fidzu : Android

Nokia is rounding out its portfolio of affordable US devices with three new phones slated for Cricket Wireless over the next couple months. Best of all, these are running Android 10 out of the box. We'll talk about the Nokia C5 Endi, Nokia C2 Tava, and Nokia C2 Tennen. The C5 is the highest-end of […]

Come comment on this article: Nokia announces a slate of Android 10 phones for Cricket Wireless

28 May 2020 11:41pm GMT

In the mobile space Qualcomm is most well-known for their Snapdragon processors. The Snapdragon 865 constantly makes headlines, and you're probably very familiar with the entire lineup over the years. But networking and modems are a huge chunk of what Qualcomm does, too, and they do them well. Today they've taken the wraps off of […]

Come comment on this article: Qualcomm rolls out its first WiFi 6E chips for blazing fast network connectivity

28 May 2020 10:49pm GMT

Android Studio 4.0, the tool behind the design and coding of Android apps, is now here and available on the stable channel. The latest update is out now and the Android Developers Blog have announced that Android Sudio 4.0 brings a new Motion Editor, a Build Analyser and more options with Java 8 language APIs. […]

Come comment on this article: Android Studio 4.0 available now on stable channel

28 May 2020 7:41pm GMT

First announced back in March after MWC 2020 was canceled, HMD's Nokia 5.3 and the retro Nokia 5310 have finally gone on sale in the UK priced at £149 and £35 respectively. The entry-level Nokia 5.3 sports a quad rear camera setup and launched with Android 10 out of the box while the Nokia 5310 […]

Come comment on this article: HMD Global's Nokia 5.3 and the retro Nokia 5310 are now on sale in the UK

28 May 2020 5:53pm GMT

Posted by Adarsh Fernando, Product Manager

During these uncertain times, we're humbled by the many developers around the world who are finding ways to keep doing what they do best-create amazing apps for Android. Whether you're working from your kitchen table on a laptop or from a home office, you need tools that keep up with you. Android Studio 4.0 is the result of our drive to bring you new and improved tools for coding smarter, building faster, and designing the apps your users depend on, and it's now available on the stable channel.

Some highlights of Android Studio 4.0 include a new Motion Editor to help bring your apps to life, a Build Analyzer to investigate causes for slower build times, and Java 8 language APIs you can use regardless of your app's minimum API level. Based on your feedback, we've also overhauled the CPU Profiler user interface to provide a more intuitive workflow and easier side-by-side analysis of thread activity. And the improved Layout Inspector now provides live data of your app's UI, so you can easily debug exactly what's being shown on the device.

As always, this release wouldn't be possible without the early feedback from our Preview users. So read on or watch below for further highlights and new features you can find in this stable version. If you're ready to jump in and see for yourself, head over to the official website to download Android Studio 4.0 now.

Design

Motion Editor

The MotionLayout API extends the rich capabilities of ConstraintLayout to help Android developers manage complex motion and widget animation in their apps. In Android Studio 4.0, using this API is made easier with the new Motion Editor-a powerful interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations. You no longer have to create and modify complex XML files; the Motion Editor generates them for you, with support for editing constraint sets, transitions, keyframes, and view attributes. And if you do want to see the code the editor creates, it is one click away. And just as conveniently, for developers already using ConstraintLayout, the IDE can easily convert those to MotionLayout. Learn more

Create, edit, and preview animations in the Motion Editor

Upgraded Layout Inspector

Have you ever wanted to investigate where a value for a particular attribute came from? Or see a live 3D representation of nested views to more easily inspect your view hierarchy? With the new Layout Inspector, debugging your UI is much more intuitive by giving you access to data that stays updated with your running app and providing insights on how resources are being resolved.

Debug your app's UI in real-time with Live Layout Inspector

Use the live Layout Inspector by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector from the main menu. If you are deploying to a device running API 29 level or higher, you have access to additional features, such as a dynamic layout hierarchy that updates as views change, detailed view attributes that also help you determine how resource values are resolved, and a live 3D model of your running app's UI. Navigate, animate, and transition between views on your running app while always having the ability to debug your UI to pixel perfection. Learn more

Layout Validation

Compare your UI across multiple screens with Layout Validation

When you're developing for multiple form-factors, screen sizes, and resolutions, you need to verify that changes you make to your UI look great on every screen you support. With the Layout Validation window, you can preview layouts on different screens and configurations simultaneously, so you can easily ensure your app looks great across a range of devices. To get started, click on the Layout Validation tab in the top-right corner of the IDE.

