val wfpManager =

WatchFacePushManagerFactory.createWatchFacePushManager(context)

val response = wfpManager.listWatchFaces()

try {

if (response.remainingSlotCount > 0) {

wfpManager.addWatchFace(apkFd, token)

} else {

val slotId = response.installedWatchFaceDetails.first().slotId

wfpManager.updateWatchFace(slotId, apkFd, token)

}

} catch (a: WatchFacePushManager.AddWatchFaceException) {

return WatchFaceInstallError.WATCH_FACE_INSTALL_ERROR

} catch (u: WatchFacePushManager.UpdateWatchFaceException) {

return WatchFaceInstallError.WATCH_FACE_INSTALL_ERROR

}

Today, we're diving into Low Light Boost (LLB), a powerful feature designed to brighten real-time camera streams. Unlike Night Mode, which requires a hold-still capture duration, Low Light Boost works instantaneously on your live preview and video recordings. LLB automatically adjusts how much brightening is needed based on available light, so it's optimized for every environment.

With a recent update, LLB allows Instagram users to line up the perfect shot, and then their existing Night Mode implementation results in the same high quality low-light photos their users have been enjoying for over a year.

Why Real-time Brightness Matters

While Night Mode aims to improve final image quality, Low Light Boost is intended for usability and interactivity in dark environments. Another important factor to consider is that - even though they work together very well - you can use LLB and Night Mode independently, and you'll see with some of these use cases, LLB has value on its own when Night Mode photos aren't needed. Here is how LLB improves the user experience:

• Better Framing & Capture: In dimly lit scenes, a standard camera preview can be pitch black. LLB brightens the viewfinder, allowing users to actually see what they are framing before they hit the shutter button. For this experience, you can use Night Mode for the best quality low-light photo result, or you can let LLB give the user a "what you see is what you get" photo result.

• Reliable Scanning: QR codes are ubiquitous, but scanning them in a dark restaurant or parking garage is often frustrating. With a significantly brighter camera feed, scanning algorithms can reliably detect and decode QR codes even in very dim environments.

• Enhanced Interactions: For apps involving live video interactions (like AI assistants or video calls) LLB increases the amount of perceivable information, ensuring the computer vision models have enough data to work with

The Difference in Instagram

It's easy to imagine the difference this makes in the user experience. If users aren't able to see what they're capturing, then there's a higher chance they'll abandon the capture.

Choosing Your Implementation

There are two ways to implement Low Light Boost to provide the best experience across the widest range of devices:

1. Low Light Boost AE Mode: This is a hardware-layer auto-exposure mode. It offers the highest quality and performance because it fine-tunes the Image Signal Processor (ISP) pipeline directly. Always check for this first.

2. Google Low Light Boost: If the device doesn't support the AE mode, you can fall back to this software-based solution provided by Google Play services. It applies post-processing to the camera stream to brighten it. As an all-software solution, it is available on more devices, so this implementation helps you reach more devices with LLB.

Low Light Boost AE Mode (Hardware)

Mechanism:
This mode is supported on devices running Android 15 and newer and requires the OEM to have implemented the support in HAL (currently available on Pixel 10 devices). It integrates directly with the camera's Image Signal Processor (ISP). If you set CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE to CameraMetadata.CONTROL_AE_MODE_ON_LOW_LIGHT_BOOST_BRIGHTNESS_PRIORITY, the camera system takes control.

Behavior:
The HAL/ISP analyzes the scene and adjusts sensor and processing parameters, often including increasing exposure time, to brighten the image. This can yield frames with a significantly improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) because the extended exposure time, rather than an increase in digital sensor gain (ISO), allows the sensor to capture more light information.

Advantage:
Potentially better image quality and power efficiency as it leverages dedicated hardware pathways.

Trade off:
May result in a lower frame rate in very dark conditions as the sensor needs more time to capture light. The frame rate can drop to as low as 10 FPS in very low light conditions.

Google Low Light Boost (Software via Google Play Services)

Mechanism:
This solution, distributed as an optional module via Google Play services, applies post-processing to the camera stream. It uses a sophisticated realtime image enhancement technology called HDRNet.

Google HDRNet:
This deep learning model analyzes the image at a lower resolution to predict a compact set of parameters (a bilateral grid). This grid then guides the efficient, spatially-varying enhancement of the full-resolution image on the GPU. The model is trained to brighten and improve image quality in low-light conditions, with a focus on face visibility.

Process Orchestration:
The HDRNet model and its accompanying logic are orchestrated by the Low Light Boost processor. This includes:

1. Scene Analysis:
   A custom calculator that estimates the true scene brightness using camera metadata (sensor sensitivity, exposure time, etc.) and image content. This analysis determines the boost level.

2. HDRNet Processing:
   Applies the HDRNet model to brighten the frame. The model used is tuned for low light scenes and optimized for realtime performance.

3. Blending:
   The original and HDRNet processed frames are blended. The amount of blending applied is dynamically controlled by the scene brightness calculator, ensuring a smooth transition between boosted and unboosted states.

Advantage:
Works on a broader range of devices (currently supports Samsung S22 Ultra, S23 Ultra, S24 Ultra, S25 Ultra, and Pixel 6 through Pixel 9) without requiring specific HAL support. Maintains the camera's frame rate as it's a post-processing effect.

