Final preview update, official Android P coming soon!

Posted By Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Android P is almost here! As we put the finishing touches on the new platform, today we're bringing you Android P Beta 4.

Beta 4 is the last preview milestone before we launch the official Android P platform later this summer. Take this opportunity to test your apps and publish updates, to make sure you offer a great experience for users transitioning to Android P!

What's in this update?

Today's Beta 4 update includes a release candidate build with final system behaviors and the official Android P APIs (API level 28), available since Beta 2. It includes everything you need to wrap up your testing in time for the upcoming official Android P release.

Get your apps ready for Android P

With the consumer launch coming soon, it's important to test your app for compatibility with Android P. Just install your current app from Google Play on an Android P Beta device or emulator. As you work through the flows, make sure your app runs and looks great, and that it handles the Android P behavior changes properly.

Also watch for uses of non-SDK interfaces in your app. Android P restricts access to selected non-SDK interfaces, so you should reduce your reliance on them. See our recent post for details..

After you've made any necessary updates, we recommend publishing to Google Play right away without changing the app's platform targeting. This lets you ensure a great experience for Android P users while you work on enhancing your app with Android P APIs and targeting.

Enhance your app with Android P features and APIs

When you're ready, dive into Android P and learn about the new features and APIs that you can use in your apps, like multi-camera support, display cutout, enhanced notifications, ImageDecoder, TextClassifier, and others.

To build with the new APIs, just download the official API 28 SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.1, or use the latest version of Android Studio 3.2. Then update your project's compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion to API 28. When you change your targeting, make sure your app supports all of the applicable behavior changes.

As soon as you're ready, publish your APK updates that are compiled against, or optionally targeting, API 28. A common strategy is to use Google Play's beta testing feature to get early feedback from a small group of users and then do a staged rollout to production.

Visit the Developer Preview site for details and documentation. Also check out this video and the Google I/O Android playlist for more on what's new in Android P for developers.

How do I get Beta 4?

It's easy - you can get Android P Beta 4 on Pixel devices by enrolling here. If you're already enrolled in our Android Beta program, you'll automatically get the Beta 4 update soon. As always, downloadable system images for Pixel devices are also available. Partners who are participating in the Android P Beta program will also be updating their devices to Beta 4 over the coming weeks.

What's next?

Stay tuned for the official Android P launch coming soon! You can continue to share your feedback or requests in the meantime, and feel free to use our hotlists for platform issues, app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues.

Thanks for your feedback so far, and thank you to everyone who participated in our recent Reddit AMA on r/androiddev!

Android P Beta 3 is now available

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Today we're rolling out Beta 3 of Android P, our next milestone in this year's Android P developer preview. With the developer APIs already finalized in the previous update, Beta 3 now takes us very close to what you'll see in the final version of Android P, due later this summer.

Android P Beta 3 includes the latest bug fixes and optimizations for stability and polish, together with the July 2018 security updates. It's a great way to test your apps now to make sure they are ready before the final release. Give Beta 3 a try and let us know what you think!

You can get Android P Beta 3 on Pixel devices by enrolling here. If you're already enrolled and received the Android P Beta 2 on your Pixel device, you'll automatically get the update to Beta 3. Partners who are participating in the Android P Beta program will also be updating their devices to Beta 3 over the coming weeks.

What's in this update?

Today's preview update includes the Beta 3 system images for Pixel devices and the Android Emulator, as well as an update to the Android Studio build tools to include D8 as an independent tool. Beta 3 is an early release candidate build of Android with near-final system behaviors and the official Android P APIs (API level 28).

With the Beta 3 system images and updated build tools, you've got everything you need to test your apps or extend them with Android P features like multi-camera support, display cutout, enhanced notifications, ImageDecoder, TextClassifier, and many others. In your testing, make sure to account for App standby buckets, privacy restrictions, and restrictions on non-SDK interfaces.

Get started in a few simple steps

First, make your app compatible and give your users a seamless transition to Android P. Just install your current app from Google Play on an Android P Beta device or emulator and test -- the app should run and look great, and handle the Android P behavior changes properly. After you've made any necessary updates, we recommend publishing to Google Play right away without changing the app's platform targeting.

If you don't have a supported device, remember that you can instead set up an Android Virtual Device on the Android Emulator for your test environment. If you haven't tried the emulator recently, you'll find that it's incredibly fast, boots in under 6 seconds, and even lets you model next-gen screens -- such as long screens and screens with a display cutout.

Next, update your app's targetSdkVersion to 28 as soon as possible, so Android P users of your app can benefit from the platform's latest security, performance, and stability features. If your app is already targeting API 26+ in line with Google Play's upcoming policies, then changing to target API 28 should be a small jump. When you change your targeting, make sure your app supports all of the applicable behavior changes.

It's also important to test your apps for uses of non-SDK interfaces and reduce your reliance on them. As noted recently, Android P restricts access to selected non-SDK interfaces. Watch for logcat warnings that highlight direct uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces and try the new StrictMode method detectNonSdkApiUsage() to catch accesses programmatically. Where possible, you should move to using public equivalents from the Android SDK or NDK. If there's no public API that meets your use-case, please let us know.