Develop & Profile

CPU Profiler UI Upgrades

The improved UI of the CPU Profiler

The CPU profiler is designed to provide a rich amount of information about your app's thread activity and trace recordings. So, when you provided us feedback about how we can make the UI even more intuitive to navigate and the data easier to understand, we listened. In Android Studio 4.0, CPU recordings are now separated from the main profiler timeline and organized in groups to allow for easier analysis. You can move groups up and down, or drag-and-drop individual items within a group for additional customization.

Easier side-by-side analysis of thread activity

For easier side-by-side analysis, you can now view all thread activity in the Thread Activity timeline (including methods, functions, and events) and try new navigation shortcuts to easily move around the data-such as using W, A, S, and D keys for fine-grained zooming and panning. We've also redesigned the System Trace UI so Events are uniquely colored for better visual distinction, threads are sorted to surface the busier ones first, and you can now focus on seeing data for only the threads you select. Finally, we invested in the quality of the CPU profiler, and consequently we've seen a significant decrease in the user-reported error rates of recordings since Android Studio 3.6. There are even more improvements to try, so learn more.

Smart editor features when writing rules for code shrinking

Smart editor feature when writing rules for R8

R8 was introduced in Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0 to combine desugaring, shrinking, obfuscating, optimizing, and dexing all in one step-resulting in noticeable build performance improvements. When creating rules files for R8, Android Studio now provides smart editor features, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking. The editor also integrates with your Android project to provide full symbol completion for all classes, methods, and fields, and includes quick navigation and refactoring.

IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update

The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 and 2019.3.3 releases. These improvements largely focus on quality and performance improvements across the IDE.

Kotlin Android live templates

Live templates is a convenient IntelliJ feature that allows you to insert common constructs into your code by typing simple keywords. Android Studio now includes Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code. For example, simply type toast and press the Tab key to quickly insert boilerplate code for a Toast. For a full list of available live templates, navigate to Editor > Live Templates in the Settings (or Preferences) dialog.

Clangd support for C++

For developers writing C++, we have switched to clangd as the primary language analysis engine for code navigation, completion, inspection, and showing code errors and warnings. We also now bundle clang-tidy with Android Studio. To configure Clangd or Clang-Tidy behavior, go to the IDE Settings (or Preferences) dialog, navigate to Languages & Frameworks > C/C++ > Clangd or Clang-Tidy, and configure the options.

Build

Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 includes support for Android Studio's Build Analyzer by using Java 8 language APIs (regardless of your app's minimum API level), and creating feature-on-feature dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules. For a full list of updates, read the Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 release notes.

Build Analyzer

Address bottlenecks in your build performance with Build Analyzer

Android Developers rely on a variety of Gradle plugins and custom build logic to tailor the build system for their app. However, outdated or misconfigured tasks can cause longer build times that lead to frustration and lost productivity. The Build Analyzer helps you understand and address bottlenecks in your build by highlighting the plugins and tasks that are most responsible for your overall build time and by suggesting steps to mitigate regressions. Learn more

Java 8 Language library desugaring in D8 and R8

Previous versions of the Android Gradle plugin supported a variety of Java 8 language features for all API levels, such as lambda expressions and method references, through a process called desugaring. In Android Studio 4.0, the desugaring engine has been extended to support Java language APIs, regardless of your app's minSdkVersion. This means that you can now use standard language APIs, which were previously available in only recent Android releases (such as java.util.stream, java.util.function and java.time). Learn more

Feature-on-feature dependencies

Feature-on-feature dependencies

When using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, you can now specify that a Dynamic Feature module depends on another feature module. Being able to define this relationship ensures that your app has the required modules to unlock additional functionality, resulting in fewer requests and easier modularization of your app. For example, a :video feature can depend on the :camera feature. If a user wants to unlock the ability to record videos, your app automatically downloads the required :camera module when it requests :video. Learn more

New options to enable or disable build features

The Android Gradle plugin has built-in support for modern libraries, such as data binding and view binding, and build features, such as auto-generated BuildConfig classes. However, you might not need these libraries and features for every project. In version 4.0.0 of the plugin, you can now disable discrete build features, as shown below, which can help optimize build performance for larger projects. For the DSL and full list of features you can control, see the release notes.

