For any startup or established business, Android application development is one of the most effective ways to build a business solution and instantly reach billions of users worldwide. Android applications not only help you reach on their smartphones but also their tablets, watches, TVs, cars, and more. Held on the 11th and 12th May, the Google I/O 2022 event brought some significant changes and updates for Android app developers.
This event encompassed some major declarations for Android mobile application development teams:
- Notable new features to facilitate easy Android application development
- Enhancements in wearable apps and developments for larger screens
- Improvements in Android Studio and Jetpack Compose
- A redesigned Google wallet
- And many more
If you’re looking to hire Android app developers, consider going through these latest software announcements by Google to achieve Android project success.
This article describes the top 13 changes and updates an Android development company or developer must know.
Top 13 Software Declarations Made at Google I/O 2022
The Google I/O event is hosted mainly for developers from all over the world. Below are the significant declarations Google made during and after the I/O developer keynote.
1. Android 13 Beta 2
The Android 13 beta version is now available. So, you can make your applications ready for the latest privacy and security features, such as the new notification permissions and other better permissions for pairing with accessible devices and using media files, and the privacy-protecting photo selector.
You can hire mobile app developers who can make your Android app more powerful by leveraging features like themed-app icons and app-specific language support.
Developers can create apps adhering to modern standards like Bluetooth LE Audio and HDR video. You can try and test Android 13 Beta on devices like tablets, foldables, and phones.
2. Android Studio
Google also made announcements related to the toolset used for modern Android application development. Two Android Studio launches will take place – Android Studio Electric Eel, a Canary release, and Android Studio Dolphin, the Beta version.
Developers can use the Android Studio Dolphin to check how often composables can recompose using the Layout Inspector. Too many recompositions demonstrate that a composable can be easily optimized.
Additionally, Dolphin has an Animation Coordination tool that allows developers to view and scrub through the animations quickly. Moreover, it adds a MultiPreview annotation to help developers build for various screen sizes.
Android Studio Electric Eel, on the other hand, includes a recomposition highlighter that predicts when and which composables recompose.
3. Jetpack Compose
Another major announcement at Google I/O 2022 is the launch of Jetpack Compose 1.2 Beta. It fixes one of the most familiar bugs by adding includeFontPadding, a modifiable parameter.
It facilitates accurate text alignment within a layout and therefore, Google recommends setting this value to improper.
Jetpack Compose 1.2 Beta also comes with downloadable fonts so you can search for Google Fonts reversely. You can even determine fallback fonts using an easy setup.
Presently, Jetpack Compose provides support for Android’s text magnifier widget. The previous version, Compose 1.1.0, took this magnifier to selection within the text fields. The recent version supports the magnifier in SelectionContainer.
Additionally, it has improved the magnifier to match the exact behaviors and functions of the Android magnifier in Views.
4. Flutter 3
At Google I/O 2022, Google introduced Flutter 3, a cross-platform development tool with newly built support for Linux and macOS.
It also brings enhancements to Firebase integration, the Casual Games Toolkit, faster compilation speeds on Apple Silicon Macs, and other innovative functionality and productivity features.
Besides, you will enjoy better support for Google’s Material You design language. Flutter 3 also exists with the Dart SDK 2.17 release.
5. Big Screens and Foldables
At the event, Google also launched Android 12L, i.e., bigger screens like tablets and foldables. These have larger screen space for features including multitasking, split-screen mode, and column-based layouts from the system menu.
Enhancements in Android 13 offer a pleasant experience of developing and designing flexible UIs.
Google provides three starter layouts, known as canonical layouts. They facilitate the initiation of projects with big screens.
- Feed
- Supporting panel
- List-detail view
These are starter projects for elementary use cases. New divisions that allow you to convert your User Interface based on the space for different devices are:
- expanded
- medium
- compact
You can discover these preset classes in the JetpackWindowManger 1.1 library. Another significant library for creating engaging UIs is the Jetpack DragAndDrop library. It provides helper classes for easy dragging and dropping. Slidingpanelayout is another one used for blending fragments intuitively.
6. Health Connect
Google also announced Health Connect at the Google I/O 2022. It is a new platform to find health data quickly and safely across a wide variety of Android devices. It is a collaboration of Google and Samsung embraced by Google Fit, Samsung Health, and Fitbit.
7. Firebase
The Firebase team debuted Firebase Extension events at Google I/O 2022. It enables developers to enhance the extensions’ functionality with their code. Besides, new third-party extensions for processing payments, search, and marketing introduced by Typesense, Stream, RevenueCat, and Snap are now available in the Firebase Emulator Suite.
Developers can now deploy the Firebase web apps built with Angular Universal and Next.JS using a single command: ‘firebase deploy’. Support for other web frameworks is likely to come soon.
Firebase provides better support for Crashlytics to reduce the efforts needed to get started, receive alerts from Crashlytics, log on-demand critical issues in apps, and assemble Flutter crashes more potentially.