Trade-off:
As a post-processing method, the quality is limited by the information present in the frames delivered by the sensor. It cannot recover details lost due to extreme darkness at the sensor level.

By offering both hardware and software pathways, Low Light Boost provides a scalable solution to enhance low-light camera performance across the Android ecosystem. Developers should prioritize the AE mode where available and use the Google Low Light Boost as a robust fallback.

Implementing Low Light Boost in Your App

Now let's look at how to implement both LLB offerings. You can implement the following whether you use CameraX or Camera2 in your app. For the best results, we recommend implementing both Step 1 and Step 2.

Step 1: Low Light Boost AE Mode

Available on select devices running Android 15 and higher, LLB AE Mode functions as a specific Auto-Exposure (AE) mode.

1. Check for Availability

First, check if the camera device supports LLB AE Mode.

val cameraInfo = cameraProvider.getCameraInfo(cameraSelector)
val isLlbSupported = cameraInfo.isLowLightBoostSupported

2. Enable the Mode

If supported, you can enable LLB AE Mode using CameraX's CameraControl object.

// After setting up your camera, use the CameraInfo object to enable LLB AE Mode.
camera = cameraProvider.bindToLifecycle(...)

if (isLlbSupported) {
  try {
    // The .await() extension suspends the coroutine until the
    // ListenableFuture completes. If the operation fails, it throws
    // an exception which we catch below.
    camera?.cameraControl.enableLowLightBoostAsync(true).await()
  } catch (e: IllegalStateException) {
    Log.e(TAG, "Failed to enable low light boost: not available on this device or with the current camera configuration", e)
  } catch (e: CameraControl.OperationCanceledException) {
    Log.e(TAG, "Failed to enable low light boost: camera is closed or value has changed", e)
  }
}

3. Monitor the State

Just because you requested the mode doesn't mean it's currently "boosting." The system only activates the boost when the scene is actually dark. You can set up an Observer to update your UI (like showing a moon icon) or convert to a Flow using the extension function asFlow().

if (isLlbSupported) {
  camera?.cameraInfo.lowLightBoostState.asFlow().collectLatest { state ->
    // Update UI accordingly
    updateMoonIcon(state == LowLightBoostState.ACTIVE)
  }
}

You can read the full guide on Low Light Boost AE Mode here.

Step 2: Google Low Light Boost

For devices that don't support the hardware AE mode, Google Low Light Boost acts as a powerful fallback. It uses a LowLightBoostSession to intercept and brighten the stream.

1. Add Dependencies

This feature is delivered via Google Play services.

implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-camera-low-light-boost:16.0.1-beta06")
// Add coroutines-play-services to simplify Task APIs
implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.10.2")

2. Initialize the Client

Before starting your camera, use the LowLightBoostClient to ensure the module is installed and the device is supported.

val llbClient = LowLightBoost.getClient(context)

// Check support and install if necessary
val isSupported = llbClient.isCameraSupported(cameraId).await()
val isInstalled = llbClient.isModuleInstalled().await()

if (isSupported && !isInstalled) {
    // Trigger installation
    llbClient.installModule(installCallback).await()
}

3. Create a LLB Session

Google LLB processes each frame, so you must give your display Surface to the LowLightBoostSession, and it gives you back a Surface that has the brightening applied. For Camera2 apps, you can add the resulting Surface with CaptureRequest.Builder.addTarget(). For CameraX, this processing pipeline aligns best with the CameraEffect class, where you can apply the effect with a SurfaceProcessor and provide it back to your Preview with a SurfaceProvider, as seen in this code.

// With a SurfaceOutput from SurfaceProcessor.onSurfaceOutput() and a
// SurfaceRequest from Preview.SurfaceProvider.onSurfaceRequested(),
// create a LLB Session.
suspend fun createLlbSession(surfaceRequest: SurfaceRequest, outputSurfaceForLlb: Surface) {
  // 1. Create the LLB Session configuration
  val options = LowLightBoostOptions(
    outputSurfaceForLlb,
    cameraId,
    surfaceRequest.resolution.width,
    surfaceRequest.resolution.height,
    true // Start enabled
  )

  // 2. Create the session.
  val llbSession = llbClient.createSession(options, callback).await()

  // 3. Get the surface to use.
  val llbInputSurface = llbSession.getCameraSurface()

  // 4. Provide the surface to the CameraX Preview UseCase.
  surfaceRequest.provideSurface(llbInputSurface, executor, resultListener)

  // 5. Set the scene detector callback to monitor how much boost is being applied.
  val onSceneBrightnessChanged = object : SceneDetectorCallback {
    override fun onSceneBrightnessChanged(
      session: LowLightBoostSession,
      boostStrength: Float
    ) {
      // Monitor the boostStrength from 0 (no boosting) to 1 (maximum boosting)
    }
  }
  llbSession.setSceneDetectorCallback(onSceneBrightnessChanged, null)
}

4. Pass in the Metadata

For the algorithm to work, it needs to analyze the camera's auto-exposure state. You must pass capture results back to the LLB session. In CameraX, this can be done by extending your Preview.Builder with Camera2Interop.Extender.setSessionCaptureCallback().

Camera2Interop.Extender(previewBuilder).setSessionCaptureCallback(
  object : CameraCaptureSession.CaptureCallback() {
    override fun onCaptureCompleted(
      session: CameraCaptureSession,
      request: CaptureRequest,
      result: TotalCaptureResult
    ) {
      super.onCaptureCompleted(session, request, result)
      llbSession?.processCaptureResult(result)
    }
  }
)

Detailed implementation steps for the client and session can be found in the Google Low Light Boost guide.