android {
    // The default value for each feature is shown below.
    // You can change the value to override the default behavior.
    buildFeatures {
        // Determines whether to support View Binding.
        // Note that the viewBinding.enabled property is now deprecated.
        viewBinding = false
        // Determines whether to support Data Binding.
        // Note that the dataBinding.enabled property is now deprecated.
        dataBinding = false
        ...
    }
}

Android Gradle plugin DSL for enabling or disabling build features

Essential support for Kotlin DSL script files

Android Studio 4.0 now has built-in support for Kotlin DSL build script files (*.kts), which means that Kotlin build scripts offer a full suite of quick fixes and are supported by the Project Structure dialog. While we are excited about the potential for using Kotlin to configure your build, we will continue to refine the Android Gradle Plugin's DSL API throughout the next year, which may result in breaking API changes for Kotlin script users. Long term, these fixes will make for a more idiomatic, easy-to-use DSL for Kotlin script users.

Dependencies metadata

When building your app using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, the plugin includes metadata that describes the library dependencies that are compiled into your app. When uploading your app, the Play Console inspects this metadata to provide alerts for known issues with SDKs and dependencies your app uses, and, in some cases, provide actionable feedback to resolve those issues.

The data is compressed, encrypted by a Google Play signing key, and stored in the signing block of your release app. If you'd rather not share this information, you can easily opt-out by including the following in your module's build.gradle file:

android {
    dependenciesInfo {
        // Disables dependency metadata when building APKs.
        includeInApk = false
        // Disables dependency metadata when building Android App Bundles.
        includeInBundle = false
    }
}

Disable dependency metadata for your APKs, app bundle, or both

To recap, Android Studio 4.0 includes these new enhancements & features:

Design

• Motion Editor: a simple interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations
• Upgraded Layout Inspector: a real-time & more intuitive debugging experience
• Layout Validation: compare your UI across multiple screen dimensions

Develop & Profile

• CPU Profiler update: improvements to make the UI more intuitive to navigate and the data easier to understand
• R8 rules update: smart editor features for your code shrinker rules, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking
• IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update with performance and quality improvements
• Live Template update: Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code
• Clangd support: Clangd and Clang-Tidy turned on by default

Build

• Build Analyzer: understand and address bottlenecks in your build
• Java 8 language support update: APIs you can use regardless of your app's minimum API level
• Feature-on-feature dependencies: define dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules
• buildFeatures DSL: enable or disable discrete build features, such as Data Binding
• Kotlin DSL: essential support for Kotlin DSL script files

For a full list of changes, read the official release notes.

Getting Started

Download

Download Android Studio 4.0 from the download page. If you are using a previous release of Android Studio, you can simply update to the latest version of Android Studio.

As always, we appreciate any feedback on things you like, and issues or features you would like to see. If you find a bug or issue, please file an issue. Follow us -- the Android Studio development team ‐ on Twitter and on Medium.

28 May 2020 5:09pm GMT

After months of Developer Previews that have been surprisingly usable, Google is finally prepping to launch the Android 11 beta program in a few days from now on June 3rd. With Google I/O having been converted to an online event thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the search giant is hosting The Beta Launch Show […]

Come comment on this article: We are just a few days away from Google launching the Android 11 Beta Program

28 May 2020 4:37pm GMT

It's always good news when companies give out freebies and once again its the turn of YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscribers in the US to check their emails to see if they've received a present from Google. Just like last time around, the search giant is giving away Home Nest Minis to YouTube Premium […]

Come comment on this article: Google is giving out free Nest Minis to selected YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscribers again

28 May 2020 3:12pm GMT

5G connectivity is slowly increasing in coverage around the world, and although many of us in the smartphone world are excited by the opportunities offered by this new technology, there are those that view it as a menace to society. Whether it's a danger to privacy, personal freedoms, the cause of cancer, or even COVID-19, […]

Come comment on this article: You'll be surprised to learn that the £340 Anti-5G USB stick isn't quite all that

28 May 2020 2:31pm GMT

OnePlus is apparently having a pretty hard time keeping the OnePlus 8 Pro in stock in certain parts of the world. This isn't quite the same ordeal as what the company went through when they first launched the OnePlus One with a terrible invite system, but the end result is the same; too many people […]

Come comment on this article: OnePlus hits supply chain snags, starts to ration to keep up with demand