When you're ready, dive into Android P and learn about the new features and APIs that you can use in your apps. To build with the new APIs, just download the official API 28 SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.1, or use the latest version of Android Studio 3.2. Then update your project's compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion to API 28.

Visit the Developer Preview site for details and documentation. Also check out this video and the Google I/O Android playlist for more on what's new in Android P for developers.

Publish to Google Play alpha, beta, or production channels

As soon as you're ready, publish your APK updates that are compiled against, or optionally targeting, API 28. Publishing an update to Google Play during the preview lets you push updates to existing users to test compatibility on their devices.

To make sure that your updated app runs well on Android P as well as older versions, a common strategy is to use Google Play's beta testing feature. With beta testing you can get early feedback from a small group of users -- including Beta 3 users — and then do a staged rollout to production.

What's next?

Thanks for all of your feedback so far. Please continue to share feedback or requests as we work towards the consumer release later this summer. Feel free to use our hotlists for platform issues, app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues.

Also, the Android engineering team will host a Reddit AMA on r/androiddev to answer your technical questions about Android P on July 19 from 11:30-1 PM (Pacific Time). Look out for an announcement on r/androiddev in the coming weeks. We look forward to addressing your questions!

Android P Beta 2 and final APIs!

Posted By Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Four weeks ago at Google I/O we released the first beta version of Android P, putting AI at the core of the operating system and focusing on intelligent and simple experiences.

We talked about some of Android's newest features in the keynotes and went deep on the developer APIs during the breakouts. If you missed the livestream, make sure to check out the full playlist of Android talks.

Today we're releasing Android P Beta 2, an update that includes the final Android P APIs, the latest system images, and updated developer tools to help you get ready for the consumer release coming later in the summer.

You can get Android P Beta 2 on Pixel devices by enrolling here. If you're already enrolled and received the Android P Beta 1 on your Pixel device, you'll automatically get the update to Beta 2. Partners that are participating in the Android P Beta program will be updating their devices over the coming weeks.

Enhance your app with Android P features and APIs

Android P Beta 2 is the latest update of our upcoming Android P platform and includes the final APIs (API level 28) as well as the official SDK. You can get started building with the Android P features and APIs today. Here are a few we want you to try -- head over to the features overview for more.

Machine learning at the core

We partnered with DeepMind on a feature we call Adaptive Battery that uses machine learning to prioritize system resources for the apps the user cares about most. If your app is optimized for Doze, App Standby, and Background Limits, Adaptive Battery should work well for you right out of the box. Make sure to check out the details in the power documentation to see how it works and where the impacts could be, and test your apps to make sure they are ready.

App Actions is a new way to help you raise the visibility of your app and help drive engagement. Actions take advantage of machine learning on Android to surface your app to the user at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and the user's context. Actions work on Android P and earlier versions of the platform and they'll be available soon for you to start using. Sign up here to be notified when Actions are available.

Slices are a new way to surface rich, templated content in places like Google Search and Assistant. They're interactive, and through Android Jetpack they're compatible all the way back to KitKat. 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.

Simplicity, polish

Android P adds platform support for screens with display cutouts, and we've added new APIs to let you deliver a rich, edge-to-edge experience on the latest screens. Cutout support works seamlessly for apps, with the system managing status bar height to separate your content from the cutout. If you have immersive content, you can use the display cutout APIs to check the position and shape of the cutout and request full-screen layout around it.

All developers should check out the docs to learn how to manage the cutout area and avoid common compatibility issues that can affect apps. Make sure to test your app on a device that has a display cutout, such as one of the Android P Beta devices.

Apps with immersive content can display content fullscreen on devices with a display cutout.

If your app uses messaging notifications, take advantage of the changes in MessagingStyle that make notifications even more useful and actionable. You can now show conversations, attach photos and stickers, and even suggest smart replies. You'll soon be able to use ML Kit to generate smart reply suggestions your app.

id="flexImg" border="0" alt="MessagingStyle notifications" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACO_XTJM-axD0EVXMeBFLZJ3Jv4z6DR7nAKuRI_QojajJvQ6_g8itboubFk8tdBattv5LUEftKgROEOofl9Fq5j0qW6DNP56TWEE9Yg4KEjlgD1f60pKlcUV5ZWV1B-G3TG8b_bc1oo0/s1600/unnamed+%25287%2529image5.png" data-original-width="373" data-original-height="512" />

MessagingStyle notifications with conversations and smart replies [left], images and stickers [right].

Security

With a range of biometric sensors in use for authentication, we've made the experience more consistent across sensor types and apps. Android P introduces a system-managed dialog to prompt the user for any supported type of biometric authentication. Apps no longer need to build their own dialog -- instead they use the BiometricPrompt API to show the standard system dialog. In addition to Fingerprint (including in-display sensors), the API supports Face and Iris authentication.

If your app is drawing its own fingerprint auth dialogs, you should switch to using the BiometricPrompt API as soon as possible.

More

If your app uses the device camera, try the new multi-camera APIs that let you access streams simultaneously from two or more physical cameras. On devices with dual cameras, you can create innovative features not possible with a single camera -- such as seamless zoom, bokeh, and stereo vision. You can get started today using any of the Android P Beta devices that offers a dual camera.