Next Steps

By implementing these two options, you ensure that your users can see clearly, scan reliably, and interact effectively, regardless of the lighting conditions.

Gemini 3 optimized for low-latency

Seamless integration with Firebase AI Logic

val model = Firebase.ai(backend = GenerativeBackend.googleAI())
    .generativeModel(
        modelName = "gemini-3-flash-preview")

Scale with Confidence

AI Monitoring

Server Prompt Templates

---
model: 'gemini-3-flash-preview'
input:
  schema:
    topic:
      type: 'string'
      minLength: 2
      maxLength: 40
    length:
      type: 'number'
      minimum: 1
      maximum: 200
    language:
      type: 'string'
---

{{role "system"}}
You're a storyteller that tells nice and joyful stories with happy endings.

{{role "user"}}
Create a story about {{topic}} with the length of {{length}} words in the {{language}} language.

Prompt template defined on the Firebase Console

val generativeModel = Firebase.ai.templateGenerativeModel()
val response = generativeModel.generateContent("storyteller-v10",
    mapOf(
        "topic" to topic,
        "length" to length,
        "language" to language
    )
)
_output.value = response.text

Code snippet to access to the prompt template

Gemini 3 Flash for AI development assistance in Android Studio

Get Started Today

Hi everyone,

Thank you for making 2025 another amazing year for Google Play.

Together, we've built Play into something much more than a store-it's a dynamic ecosystem powered by your creativity. This year, our focus was ensuring Play continues to be the best destination for people to discover incredible content and enjoy rewarding gaming experiences.

We're incredibly proud of the progress we've made alongside you, and we're excited to celebrate those who pushed the boundaries of what's possible-like the winners of our Best of 2025 awards. Watch our recap video to see how we've made Play even more rewarding for your business, or read on for a more in-depth look back on the year.

Evolving Play to be more than a store

This year, we focused on evolving Play into a true destination for discovery where billions of people around the world can find and enjoy experiences that make life more productive and delightful.

Making Play the best destination for your games business

Just a few months ago, we shared our vision for a more unified experience that brings more fun to gaming. Today, players often jump between different platforms to discover, play, and get rewarded. Our goal is to connect these journeys to create the best experience for players and, consequently, grow your business. Our first steps include these key updates:

• A new Gamer Profile that tracks cross-game stats, streaks, and achievements, customizable with a Gen AI Avatar.

• Integrated Rewards across mobile and PC that give players access to VIP experiences like our Four Days of Fantastic Rewards at San Diego Comic-Con, Diamond District experience on Roblox, and Play's own treasure-hunt mini-game Diamond Valley alongside new Play Games Leagues where players can compete in their favorite games, climb leaderboards, and win Play Points rewards.

• The new Play Games Sidekick, a helpful in-game overlay that curates and organizes relevant gaming info, and provides direct access to Gemini Live for real-time AI-powered guidance in the game. We recently rolled out the open beta to developers, and we encourage you to start testing the sidekick in your games and share your feedback.

• Integrated gameplay across devices is now fully realized as Google Play Games on PC has graduated from beta to general availability, solidifying our commitment to cross-platform play and making our catalog of over 200,000 titles available across mobile and PC.

Play Games Sidekick is a new in-game overlay that gives players instant access to their rewards, offers, and achievements, driving higher engagement for your game.

To help you get the most out of this unified gaming experience, we introduced the Google Play Games Level Up program, a new way to unlock greater success for your business. For titles that meet core user experience guidelines, you can unlock a powerful suite of benefits including the ability to:

• Re-engage players on the new You tab, a new personalized destination on the Play Store that is designed to help you re-engage and retain players by showcasing content and rewards from recently played games in one dedicated space. You can utilize engagement tools in Play Console to feature your latest events, offers, and updates.

• Maximize your game's reach with prominent boosts across the store, including featuring opportunities, Play Points boosters and quests, and enhanced visibility on editorial surfaces like the Games Home and Play Points Home.

You tab is a personalized destination designed to help you re-engage and
retain players by showcasing your latest events, offers, and updates.

Unlocking more discovery and engagement for your apps and its content

Last year, we shared our vision for a content-rich Google Play that has already delivered strong results. Year-over-year, Apps Home has seen over an 18% increase in average monthly visitors with apps seeing a 9% growth in acquisitions and double-digit growth* in app spend for those monetizing on Google Play. We introduced even more updates to elevate discovery and engagement on and off the store.

• Curated spaces, launched last year, have been a success, fostering routine engagement by delivering daily, locally relevant content (such as football highlights in Brazil, cricket in India, and comics in Japan) directly to the Apps Home. Building on this, we expanded to new categories and locations, including a new entertainment-focused space in Korea.

Curated spaces make it easier to find and engage with local interests.

• We significantly increased timely, relevant content on Google Play through Spotlight and new topic browse pages. Spotlight, located at the top of Apps Home, offers seasonal content feeds-like Taylor Swift's recent album launch or holiday movie guides-in a new, immersive way to connect users with current cultural moments. Concurrently, new topic browse pages were integrated across the store in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, allowing content deep dives into over 100,000 shows and movies.

Spotlight offers an immersive experience connecting users

with relevant apps during current cultural moments.