27 May 2020 11:36pm GMT

If you're constantly tweaking and fiddling with your Gmail layout settings (or you use different devices often) you might notice that it's sort of a pain to have to go all the way into Gmail's settings menu to change things. Today Google is trying to make that process a little easier by implementing a quick […]

Come comment on this article: Gmail gets a quick settings menu to change up your layout in record time

27 May 2020 11:27pm GMT

Google launched the Pixel 4 with Project Soli, which theoretically opened up the door to a lot of interesting apps and uses. Google debuted Motion Sense to control your phone hands-free, and Pokemon Go played around with the tech, but… that's pretty much it. We haven't seen anyone really do anything with the extra hardware […]

Come comment on this article: Google wants to kickstart Project Soli interest with a new Soli Sandbox app

27 May 2020 11:19pm GMT

Last week Google Duo picked up a new feature that would allow people to find you on the service with just their email address. This removed the need to hunt down someone by their phone number, which was pretty useful, but it left some of us wondering why Google didn't go all the way with […]

Come comment on this article: You can set up Google Duo without a phone number (but only on a tablet)

27 May 2020 11:09pm GMT

OnePlus has gotten away from what kickstarted their brand in recent years. The original OnePlus One was an incredibly cheap phone especially for the specs, but every year the price of each new phone has gone up. We're up to some pretty expensive phones in the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro, and even though […]

Come comment on this article: OnePlus wants to get back to its roots with cheap phones

27 May 2020 10:58pm GMT

Posted by The #Android11 team

In just under a week, we'll kick off #Android11: The Beta Launch Show, your opportunity to find out what's new in Android from the people who build Android. Join us on June 3, 11AM ET (8AM PT, 4PM BST, 8:30PM IST) as we unveil new features packed inside the next release, Android 11, as well as updates to help developers get the most out of modern Android development. You'll be able to watch the show live on YouTube (don't forget to set a reminder) or Twitter, and can sign-up for updates here.

Get your #AskAndroid questions answered live

Got a burning question? We've got experts ready to answer your #AskAndroid questions, and we'll be wrapping up the show with a live Q&A session. All you have to do is share your question on Twitter using #AskAndroid, and we'll be selecting questions for Android engineering and product leads Dave Burke and Stephanie Cuthbertson to answer live on-the-air.

Check out the list of talks

Also on June 3, we'll be sharing 12 talks on a range of topics from Jetpack to Android Studio and Google Play-talks that we had originally planned for Google I/O-to help you take advantage of the latest in Android development. We just posted the full list of talks on the event page.

Sketchnote with us

We want to see your take on the show, so grab your best pens, markers, and paper, download the template, and get ready to show off your sketchnote skills during The Beta Launch Show. Don't forget to share your work using the hashtag #Android11 for a chance to be featured.

We can't wait to share with you the latest we've been working on with you in just over a week at #Android11: The Beta Launch Show!

27 May 2020 5:09pm GMT

Amazon might have rolled their Prime Day sales extravagance back until September but that doesn't mean you can't still pick up a bargain or two on its range of streaming devices. The online retailer has reduced prices on its Fire TV Sticks (regular and the 4K version) as well as its Fire TV Cube. First […]

Come comment on this article: [Deal] Grab an Amazon Fire TV Cube for $100 or TV Stick from just $30

27 May 2020 4:46pm GMT

OPPO announced the Find X2 Series of smartphones back in March and now the full range consisting of the premium flagships Find X2 and X2 Pro are finally on sale in the UK, along with the world's thinnest and cheapest 5G handsets, the Neo and Lite. Join us after the break to see OPPO's pre-order […]

Come comment on this article: OPPO's Find X2 Series is finally on sale from these networks and retailers

27 May 2020 3:47pm GMT

It's been a little while since OPPO launched its premium flagship, the Find X2 Pro (review) back in March but now the sleek smartphone with optional Orange Vegan Leather is finally going on sale in the UK, along with its fellow flagship sibling, the Find X2. Also going on sale today is the supporting cast […]

Come comment on this article: We reviewed the OPPO Find X2 Pro, now it's time to say hello to the supporting cast, Neo and Lite

27 May 2020 2:02pm GMT

Posted by Dom Elliott, Product Manager, Google Play

Google Play's first priority is to build a trusted, safe, and secure platform for billions of users and millions of developers for many years into the future. The sustainability and success of the ecosystem depends on this.

