Android Developers Blog

Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director, Product Management Android 11 is here! Today we’re pushing the source to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and officially releasing the newest version of Android. We built Android 11 with a focus on three themes: a People -centric approach to communication, Controls to let users quickly get to and control all of their smart devices, and Privacy to give users more ways to control how data on devices is shared. Read more in our Keyword post . For developers, Android 11 has a ton of new capabilities. You’ll want to check out conversation notifications, device and media controls, one-time permissions, enhanced 5G support, IME transitions, and so much more. To help you work and develop faster, we also added new tools like compatibility toggles, ADB incremental installs, app exit reasons API, data access auditing API, Kotlin nullability annotations, and many others. We worked to make Android 11 a great release for you, and we can’t wait to se...

Posted by Yacine Rezgui , Developer Advocate Whether you're requesting a permission, selecting a file from the system file manager, or expecting data from a 3rd party app, passing data between activities is a core element in inter-process communication on Android. We’ve recently released the new ActivityResult APIs to help handle these activity results. Previously, to get results from started activities, apps needed to implement an onActivityResult() method in their activities and fragments, check which requestCode a result is referring to, verify that the requestCode is OK, and finally inspect its result data or extended data. This leads to complicated code, and it doesn’t provide a type-safe interface for expected arguments when sending or receiving data from an activity. What are the ActivityResult APIs? The ActivityResult APIs were added to the Jetpack activity and fragment libraries, making it easier to get results from activities by providing type-safe contracts. These ...

Posted by Krish Vitaldevara, Director of Product Management Trust & Safety, Google Play Last year, we made several changes to our platform and policies to increase user trust and safety. We’re proud of the work we’ve done to improve family safety , limit use of sensitive permissions , and catch bad actors before they ever reach the Play Store. We realize that changes can lead to work for developers. Last year, you told us that you wanted more detailed communications about impactful updates, why we’re making them, and how to take action. You also asked for as much time as possible to make any changes required. With that feedback in mind, today, we’re previewing Android and Google Play policy changes that will impact how developers access location in the background. Giving users more control over their location data Users consistently tell us that they want more control over their location data and that we should take every precaution to prevent misuse. Since the beginning of Androi...

Posted by Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management, Android & Google Play Thank you for all the feedback about updates we’ve been making to Android APIs and Play policies. We’ve heard your requests for improvement as well as some frustration. We want to explain how and why we’re making these changes, and how we are using your feedback to improve the way we roll out these updates and communicate with the developer community. From the outset, we’ve sought to craft Android as a completely open source operating system. We’ve also worked hard to ensure backwards compatibility and API consistency, out of respect and a desire to make the platform as easy to use as possible. This developer-centric approach and openness have been cornerstones of Android’s philosophy from the beginning. These are not changing. But as the platform grows and evolves, each decision we make comes with trade-offs. Everyday, billions of people around the world use the apps you’ve built to do incredible things like c...

Posted by Sameer Samat, VP of Product Management, Android & Google Play Thank you for all the feedback about updates we’ve been making to Android APIs and Play policies. We’ve heard your requests for improvement as well as some frustration. We want to explain how and why we’re making these changes, and how we are using your feedback to improve the way we roll out these updates and communicate with the developer community. From the outset, we’ve sought to craft Android as a completely open source operating system. We’ve also worked hard to ensure backwards compatibility and API consistency, out of respect and a desire to make the platform as easy to use as possible. This developer-centric approach and openness have been cornerstones of Android’s philosophy from the beginning. These are not changing. But as the platform grows and evolves, each decision we make comes with trade-offs. Everyday, billions of people around the world use the apps you’ve built to do incredible things like c...