Furthermore, Firebase has also updated its support for App Check integration with the new Play Integrity API, Swift programming language, new alerts in Performance Monitoring, and new features and functionalities in App Distribution, such as easy group access, auto-deletion, bulk tester management, and the capacity to inform software testers about the latest version inside the application.
8. Google Wallet
Google introduced its first wallet application in 2011. It has undergone several changes and finally became Google Pay in 2018. At the Google I/O 2022 event, Google declared a new, revamped Google Wallet to bring back its old wallet.
Google aims at replacing the physical wallet with digital wallets to enable users to save their debit/credit cards without requiring a real wallet. Currently, the company is trying this idea in the USA to allow users to store their driver’s license digitally and share it through a QR code or NFC.
The newly built Google Wallet app comes with some predetermined pass types such as boarding passes, vaccination cards, loyalty cards, gift cards, etc.
Furthermore, it offers a generic card to use for other passes, such as parking passes or library cards. Developers can also combine many passes. All mobile application development companies can expect the Google Wallet to get listed in the Play Store very soon.
9. Android Vitals
In its “App Quality on Google Play” session at the I/O event, Google announced the launch of Android Vitals outside of the Play Console. The newly developed API offers programmatic access to the Vitals metrics and issues data, such as stack traces, ANR and crash rates, counts, and clusters.
Furthermore, Google is looking to simplify using Android Vitals with other crash reporting tools, specifically Crashlytics from Firebase. Therefore, you can now link your Play application and Crashlytics app to obtain Play track data in Crashlytics.
An Android application development company can anticipate that issue clusters will also get the same name soon in both Crashlytics and Vitals, simplifying their usage together.
Lastly, Android Vitals can now indicate if a crash occurred in the foreground or background. You can also verify the stack trace for the crash. However, it redacts the exception alert because it may feature PII. Vitals are soon going to show exception messages while ensuring securing user data by redacting PII.
10. Google Play
One of the biggest announcements at Google I/O 2022 is the introduction of the Google Play SDK Index. It is a robust web tool that provides information about the most demanding Android packages. Specifically, you will know about the permissions they need, the applications that use them, and code that may violate Google Play policies.
The new beta program known as “LiveOps” will enable Android developers to submit their exclusive events or discounts and apps to get them featured by the Play Store. Presently, the LiveOps beta version has certain limitations; however, developers can register for the opportunity to join.
Google’s Play Store will also get a new feature – the ability to manage almost 50 store app listings. It allows for minimal variations between them, feasibly depending on the user’s interests, location, or an ad campaign.
11. Wear OS
The new updates in Wear OS allow developers to reimagine the possibilities for wearable app development. Jetpack Compose for Wear OS is now available in the beta version. Developers can easily create elegant Wear OS apps with less coding. Besides, Health Services is also available now in beta, offering a lot of innovation to the health and fitness app developer community.
Another major announcement made at the Google I/O event is the launch of The Google Pixel Watch in the Fall season. It combines the best of Fitbit and Wear OS.
Hence, you can hire Android app developers to build next-gen Wear OS applications.
12. Google Assistant
Developers use the Google Assistant SDK to create App Actions which allow users to give seamless voice commands to launch basic app functions.
In the “Google Assistant functionality across Android devices” session at the Google I/O 2022 event, Google announced that it will upgrade App Action support for Wear OS.
Furthermore, Google declares that it will enable the health and fitness built-in indexes used in existing apps to allow users to introduce a similar integration.
The organization will also enhance developer access to the Shortcuts API for Android for Cars. It is going to facilitate simple voice access integrations in apps built for Android Automotive and Android Auto simpler.
On the contrary, intelligent custom intents enable the Assistant to identify numerous examples of user queries through machine learning.
Furthermore, Google introduced two new features – App Install Suggestions and Brandless Queries. These are accessible for apps using App Actions.
With App Install Suggestions, the Google Assistant can direct users to the Play Store and coax them to install the application and access the functionality. The Assistant can use Brandless Queries to determine which application perfectly meets users’ needs and route them to that particular app.
13. Baseline Profiles
The speed of an application post-installation can impact its user retention rates. At Google I/O 2022, the organization launched Baseline Profiles to improve the user experience. It allows libraries and apps to provide the Android runtime with metadata concerning path use that gets prioritized before compilation.
With the addition of baseline profiles, Google has witnessed 30% faster application start-up times. It is already using Baseline Profiles within Jetpack and has integrated baselines to popular libraries such as Compose and Fragments to help provide a more enhanced and effective user experience.
Conclusion
With a list of numerous changes and updates in the mobile application development space, Google has exhibited a better offering at the Google I/O 2022. Whether you’re an Android application development company or an independent Android developer, you should consider using these improvements and developments in Android, Flutter, and Firebase to build future-ready apps. These advancements are intended to make the mobile application development process more seamless and effortless.
On the other hand, if you’re a business entrepreneur and looking to hire mobile app developers, these Google announcements regarding modern mobile application development are worth your consideration.