Last year, we introduced Engage SDK to help you deliver personalized content to users across surfaces and seamlessly guide them into the relevant in-app experiences. Integrating it unlocks surfaces like Collections, our immersive full-screen experience bringing content directly to the user's home screen. This year, we rolled out updates to expand your content's reach even further:

• Engage SDK content expanded to the Play Store this summer, enabling seamless re-engagement across Apps Home and the new You tab.

• Rolled out to more markets, including Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, and Korea.
  
  

Supporting you throughout your app lifecycle

In addition to evolving the store, we've continued to build on our powerful toolset to support you at every stage, from testing and release to growth and monetization.

Helping you deliver high-quality, trusted user experiences

We launched key updates in Android Studio and Play Console to help you build more stable and compliant apps.

• Policy insights in Android Studio help you catch potential violations early by showing in-context guidance, such as policy summaries and best practices, whenever code related to a Google Play policy is detected.

• You can now halt fully rolled-out releases to stop the distribution of problematic app versions through Play Console and the Publishing API.

• We also added new Android vitals performance metrics, including low memory kill metrics which provides device-specific insights to resolve stability problems and excessive partial wake lock metrics to help you address battery drain.

New Android vitals metrics help you resolve stability problems and address battery drain.

Boosting your productivity and workflow

We refined the Play Console experience to make managing your app and your marketing content more efficient.

• We put your most essential insights front and center with a redesigned app dashboard and overview pages.

• To repurpose creative content across Play Console more easily, we launched an asset library that lets you upload from Google Drive, organize with tags, and crop existing visuals.

• You can now automatically translate app strings with Gemini at no cost. This feature eliminates manual translation work for new releases, making updates seamless. You remain in full control with the ability to preview translations using a built-in emulator, and can easily edit or disable the service.

Translate app strings automatically with Gemini, while maintaining full control for previewing and editing.

Maximizing your revenue with secure, frictionless payments

We introduced new features focused on driving purchases and maximizing subscription revenue globally.

• We're improving purchase conversion globally with over 800 million users now ready to buy. We launched features that encourage users to set up payment methods early, provide AI-powered payment method recommendations, and expanded our payment library to support more local payment methods globally.

• To maximize recurring revenue from over 400 million paid subscriptions, we introduced multi-product checkout, allowing you to sell base subscriptions and add-ons under a simple, single transaction.

• To combat churn, we began showcasing subscription benefits in more places and provided you with more flexible options like extended grace periods and account holds for declined payments, which has proven effective in reducing involuntary churn by an average of 10%*.

To help reduce voluntary churn, we're showcasing your subscriptions benefits across Play.

Investing in our app and game community with developer programs

We're proud to invest in programs for app and game companies around the world to help you grow and succeed on Play.

• Google Play Apps Accelerator: We've opened submissions for our program that will help early-stage app companies scale their business. Selected companies from over 80 eligible countries will join a 12-week accelerator starting in March 2026, where they can learn more about creating high-quality apps, go-to-market strategies, user acquisition, and more.

Submissions are still open for our 12-week accelerator, which starts in March 2026.
Apply by January 7, 2026 for consideration.

• Indie Games Fund (Latin America): Now in its fourth year, this fund provides support to 10 promising game studios in Latin America with funding and hands-on support from Google Play. In October, we announced the 2025 recipients.

• ChangGoo Program (South Korea): Now in its seventh year, this program works with over 100 Korean mobile app and game startups to foster their growth and expansion in collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Korean Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED).

• Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training Program (Indonesia): The third edition launched in April, offering a 6-month online curriculum, meetups, and mentorship for Indonesian game developers in partnership with Indonesia's Ministry of Creative Economy and the Indonesian Gaming Association.

• Google Play x Unity Game Developer Training Program (India): The first India cohort kicked off in November with 500 aspiring and professional game developers. The 6-month journey provides online curriculum and meetups in partnership with GDAI and the govt of Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

• Google for Startups Accelerator program (India): We provided Seed to Series-A AI-powered app startups in India with insights on the latest AI advancements, mentorship, and expert guidance.

Protecting your business and our ecosystem

At the heart of all the progress we've made this year is a foundation of trust and security. We're always innovating to make Play safer for everyone-so users can trust every app they download and so you can keep building a thriving business.

To offer stronger protection for your business and users, we continued to enhance the Play Integrity API and our anti-fraud systems. On average, apps using Play Integrity features see 80% lower unauthorized usage, and our efforts have safeguarded top apps using Play Billing from $2.9 billion in fraud and abuse in the last year.

• Automatically fix user issues: New Play in-app remediation prompts in Play Integrity API automatically guide users to fix common problems like network issues, outdated Google Play Services, or device integrity flags, reducing integration complexity and getting users back to a good state faster.

• Combat repeat bad actors: Device recall is a powerful new tool that lets you store and recall limited data associated with a device, even if the device is reset, helping protect your business model from repeat bad actors.

• Strengthen revenue protection: We've introduced stronger protections against abuse, including refining pricing arbitrage detection and enhancing protection against free trial and intro pricing abuse for subscriptions, helping your business models remain profitable.

For a full breakdown of new ways we're keeping the ecosystem safe, check out our deep-dive blog post here.

Thank you for your partnership

This is an incredible time for Google Play. We've made huge strides together - your passion, creativity, and feedback throughout 2025 has made Play that much stronger. We're grateful to work alongside the best developer community in the world, and we look forward to unlocking even greater success together in the new year.

