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Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering
Every date, Android apps help billions of parties labour, frisk, communicate, and start on a wide range of devices from telephones and laptops to tablets, TVs, and vehicles. As more people come to rely on the experiences you improve, their hopes can rise just as fast. It’s one of the reasons we share Android freeings with you early: your feedback helps us build a better pulpit for your apps and all of the people who use them. Today, we’re releasing the first Developer Preview of Android 12, the next explanation of Android, for your testing and feedback.
With each edition, we’re working to start the OS smarter, easier to use, and better performing, with privacy and security at the core. In Android 12 we’re too working to give you brand-new tools for building great ordeals for customers. Starting with things like compatible media transcoding, which helps your app to work with the latest video formats if you don’t once support them, and easier copy/ adhesive of rich material into your apps, like likeness and videos. We’re too supplementing privacy protections and optimizing accomplishment to keep your apps responsive.
Today’s first preview is just the start for Android 12, and we’ll have lots more to share as we move through the release. Read on for a experience of what’s brand-new in Android 12, and inspect the Android 12 developer site for details on downloads for Pixel and release timeline. As ever, it’s crucial to get your feedback early, to help us incorporate it into the final product, so let us know what you think!
Alongside the labour we’re doing in Android 12, later this month we’ll have more to share on another important tool that helps you create great user knows more readily: Jetpack Compose, our modern toolkit for house native UI. Join us on #TheAndroidShow for a behind-the-scenes look at Jetpack Compose, livestreamed on February 24 at 9AM PT, and tweet your Jetpack Compose questions exercising #TheAndroidShow to have them asked live on the depict.
Trust and safety
Privacy is at the heart of everything we do, and in Android 12 we’re continuing to focus on generate customers more transparency and control while keeping their manoeuvres and data secure. In today’s release we’ve computed new dominations over identifiers that can be used for moving, safer defaults for app components, and more. These mutates may affect your apps, so we recommend testing as soon as possible. Watch for more privacy and safety aspects coming in later preview exhausts.
Modern SameSite cookie behaviours in WebView – In line with changes to Chrome and other browsers, WebView includes new SameSite cookie behaviours to provide additional security and privacy and hand consumers more transparency and control over how cookies can be used across websites. More here.
Restricted Netlink MAC – We’re continuing to help developers migrate to privacy-protecting resettable identifiers. In a multi-release effort to ease migration of device-scoped Netlink MAC, in Android 11 we restricted access to it based on API level 30, and in Android 12 we’re applying the restriction for all apps – regardless of targetSDK level. More now.
Safer exporting of components – To prevent apps from inadvertently exporting works, services, and receivers, we’re changing the default handling of the android: exported attribute to be more explicit. With this modify, factors that declare one or more purport filters must now explicitly declare an android: exported attribute. You should inspect your ingredients in the manifest in order to avoid installation lapses related to this change. More now.
Safer handled with Intents – To attain handle PendingIntents more secure, Android 12 requires apps to explicitly declare a mutability flag, either FLAG_MUTABLE or the new FLAG_IMMUTABLE, for each PendingIntent. More here.
You can speak more about these and other privacy and safety alterations here.
Better user experience implements
In Android 12 we’re investing in key areas to help deliver a polished suffer and better performance for consumers. Here are some of the updates so far.
Compatible media transcoding – With the prevalence of HEVC hardware encoders on portable designs, camera apps are increasingly capturing in HEVC format, which offers significant improvements in quality and squeeze over older codecs. Most apps should support HEVC, but for apps that can’t, we’re introducing compatible media transcoding.
With this peculiarity, an app that doesn’t support HEVC can have the pulpit automatically transcode the file into AVC, a format that is widely compatible. The transcoding process takes time, will vary depending on the video and equipment qualities of the design. As an example, a one minute 1080 p video at 30 fps takes around 9 seconds to transcode on a Pixel 4. You can opt-in to use the transcoding service by just proclaiming the media formats that your apps don’t support. For developers, we strongly recommend that your apps subsistence HEVC, and if that’s not possible, enable compatible media transcoding. The facet will be active on all inventions exploiting HEVC format for video capture. We’d love to hear your feedback on this feature. More now.