As part of this goal, almost two years ago, we announced app signing by Google Play. With app signing by Google Play, Google manages and protects your app's signing key for you and uses it to sign your APKs for distribution. It's a secure way to store your app signing key that helps protect you if your key is ever lost or compromised. If you're not enrolled in app signing and you lose your signing key, you'll lose the ability to update your app.

App signing by Play also enables you to publish your app or game with the Android App Bundle, the recommended publishing format in use by over 500,000 apps in production on Google Play. The Android App Bundle reduces the size of your app, simplifies your releases, and unlocks next generation distribution features such as dynamic features and dynamic asset delivery.

Developers often have questions when enrolling in app signing for the first time so my colleague has written a Medium post with answers to some frequently asked questions. Read the post to find out more about the benefits of app signing, how we protect developer keys, and to learn about features like key upgrade for new installs and the new source stamp that bundletool will start adding to apps published with app bundles to give you more peace of mind about Play-signed apps.

07 May 2020 7:35pm GMT

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

When we started planning Android 11, we didn't expect the kinds of changes that would find their way to all of us, across nearly every region in the world. These have challenged us to stay flexible and find new ways to work together, especially with our developer community.

To help us meet those challenges we're announcing an update to our release timeline. We're bringing you a fourth Developer Preview today and moving Beta 1 to June 3. And to tell you all about the release and give you the technical resources you need, we're hosting an online developer event that we're calling #Android11: the Beta Launch Show.

Join us for #Android11: The Beta Launch Show

While the circumstances prevent us from joining together with you in-person at Shoreline Amphitheatre for Google I/O, our annual developer conference, we're organizing an online event where we can share with you all the best of what's new in Android. We hope you'll join us for #Android11: The Beta Launch Show, your opportunity to find out what's new in Android from the people who build Android. Hosted by me, Dave Burke, we'll be kicking off at 11AM ET on June 3. And we'll be wrapping it up with a post-show live Q&A; tweet your #AskAndroid questions to get them answered live!

Later that day, we'll be sharing a number of talks on a range of topics from Jetpack Compose to Android Studio and Google Play-talks that we had originally planned for Google I/O-to help you take advantage of the latest in Android development. You can sign-up to receive updates on this digital event at developer.android.com/android11.

Android 11 schedule update

Our industry moves really fast, and we know that many of our device-maker partners are counting on us to help them bring Android 11 to new consumer devices later this year. We also know that many of you have been working to prioritize early app and game testing on Android 11, based in part on our Platform Stability and other milestones. At the same time, all of us are collaborating remotely and prioritizing the well-being of our families, friends and colleagues.

So to help us meet the needs of the ecosystem while being mindful of the impacts on our developers and partners, we've decided to add a bit of extra time in the Android 11 release schedule. We're moving out Beta 1 and all subsequent milestones by about a month, which gives everyone a bit more room but keeps us on track for final release later in Q3.

Here are some of the key changes in the new schedule:

• We're releasing a fourth Developer Preview today for testing and feedback.
• Beta 1 release moves to June 3. We'll include the final SDK and NDK APIs with this release and open up Google Play publishing for apps targeting Android 11.
• Beta 2 moves to July. We'll reach Platform Stability with this release.
• Beta 3 moves to August and will include release candidate builds for final testing

By bringing you the final APIs on the original timeline while shifting the other dates, we're giving you an extra month to compile and test with the final APIs, while also ensuring that you have the same amount of time between Platform Stability and the final release, planned for later in Q3. Here's a look at the timeline.

You can read more about what the new timeline means to app developers in the preview program overview.

App compatibility

The schedule change adds some extra time for you to test your app for compatibility and identify any work you'll need to do. We recommend releasing a compatible app update by Android 11 Beta on June 3rd to get feedback from the larger group of Android Beta users who will be getting the update.

With Beta 1 the SDK and NDK APIs will be final, and as we reach Platform Stability in July, the system behaviors and non-SDK greylists will also be finalized. At that time, plan on doing your final compatibility testing and releasing your fully compatible app, SDK, or library as soon as possible so that it is ready for the final Android 11 release. You can read more in the timeline for developers.

You can start compatibility testing today on a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 device, or you can use the Android Emulator. Just flash the latest build, install your current production app, and test the user flows. Make sure to review the behavior changes for areas where your app might be affected. There's no need to change the app's targetSdkVersion at this time, although we recommend evaluating the work since many changes apply once your app is targeting the new API level.