Happy holidays!

Sam Bright

VP & GM, Google Play + Developer Ecosystem

* Source: Internal Google data

Security is foundational to Android. We partner with you to keep the platform safe and protect user data by offering powerful security tools and features, like Credential Manager and FLAG_SECURE. Every Android release brings performance and security enhancements, and with Android 16, you can take simple, significant steps to strengthen your app's defenses. Check out our video or continue reading to learn more about our enhanced protections for accessibility APIs.

Protect your app from snooping with a single line of code

The accessibilityDataSensitive flag allows you to explicitly mark a view or composable as containing sensitive data. When you set this flag to true on your app, you are essentially blocking potentially malicious apps from accessing your sensitive view data or performing interactions on it. Here is how it works: any app requesting accessibility permission that hasn't explicitly declared itself as a legitimate accessibility tool (isAccessibilityTool=true) is denied access to that view.

This simple but effective change helps to prevent malware from stealing information and performing unauthorized actions, all without impacting users' experience of legitimate accessibility tools. Note: If an app is not an accessibility tool but requests accessibility permissions and sets isAccessibilityTool=true, Play will reject it and Google Play Protect will block it on user devices.

Automatic, enhanced security for setFilterTouchesWhenObscured protection

If you already use setFilterTouchesWhenObscured(true) to protect your app from tapjacking, your views are automatically treated as sensitive data for accessibility. By enhancing the setFilterTouchesWhenObscured method with accessibilityDataSensitive protections, we're instantly giving everyone an additional layer of defense with no extra work.

Getting started

We recommend that you use setFilterTouchesWhenObscured, or alternatively the accessibilityDataSensitive flag, on any screen that contains sensitive information, including login pages, payment flows, and any view displaying personal or financial data.

For Jetpack Compose

For View-based apps

In your XML layout, add the relevant attribute to the sensitive view.

Alternatively, you can set the property programmatically in Java or Kotlin:

Read more about the accessibilityDataSensitive and setFilterTouchesWhenObscured flags in the Tapjacking guide.

Partnering with developers to keep users safe

In our latest #WeArePlay film, we meet Adriano, Wagner and Grazyelle. The trio are behind Matraquinha, an app helping thousands of non-verbal children in more than 80 countries communicate. Discover more about their inspiring story and the impact on their own son, Gabriel.

Wagner, you developed Matraquinha for a deeply personal reason: your son, Gabriel. Can you tell us what inspired you to create this app for him?

My wife and I adopted our son at 10 months. We later found out he couldn't speak and received a diagnosis of Autism, so we started researching ways to communicate with him and vice versa. The idea started with drawings of objects and phrases on cards for him to point to things he wanted. We wanted to make this more digital and so, with my brother Adriano's help, we developed the Matraquinha app.

How does the app work?

Wagner: The app has almost 250 drawings, like digital flashcards. The child points to a card and the app announces the name of the object, place or feeling. Parents then more clearly understand what their child needs.

Grazyelle: As a mom, after Gabriel started using the app, he was able to communicate and that reduced his feeling of crisis a lot. Before, he would be frustrated. Now with the app, my son can tell me what he needs.

Matraquinha started as a personal app for your family, but is now helping users in over 77 countries. How did you achieve this scale?

Adriano: When my brother came to me with the idea, we thought it would be for our family and had no idea it would turn into a global resource for more families. In the first week, we had 1 download. By the next year, we had 100,000 downloads, all organic with no ads. It showed us how important the app was to help families communicate with their non-verbal children.

Adriano: It's truly incredible for us to be on Google Play because, even without being senior engineers, this tool gave us an opportunity-an entry point-to bring communication to other families. We use other tools like Firebase Analytics which lets us see which cards and categories people are using the most, this helps us when developing new versions.

What is next for Matraquinha, and what features are you most excited about bringing to the community?

We are adding an extra 500 real images to the app, because kids are growing and no longer want drawings as they become teenagers. We're also creating a board that has pronouns, nouns, and verbs. So say, a child wants to let the parents know they like to eat hamburgers, they can tap on the different words and create a sentence. This gives them even more independence. We are also exploring ways to use AI to make the app even more personal and pursuing the same goal: ensuring every child can be heard.

In our latest #WeArePlay film, which celebrates the people behind apps and games on Google Play, we meet Mikkel - the founder and CEO of Miksapix Interactive. Mikkel is on a mission to share the rich stories and culture of the Sámi people through gaming. Discover how he is building a powerful platform for cultural preservation using a superheroine.

You went from a career in broadcasting to becoming a founder in the games industry. What inspired that leap?

I've had an interest in games for a long time and always found the medium interesting. While I was working for a broadcast corporation in Karasjok, I was thinking, "Why aren't there any Sámi games or games with Sámi content?". Sámi culture is quite rich in lore and mythology. I wanted to bring that to a global stage. That's how Miksapix Interactive was born.

Your game, Raanaa - The Shaman Girl, is deeply rooted in Sámi culture. What is the significance of telling these specific stories?

