation. Dwell Updates assist customized icons for begin, finish, and present progress monitoring, segments and factors, consumer journey states, milestones, and extra.
Digicam and media updates in Android 16 embody assist for the Superior Skilled Video (APV) code and evening mode scene detection to assist apps determine when to change to and from evening mode within the digital camera.
This launch may also embody low-level assist for rendering and measuring textual content vertically, which is helpful for languages that use a vertical writing system, like Japanese.
And at last, this launch contains new accessibility updates, together with the power to offer textual content a couple of ViewGroup with out overriding details about its youngsters, and the addition of setFieldRequired to AccessibilityNodeInfo, which allows apps to inform an accessibility service that enter to a type area is required. “This is a crucial situation for customers filling out many varieties of kinds, even issues so simple as a required phrases and situations checkbox, serving to customers to persistently establish and rapidly navigate between required fields,” McCullough wrote.
In accordance with the Android growth staff, with this launch, any supported Pixel machine is ready to get this replace over-the-air. If a Pixel machine isn’t obtainable, builders can use the Android Emulator in Android Studio.