Get started with Android 11

Today we're pushing a Developer Preview 4 with the latest bug fixes, API tweaks, and features to try in your apps. It's available by manual download and flash for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 devices, and if you're already running a Developer Preview build, you'll get an over-the-air (OTA) update to today's release.

For complete information on Android 11, visit the Android 11 developer site, and please continue to let us know what you think!

06 May 2020 5:00pm GMT

Posted by Ady Abraham, Software Engineer

For a long time, phones have had a display that refreshes at 60Hz. Application and game developers could just assume that the refresh rate is 60Hz, frame deadline is 16.6ms, and things would just work. This is no longer the case. New flagship devices are built with higher refresh rate displays, providing smoother animations, lower latency, and an overall nicer user experience. There are also devices that support multiple refresh rates, such as the Pixel 4, which supports both 60Hz and 90Hz.

A 60Hz display refreshes the display content every 16.6ms. This means that an image will be shown for the duration of a multiple of 16.6ms (16.6ms, 33.3ms, 50ms, etc.). A display that supports multiple refresh rates, provides more options to render at different speeds without jitter. For example, a game that cannot sustain 60fps rendering must drop all the way to 30fps on a 60Hz display to remain smooth and stutter free (since the display is limited to present images at a multiple of 16.6ms, the next framerate available is a frame every 33.3ms or 30fps). On a 90Hz device, the same game can drop to 45fps (22.2ms for each frame), providing a much smoother user experience. A device that supports 90Hz and 120Hz can smoothly present content at 120, 90, 60 (120/2), 45(90/2), 40(120/3), 30(90/3), 24(120/5), etc. frames per second.

Rendering at high rates

The higher the rendering rate, the harder it is to sustain that frame rate, simply because there is less time available for the same amount of work. To render at 90Hz, applications only have 11.1ms to produce a frame as opposed to 16.6ms at 60Hz.

To demonstrate that, let's take a look at the Android UI rendering pipeline. We can break frame rendering into roughly five pipeline stages:

1. Application's UI thread processes input events, calls app's callbacks, and updates the View hierarchy's list of recorded drawing commands
2. Application's RenderThread issues the recorded commands to the GPU
3. GPU draws the frame
4. SurfaceFlinger, which is the system service in charge of displaying the different application windows on the screen, composes the screen and submits the frame to the display HAL
5. Display presents the frame

The entire pipeline is controlled by the Android Choreographer. The Choreographer is based on the display vertical synchronization (vsync) events, which indicate the time the display starts to scanout the image and update the display pixels. The Choreographer is based on the vsync events but has different wakeup offsets for the application and for SurfaceFlinger. The diagram below illustrates the pipeline on a Pixel 4 device running at 60Hz, where the application is woken up 2ms after the vsync event and SurfaceFlinger is woken up 6ms after the vsync event. This gives 20ms for an app to produce a frame, and 10ms for SurfaceFlinger to compose the screen.

When running at 90Hz, the application is still woken up 2ms after the vsync event. However, SurfaceFlinger is woken up 1ms after the vsync event to have the same 10ms for composing the screen. The app, on the other hand, has just 10ms to render a frame, which is very short.

To mitigate that, the UI subsystem in Android is using "render ahead" (which delays a frame presentation while starting it at the same time) to deepen the pipeline and postpone frame presentation by one vsync. This gives the app 21ms to produce a frame, while keeping the throughput at 90Hz.

Some applications, including most games, have their own custom rendering pipelines. These pipelines might have more or fewer stages, depending on what they are trying to accomplish. In general, as the pipeline becomes deeper, more stages could be performed in parallel, which increases the overall throughput. On the other hand, this can increase the latency of a single frame (the latency will be number_of_pipeline_stages x longest_pipeline_stage). This tradeoff needs to be considered carefully.

Taking advantage of multiple refresh rates

As mentioned above, multiple refresh rates allow a broader range of available rendering rates to be used. This is especially useful for games which can control their rendering speed, and for video players which need to present content at a given rate. For example, to play a 24fps video on a 60Hz display, a 3:2 pulldown algorithm needs to be used, which creates jitter. However, if the device has a display that can present 24fps content natively (24/48/72/120Hz), it will eliminate the need for pulldown and the jitter associated with it.