Because these are our stories to tell! Our mission is to tell them to a global audience to create awareness about Sámi identity and culture. Most people in the world don't know about the Sámi and the Sámi cultures and lore. With our languages at risk, I hope to use storytelling as a way to inspire Sámi children to value their language, celebrate their identity, and take pride in their cultural heritage. Sámi mythology is rich with powerful matriarchs and goddesses, which inspired us to create a superheroine. Through her journey of self-discovery and empowerment, Raanaa finds her true strength - a story we hope will inspire hope and resilience in pre-teens and teens around the world. Through games like Raanaa - The Shaman Girl, we get to convey our stories in new formats.

How did growing up with rich storytelling affect your games?

I was raised in a reindeer herders family, which means we spent a lot of time in nature and the fields with the reindeers. Storytelling was a big part of the family. We would eat supper in the Lavvu tent sitting around a bonfire with relatives and parents telling stories. With Miksapix Interactive, I am taking my love for storytelling and bringing it to the world, using my first hand experience of the Sámi culture.

How has Google Play helped you achieve global reach from your base in the Arctic?

For us, Google Play was a no-brainer. It was the easiest part to just release it on Google Play, no hassle. We have more downloads from Google Play than anywhere else, and it has definitely helped us getting abroad in markets like Brazil, India and the US and beyond. The positive Play Store reviews motivated and inspired us during the development of Raanaa. We use Google products like Google Sheets for collaboration when we do a localization or translation.

What is next for Miksapix Interactive?

Now, our sights are set on growth. We are very focused on the Raanaa IP. For the mobile game, we are looking into localizing it to different Sámi languages. In Norway, we have six Sámi languages, so we are now going to translate it to Lule Sámi and Southern Sámi. We're planning to have these new Sámi languages available this year.

The Android Studio Otter 2 Feature Drop is here to supercharge your productivity.

This final stable release for '25 powers up Agent Mode, equipping it with the new Android Knowledge Base for improved accuracy, and giving you the option to try out the new Gemini 3 model. You'll also be able to take advantage of new settings such as the ability to keep your personalized IDE environment consistent across all of your machines. We've also incorporated all of the latest stability and performance improvements from the IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2 platform, including Kotlin compiler and terminal improvements, making this a significant enhancement for your development workflow.

Updates to Agent Mode

We recently introduced the ability to use our latest model, Gemini 3 Pro Preview, within Android Studio. This is our best model for coding and agentic capabilities. It'll give you superior performance in Agent Mode and advanced problem-solving capabilities so you can focus on what you do best: creating high quality apps for your users.

We are beginning to roll out limited Gemini 3 access (with a 1 million token size window) to developers who are using the no-cost default model. For higher usage rate limits and longer sessions with Agent Mode, you can add a paid Gemini API Key or use a Gemini Code Assist Enterprise plan. Learn more about how to get started with Gemini 3.

While the training of large language models provides deep knowledge that is excellent for common tasks-like creating Compose UIs-training concludes on a fixed date, resulting in gaps for new libraries and updated best practices. They are also less effective with niche APIs because the necessary training data is scarce. To fix this, Android Studio's Agent Mode is now equipped with the Android Knowledge Base, a new feature designed to significantly improve accuracy and reduce hallucinations by grounding responses with authoritative documentation. This means that instead of just relying on its training data, the agent can actively consult fresh documentation from official sources like the Android developer docs, Firebase, Google Developers, and Kotlin docs before it answers you.

The information in the Android Knowledge Base is stored in Android Studio and its content is automatically updated in the background on a periodic basis, so this feature is available regardless of which LLM you're using for AI assistance.

Gemini searching documentation before it answers you

This feature will be invoked automatically when Agent Mode detects a need for additional context, and you'll see additional explanatory text. However, if you'd like Agent Mode to reference documentation more frequently, you can include a line such as "Refer to Android documentation for guidance" in your Rules configuration.

Requested settings updates

Backup and Sync

Backup and Sync is a new way to keep your personalized Android Studio environment consistent across all your installations. You can now back up your settings-including your preferred keymaps, Code Editor settings, system settings, and more-to cloud storage using your Google Account, giving you a seamless experience wherever you code. We also support Backup and Sync using JetBrains accounts for developers using both IntelliJ and Android Studio installs simultaneously.

Backup and Sync

Getting started is simple. Just sign into your Google Account by clicking the avatar in the top-right corner of the IDE, or navigate to Settings > Backup and Sync. Once you authorize Android Studio to access your account's storage, you have full control over which categories of app data you want to sync. If you're syncing for the first time on a new machine, Android Studio will give you the option to either download your existing remote settings or upload your current local settings to the cloud. Of course, if you change your mind, you can easily disable Backup and Sync at any time from the settings menu. This feature has been available since the first Android Studio Otter release.

You can now opt in to receive communications directly from the Android Studio team. This enables you to get emails and notifications about important product updates, new features, and new libraries as soon as they're available.

You'll see this option when you sign in, and you can change your preference at any time by going to Settings > Tools > Google Accounts > Communications.

Your option to receive emails and notifications

• Kotlin K2 Mode: Following its rapid adoption after being enabled by default, the K2 Kotlin mode is now more stable and performant. This version improves Kotlin code analysis stability, adds new inspections, and enhances the reliability of Kotlin script execution.

• Terminal Performance: The integrated terminal is significantly faster, with major improvements in rendering. For Bash and Zsh, this update also introduces minor visual refinements without compromising or altering core shell behavior.

Today, the Jetpack Compose December '25 release is stable. This contains version 1.10 of the core Compose modules and version 1.4 of Material 3 (see the full BOM mapping), adding new features and major performance improvements.