Audio apps can use the Dynamics Processing API for access to a multi-stage, multi-band dynamics processing effect to modify the audio coming out of Android devices and optimize it according to the preferences of the listener or the ambient conditions.



Take a look at the Android P features overview for a complete list of the new features and APIs.

Get started in a few simple steps

First, make your app compatible and give your users a seamless transition to Android P. Just install your current app from Google Play on a Android P Beta device or emulator and test -- the app should run and look great, and handle Android P behavior change for all apps properly. After you've made any necessary updates, we recommend publishing to Google Play right away without changing the app's platform targeting.

If you don't have a supported device, remember that you can set up an Android Virtual Device on the Android Emulator as your test environment instead. If you haven't tried the emulator recently, you'll find that it's incredibly fast, boots in under 6 seconds, and even lets you model next-gen screens -- such as long screens and screens with display cutout.

Next, update your app's targetSdkVersion to 28 as soon as possible, so Android P users of your app can benefit from the platform's latest security, performance, and stability features. If your app is already targeting API 26+ in line with Google Play's upcoming policies, then changing to target 28 should be a small jump.

It's also important to test your apps for uses of non-SDK interfaces and reduce your reliance on them. As noted previously, in Android P we're starting a gradual process to restrict access to selected non-SDK interfaces. Watch for logcat warnings that highlight direct uses of restricted non-SDK interfaces and try the new StrictMode method detectNonSdkApiUsage() to catch accesses programmatically. Where possible, you should move to using public equivalents from the Android SDK or NDK. If there's no public API that meets your use-case, please let us know.

When you're ready, dive into Android P and learn about the new features and APIs to extend your apps. To build with the new APIs, just download the official API 28 SDK and tools into Android Studio 3.1, or use the latest version of Android Studio 3.2. Then update your project's compileSdkVersion and targetSdkVersion to API 28.

Visit the Developer Preview site for details and documentation. Also check out this video and the Google I/O Android playlist for more on what's new in Android P for developers.

Publish to Google Play alpha, beta, or production channels

Starting today you can publish your APK updates that are compiled against, or optionally targeting, API 28. Publishing an update to Google Play during the preview lets you push updates to users to test compatibility on existing devices, including devices running Android P Beta 2.

To make sure that your updated app runs well on Android P as well as older versions, a common strategy is to use Google Play's beta testing feature to get early feedback from a small group of users -- including Android P Beta 2 users — and then do a staged rollout to production.

How to get Android P Beta 2

For Pixel devices, you can enroll your device in the Android Beta program and you'll automatically receive the update to Android P Beta 2 over-the-air. If you're already enrolled and received Beta 1, watch for the update coming your way soon. Partners that are participating in the Android P Beta program will be updating their devices over the coming weeks.

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.

Thanks for all of your feedback so far. Please continue to share feedback or requests as we work towards the consumer release later this summer. Feel free to use our hotlists for platform issues, app compatibility issues, and third-party SDK issues.

We're looking forward to seeing your apps on Android P!

Wear OS by Google developer preview

Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Wear OS by Google

Today we launched the Wear OS by Google developer preview and brought Android P platform features to wearables. The developer preview includes updated system images on the official Android Emulator and a downloadable system image for the Huawei Watch 2 Bluetooth or Huawei Watch 2 Classic Bluetooth. This initial release is intended for developers only and is not for daily or consumer use. Therefore, it is only available via manual download and flash. Please refer to the release notes for known issues before downloading and flashing your device.

In this release, we would like to highlight the following features that developers should pay attention to:

• Restriction related to non-SDK methods and fields: To improve app compatibility, Android P has started the process of restricting access to non-SDK methods and fields. Developers should make plans to migrate away from these. If there is no public equivalent for your use case, please let us know.
  
• Dark UI system theme: To enhance glanceability, Wear OS has switched to a UI theme with a darker / black background for the notifications stream and system launcher since the start of the year. This is now also the default for the system theme and should improve the glanceability for wear apps. Developers should check the accessibility of their app's UI after this change.
  
• Limited background activity: To improve power, apps will no longer be allowed to run in the background unless the watch is on the charger. Developers should note that Wear OS is going further with Android's app standby feature than some other form factors. Exceptions to this include watch faces and complications that the user currently has selected. This feature will be rolled out gradually in the developer preview, so you may not see it immediately on your device, but should build your apps accordingly by removing background services.
  
• Turning off radios when off body: To improve power, bluetooth, WiFi, and cellular radios will be turned off when the watch is detected to be off body for an extended period of time. Again, this feature will be rolled out gradually so you may not initially see it on your device. If this feature causes challenges in your development process, you can disable the feature via adb; please follow the instructions in the release notes.
  
• WiFi off when BT is disconnected: To improve power, the device will no longer automatically connect to wifi when disconnected from bluetooth. Exceptions include if an app is requesting a high bandwidth network or if the watch is on the charger. This feature will be rolled out gradually so you may not initially see it on your device.

Please give us your feedback

We expect to provide several 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.