AVIF epitome help – To give you higher likenes aspect with more efficient compression, Android 12 interposes stage support for AV1 Image File Format( AVIF ). AVIF is a receptacle format for epitomes and cycles of personas encoded using AV1. Like other modern portrait formats, AVIF takes advantage of the intra-frame encoded material from video tighten. This dramatically improves image caliber for the same file size when compared to older image formats, such as JPEG.
AVIF( 18.2 kB)
JPEG( 20.7 kB)
Credit: Image comparison from AVIF has acre by Jake Archibald
Foreground work optimizations – Foreground services are an important way for apps to manage certain types of user-facing tasks, but when overused they can affect performance and even lead to app kills. To ensure a better know for customers, we will be blocking foreground service starts from the background for apps that are targeting the brand-new programme. To make it easier to transition away from this motif, we’re introducing a brand-new expedited job in JobScheduler that gets hoisted process priority, network access, and fees immediately regardless of power constraints like Battery Saver or Doze. For back-compatibility, we’ve likewise improved accelerated jobs into the latest release of Jetpack WorkManager library. Too, to reduce distraction for users, we’re now delaying the display of some foreground service notifications by up to 10 seconds. This returns short-lived tasks a chance to complete before their notifications are shown. More here.
Rich material insertion – Users love portraits, videos and other expressive material, but setting and moving this content in apps is not always easy. To make it simple for your apps to receive rich content, we’re introducing a new unified API that lets you acquire material from any root: clipboard, keyboard, or draw and plunge. You can fix a brand-new interface, OnReceiveContentListener, to UI components and get a callback when content is inserted through any mechanism. This callback becomes the single locate for your system to handle insertion of all material, from grassland and styled text to markup, images, videos, audio registers, and more. For back-compatibility, we’ve computed the unified API to AndroidX. More now.
Audio-coupled haptic effect – In Android 12 apps can provide audio-coupled haptic feedback through the phone’s vibrator. The hum strength and frequency are be obtained from an audio hearing, allowing you to create more immersive game and audio knows. For illustration, a video calling app could use custom ringtones to identify the caller through haptic feedback, or you could simulate rough area in a racing competition. More here.
Immersive mode API betterments for gesticulate nav – We’ve streamlined immersive mode so that gesture sailing is easier and more consistent, for example when watching a video, reading a book, or representing video games. We’re still protecting apps from incidental gestures when in full-screen know-hows be attributed to gaming, but in all other full-screen or immersive events( e.g. video witness, speak, photo hall ), for apps targeting the new platform, we’re changing the default to allow users to navigate their phone with one swipe. More now.
Notification UI modernizes – We’re refreshing notification patterns to originate them most modern, easier to use, and more functional. In this first preview you’ll notice modifies from the drawer and oversight matters to the templates themselves. We’re also optimizing changes and animations across the system to become them more smooth. As part of the updates, for apps targeting Android 12 we’re decorating notifications with custom-made content with icon and expand affordances to parallel all other notifications. More here.
Faster, more responsive notifications – When useds tap a notification, they expect to jump-start immediately into the app – the faster the very best. To converge that expectancy, developers should make sure that notification taps trigger Activity starts instantly, rather than using “trampolines” – an intermediary broadcast receiver or service – to start the Activity. Notification trampolines can cause substantial postponements and change the user experience. To prevent notifications responsive, Android 12 will block notification trampolines by preventing them from launching their target Tasks, and we’re asking makes to migrate away from this motif. The deepen applies only to apps targeting the new programme, but for all apps we’ll display a toast to determine trampolines noticeable to you and to users. More now.
Improved Binder IPC calls – As part of our work on performance, we’ve put a focus on reducing system variability. We’ve taken a look at latency and workload delivery, and induced optimizations that reduce the median experience from the tail end, or 99% percentile operation example. In doing so, we’ve targeted improvements to system binder calls adding lightweight caching approaches and focusing on removing lock contention to improve latency distribution. This has produced roughly a 2x rendition increase on Binder announces overall, with significant improvements in specific bawls, for example a 47 x improvement in refContentProvider (), 15 x in releaseWakeLock (), and 7.9 x in JobScheduler.schedule ().