To use today's release, upgrade your Compose BOM version to 2025.12.00:

Performance improvements

We know that the runtime performance of your app is hugely important to you and your users, so performance has been a major priority for the Compose team. This release brings a number of improvements-and you get them all by just upgrading to the latest version. Our internal scroll benchmarks show that Compose now matches the performance you would see if using Views:

Scroll performance benchmark comparing Views and Jetpack Compose across different versions of Compose

Pausable composition in lazy prefetch

Pausable composition in lazy prefetch is now enabled by default. This is a fundamental change to how the Compose runtime schedules work, designed to significantly reduce jank during heavy UI workloads.

Previously, once a composition started, it had to run to completion. If a composition was complex, this could block the main thread for longer than a single frame, causing the UI to freeze. With pausable composition, the runtime can now "pause" its work if it's running out of time and resume the work in the next frame. This is particularly effective when used with lazy layout prefetch to prepare frames ahead of time. The Lazy layout CacheWindow APIs introduced in Compose 1.9 are a great way to prefetch more content and benefit from pausable composition to produce much smoother UI performance.

Pausable composition combined with Lazy prefetch help reduce jank

We've also optimized performance elsewhere, with improvements to Modifier.onPlaced, Modifier.onVisibilityChanged, and other modifier implementations. We'll continue to invest in improving the performance of Compose.

New features

Retain

Compose offers a number of APIs to hold and manage state across different lifecycles; for example, remember persists state across compositions, and rememberSavable/rememberSerializable to persist across activity or process recreation. retain is a new API that sits between these APIs, enabling you to persist values across configuration changes without being serialized, but not across process death. As retain does not serialize your state, you can persist objects like lambda expressions, flows, and large objects like bitmaps, which cannot be easily serialized. For example, you may use retain to manage a media player (such as ExoPlayer) to ensure that media playback doesn't get interrupted by a configuration change.

We want to extend our thanks to the AndroidDev community (especially the Circuit team), who have influenced and contributed to the design of this feature.

Material 1.4

Version 1.4.0 of the material3 library adds a number of new components and enhancements:

• TextField now offers an experimental TextFieldState based version, which provides a more robust method for managing text's state. In addition, new SecureTextField and OutlinedSecureTextField variants are now offered. The material Text composable now supports autoSize behaviour.

• The carousel component now offers a new HorizontalCenteredHeroCarousel variant.

• TimePicker now supports switching between the picker and input modes.

• A vertical drag handle helps users to change an adaptive pane's size and/or position.

Horizontal centered hero carousel

Note that Material 3 Expressive APIs continue to be developed in the alpha releases of the material3 library. To learn more, see this recent talk:

New animation features

We continue to expand on our animation APIs, including updates for customizing shared element animations.

Dynamic shared elements

By default, sharedElement() and sharedBounds() animations attempt to animate

layout changes whenever a matching key is found in the target state. However, you may want to disable this animation dynamically based on certain conditions, such as the direction of navigation or the current UI state.

To control whether the shared element transition occurs, you can now customize the

SharedContentConfig passed to rememberSharedContentState(). The isEnabled

property determines if the shared element is active.

See the documentation for more.

Modifier.skipToLookaheadPosition()

A new modifier, Modifier.skipToLookaheadPosition(), has been added in this release, which keeps the final position of a composable when performing shared element animations. This allows for performing transitions like "reveal" type animation, as can be seen in the Androidify sample with the progressive reveal of the camera. See the video tip here for more information:

Initial velocity in shared element transitions

This release adds a new shared element transition API, prepareTransitionWithInitialVelocity, which lets you pass an initial velocity (e.g. from a gesture) to a shared element transition:

A shared element transition that starts with an initial velocity from a gesture

Veiled transitions

EnterTransition and ExitTransition define how an AnimatedVisibility/AnimatedContent composable appears or disappears. A new experimental veil option allows you to specify a color to veil or scrim content; e.g., fading in/out a semi-opaque black layer over content:

Veiled animated content - note the semi-opaque veil (or scrim) over the grid content during the animation

Upcoming changes

Deprecation of Modifier.onFirstVisible

Compose 1.9 introduced Modifier.onVisibilityChanged and Modifier.onFirstVisible. After reviewing your feedback, it became apparent that the contract of Modifier.onFirstVisible was not possible to honor deterministically; specifically, when an item first becomes visible. For example, a Lazy layout may dispose of items that scroll out of the viewport, and then compose them again if they scroll back into view. In this circumstance, the onFirstVisible callback would fire again, as it is a newly composed item. Similar behavior would also occur when navigating back to a previously visited screen containing onFirstVisible. As such, we have decided to deprecate this modifier in the next Compose release (1.11) and recommend migrating to onVisibilityChanged. See the documentation for more information.

Coroutine dispatch in tests

We plan to change coroutine dispatch in tests to improve test flakiness and catch more issues. Currently, tests use the UnconfinedTestDispatcher, which differs from production behavior; e.g., effects may run immediately rather than being enqueued. In a future release, we plan to introduce a new API that uses StandardTestDispatcher by default to match production behaviours. You can try the new behavior now in 1.10:

Using the StandardTestDispatcher will queue tasks, so you must use synchronization mechanisms like composeTestRule.waitForIdle() or composeTestRule.runOnIdle(). If your test uses runTest, you must ensure that runTest and your Compose rule share the same StandardTestDispatcher instance for synchronization.

