The Android growth group at this time introduced the primary beta for the upcoming Android 16, which is predicted to be launched in Q2 of 2025.
Presently, it’s anticipated that Android 16 will attain platform stability in March, at which level the Android group will ship the ultimate SDK and NDK APIs in addition to ultimate inside APIs and app-facing system behaviors.
“This construct contains assist for the way forward for app adaptivity, Stay Updates, the Superior Skilled Video format, and extra. We’re trying ahead to listening to what you suppose, and thanks prematurely to 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 submit.
To higher assist adaptive apps — apps that change layouts primarily based on the scale of the display screen — the Android group has determined to start phasing out the flexibility for apps to limit display screen orientation and resizability for giant screens. For screens which are bigger than 600dp huge, apps focusing on API degree 36 can have app home windows that resize, and subsequently, it’s endorsed builders test their apps to make sure the UI scales seamlessly.
The Android group can be introducing Stay Updates, that are notifications that assist “customers monitor and rapidly entry necessary ongoing actions.” There may be now a ProgressStyle notification template that can be utilized to construct some of these notifications for rideshare, supply, and navigation. Stay Updates assist customized icons for begin, finish, and present progress monitoring, segments and factors, consumer journey states, milestones, and extra.
Digital camera and media updates in Android 16 embrace assist for the Superior Skilled Video (APV) code and evening mode scene detection to assist apps determine when to modify to and from evening mode within the digital camera.
This launch may even embrace low-level assist for rendering and measuring textual content vertically, which is beneficial for languages that use a vertical writing system, like Japanese.
And at last, this launch contains new accessibility updates, together with the flexibility to supply textual content a few ViewGroup with out overriding details about its youngsters, and the addition of setFieldRequired to AccessibilityNodeInfo, which permits apps to inform an accessibility service that enter to a type subject is required. “This is a vital state of affairs for customers filling out many kinds of types, even issues so simple as a required phrases and situations checkbox, serving to customers to constantly establish and rapidly navigate between required fields,” McCullough wrote.
Based on the Android growth group, with this launch, any supported Pixel machine is ready to get this replace over-the-air. If a Pixel machine isn’t accessible, builders can use the Android Emulator in Android Studio.