App compatibility
We’re is an attempt to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app harmony as we roll out new scaffold editions. In Android 12 we’ve started most app-facing modifies opt-in to give you more season, and we’ve updated our tools and processes to assist you get ready sooner. We’ve likewise included brand-new functionality to Google Play system informs to give your apps a better environment on Android 12 designs.
More of Android modernized through Google Play – We’re continuing to expand our investment in Google Play system revises( Project Mainline) to give apps a more consistent, self-assured environment across devices. In Android 12 we’ve lent the Android Runtime( ART) module that lets us push updates to the core runtime and libraries on inventions rolling Android 12. We can improve runtime performance and correctness, finagle retention more efficiently, and attain Kotlin operations faster – all without expecting a full plan modernize. We’ve too expanded the functionality of existing modules – for example, we’re delivering our compatible media transcoding feature inside an updatable module.
Optimizing for tablets, foldables, and TVs – With more people than ever working apps on large-screen inventions like foldables, tablets, and TVs , now is a great time to make sure your app or activity is ready. Get started by optimizing for tablets and building apps for foldables. And, for the biggest screen in the home, the first Android 12 preview for Android TV is also available. In addition to bringing the latest Android pieces to the TV with this preview, you will also be able to test your apps on the all-new Google TV experience. Learn more on the Android TV Developers website and get started with your ADT-3 developer kit.
Updated lists of non-SDK boundaries – We’ve curbed additional non-SDK boundaries, and as ever your feedback and requests for public API equivalents are welcome.
Easier tests and debugging of changes – To make it easier for you to test the opt-in conversions that can affect your app, we’ve acquired many of them toggleable. WIth the toggles you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from Developer alternatives or adb. Check out more detailed information here.
App compatibility toggles in Developer Alternative.
Platform stability milestone – Like last year, we’re letting you know our Platform Stability milestone well in advance, to give you more time to plan for app compatibility work. At this milestone we’ll deliver not only final SDK/ NDK APIs, but too final internal APIs and app-facing system behaviors. We’re expecting to reach Platform Stability by August 2021, and you’ll have several weeks before the official release to do your final testing. The liberate timeline details are here.
Get started with Android 12
The Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 12 pieces, research your apps, and demonstrate us feedback. You can get started today by flashing a device organisation portrait to a Pixel 3/ 3 XL, Pixel 3a/ 3a XL, Pixel 4/ 4 XL, Pixel 4a/ 4a 5G, or Pixel 5 machine. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64 -bit system idols with the Android Emulator in Android Studio.
When you’re set up, here are some of the things you are able to do:
Try the brand-new features and APIs – your feedback is critical during the early part of the developer preview. Report issues in our tracker or give us direct feedback by examination for selected facets from the feedback and applications page.
Evaluation your current app for harmony – the goal here is to learn whether your app is affected by default behavior changes in Android 12. Just install your current published app onto a invention or emulator loping Android 12 and measure.
Research your app with opt-in alterations – Android 12 has opt-in behavior conversions that exclusively change your app when it’s targeting the new stage. It’s extremely important to understand and assess these changes early. To make it easier to exam, you can toggle the changes on and off individually.
We’ll update the preview organization epitomes and SDK regularly throughout the Android 12 secrete cycle. This initial preview release is for developers only and not is available for daily or consumer squander, so we’re stimulating it available by manual download merely. You can blink a factory image to your Pixel device, or you can sideload an OTA image to a Pixel device feed Android 11, in which case you won’t need to unlock your bootloader or erase data. Either way, formerly you’ve manually installed a preview structure, you’ll automatically get future informs over-the-air for all last-minute previews and Betas. More now.
As we come closer to a final product, we’ll be inviting consumers to try it out as well, and we’ll open up enrollments through Android Beta at that time. Stay chanted for details, but for now please be advised that Android Beta is not currently available for Android 12.
For complete information, visit the Android 12 developer area.
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