Tools

Great APIs deserve great tools, and Android Studio has a number of recent additions for Compose developers:

• Transform UI: Iterate on your designs by right clicking on the @Preview, selecting Transform UI, and then describing the change in natural language.

• Generate @Preview: Right-click on a composable and select Gemini > Generate [Composable name] Preview.

• Customize Material Symbols with new support for icon variations in the Vector Asset wizard.

• Generate code from a screenshot or ask Gemini to match your existing UI to a target image. This can be combined with remote MCP support e.g. to connect to a Figma file and generate Compose UI from designs.

• Fix UI quality issues audits your UI for common problems, such as accessibility issues, and then proposes fixes.

To see these tools in action, watch this recent demonstration:

Happy Composing

We continue to invest in Jetpack Compose to provide you with the APIs and tools you need to create beautiful, rich UIs. We value your input, so please share your feedback on these changes or what you'd like to see next in our issue tracker.

Faster Innovation with Android's first Minor SDK Release

A Milestone for Platform Evolution: The Minor SDK Release

To support this, we have introduced new fields to the Build class as of Android 16, allowing your app to check for these new APIs using SDK_INT_FULL and VERSION_CODES_FULL.

if ((Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.BAKLAVA) && (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT_FULL >= Build.VERSION_CODES_FULL.BAKLAVA_1)) {
    // Call new APIs from the Android 16 QPR2 release
}

Enhanced User Experience and Customization

The old Fitbit app showing the impact of expanded dark theme; the new Fitbit app directly supports a dark theme

When the expanded dark theme setting is enabled by a user, the system uses your app's isLightTheme theme attribute to determine whether to apply inversion. If your app inherits from one of the standard DayNight themes, this is done automatically for you. If it does not, make sure to declare isLightTheme="false" in your dark theme to ensure your app is not inadvertently inverted. Standard Android Views, Composables, and WebViews will be inverted, while custom rendering engines like Flutter will not.

This is largely intended as an accessibility feature. We strongly recommend implementing a native dark theme, which gives you full control over your app's appearance; you can protect your brand's identity, ensure text is readable, and prevent visual glitches from happening when your UI is automatically inverted, guaranteeing a polished, reliable experience for your users.

Custom Icon Shapes & Auto-Theming

In QPR2, users can select specific shapes for their app icons, which apply to all icons and folder previews. Additionally, if your app does not provide a dedicated themed icon, the system can now automatically generate one by applying a color filtering algorithm to your existing launcher icon.

Linux Development Environment with GUI Applications

Wilber, the GIMP mascot, designed by Aryeom Han, is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The screenshot of the GIMP interface is used with courtesy.

Generational Garbage Collection

The Android Runtime (ART) now includes a Generational Concurrent Mark-Compact (CMC) Garbage Collector. This focuses collection on newly allocated objects, resulting in reduced CPU usage and improved battery efficiency.

Widget Engagement Metrics

You can now query user interaction events-such as clicks, scrolls, and impressions-to better understand how users engage with your widgets.

16KB Page Size Readiness

To help prepare for future architecture requirements, we have added early warning dialogs for debuggable apps that are not 16KB page-aligned.

Media, Connectivity, and Health

QPR2 brings robust updates to media standards and device connectivity.

IAMF and Audio Sharing

We have added software decoding support for Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF), an open-source spatial audio format. Additionally, Personal Audio Sharing for Bluetooth LE Audio is now integrated directly into the system Output Switcher.

Health Connect Updates

Health Connect now automatically tracks steps using the device's sensors. If your app has the READ_STEPS permission, this data will be available from the "android" package. Not only does this simplify the code needed to do step tracking, it's also more power efficient. It also can now track weight, set index, and Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) in exercise segments.

Smoother Migrations

A new 3rd-party Data Transfer API enables more reliable data migration between Android and iOS devices.

Strengthening Privacy and Security

Security remains a top priority with new features designed to protect user data and device integrity.

Developer Verification

We introduced APIs to support developer verification during app installation along with new ADB commands to simulate verification outcomes. As a developer, you are free to install apps without verification by using ADB, so you can continue to test apps that are not intended or not yet ready to distribute to the wider consumer population.

SMS OTP Protection

The delivery of messages containing an SMS retriever hash will be delayed for most apps for three hours to help prevent OTP hijacking. The RECEIVE_SMS broadcast will be withheld and sms provider database queries will be filtered. The SMS will be available to these apps after the three hour delay.

Secure Lock Device

A new system-level security state, Secure Lock Device, is being introduced. When enabled (e.g., remotely via "Find My Device"), the device locks immediately and requires the primary PIN, pattern, or password to unlock, heightening security. When active, notifications and quick affordances on the lock screen will be hidden, and biometric unlock may be temporarily disabled.

Get Started

If you're not in the Beta or Canary programs, your Pixel device should get the Android 16 QPR2 release shortly. If you don't have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. If you are currently on the Android 16 QPR2 Beta and have not yet installed the Android 16 QPR3 beta, you can opt out of the program and you will then be offered the release version of Android 16 QPR2 over the air.
For the best development experience with Android 16 QPR2, we recommend that you use the latest Canary build of Android Studio Otter.
Thank you again to everyone who participated in our Android beta program. We're looking forward to seeing how your apps take advantage of the updates in Android 16 QPR2.