The refresh rate that the device operates at is controlled by the Android platform. Applications and games can influence the refresh rate via various methods (explained below), but the ultimate decision is made by the platform. This is crucial when more than one app is present on the screen and the platform needs to satisfy all of them. A good example is a 24fps video player. 24Hz might be great for video playback, but it's awful for responsive UI. A notification animating at only 24Hz feels janky. In situations like this, the platform will set the refresh rate to ensure that the content on the screen looks good.

For this reason, applications may need to know the current device refresh rate. This can be done in the following ways:

• SDK:
  • Registering a display listener with DisplayManager.DisplayListener and querying the refresh rate via Display.getRefreshRate
• NDK
  • Registering a callback with AChoreographer_registerRefreshRateCallback (API level 30)

Applications can influence the device refresh rate by setting a frame rate on their Window or Surface. This is a new capability introduced in Android 11 and allows the platform to know the rendering intentions of the calling application. Applications can call one of the following methods:

• SDK
  • Surface.setFrameRate
  • SurfaceControl.Transaction.setFrameRate
• NDK
  • ANativeWindow_setRrameRate
  • ASurfaceTransaction_setFrameRate

Please refer to the frame rate guide on how to use these APIs.

The system will choose the most appropriate refresh rate based on the frame rate programmed on the Window or Surface.

On Older Android versions (before Android 11) where the setFrameRate API doesn't exist, applications can still influence the refresh rate by directly setting WindowManager.LayoutParams.preferredDisplayModeId to one of the available modes from Display.getSupportedModes. This approach is discouraged starting with Android 11 since the platform doesn't know the rendering intention of the app. For example, if a device supports 48Hz, 60Hz and 120Hz and there are two applications present on the screen that call setFrameRate(60, …) and setFrameRate(24, …) respectively, the platform can choose 120Hz and make both applications happy. On the other hand, if those applications used preferredDisplayModeId they would probably set the mode to 60Hz and 48Hz respectively, leaving the platform with no option to set 120Hz. The platform will choose either 60Hz or 48Hz, making one app unhappy.

Takeaways

Refresh rate is not always 60Hz - don't assume 60Hz and don't hardcode assumptions based on that historical artifact.

Refresh rate is not always constant - if you care about the refresh rate, you need to register a callback to find out when the refresh rate changes and update your internal data accordingly.

If you are not using the Android UI toolkit and have your own custom renderer, consider changing your rendering pipeline according to the current refresh rate. Deepening the pipeline can be done by setting a presentation timestamp using eglPresentationTimeANDROID on OpenGL or VkPresentTimesInfoGOOGLE on Vulkan. Setting a presentation timestamp indicates to SurfaceFlinger when to present the image. If it is set to a few frames in the future, it will deepen the pipeline by the number of frames it is set to. The Android UI in the example above is setting the present time to frameTimeNanos¹ + 2 * vsyncPeriod²

Tell the platform your rendering intentions using the setFrameRate API. The platform will match different requests by selecting the appropriate refresh rate.

Use preferredDisplayModeId only when necessary, either when setFrameRate API is not available or when you need to use a very specific mode.

Lastly, familiarize yourself with the Android Frame Pacing library. This library handles proper frame pacing for your game and uses the methods described above to handle multiple refresh rates.

Notes

27 Apr 2020 6:36pm GMT

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Our teams, like all of you, continue getting used to a new normal. For many of us, that means working from living rooms, kitchens, backyards and bedrooms. So, from our homes to yours, we wanted to take a moment to share our most recent developer preview for Android 11. This update includes bug fixes and a set of productivity improvements for developers.

You can see some of the highlights below, and visit the Android 11 developer site for details on all of the new features in Android 11. Today's release is for developers and not intended for daily or consumer use, so we're making it available by manual download and flash for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 devices. If you're already running a Developer Preview build, you'll receive an over-the-air (OTA) update to today's release soon. As always, let us know what you think, and thank you for the helpful feedback you've shared so far.

What's in Developer Preview 3

In today's release there are a number of new features and changes for you to try, as well as the latest updates to existing features, APIs, and tools. Here are just a few:

App exit reasons updates - Apps can exit for a variety of reasons, from crash to system kill or user action. Across the many device types, memory configurations, and user scenarios that your app runs in, it's important to understand why the app exited and what the state was at the time. Android 11 makes this easier with an exit reasons API that you can use to request details of the app's recent exits. In DP3 we've updated the APIs based on your input, so please take a look. If you haven't had a chance to check out this new API yet, we recommend giving it a try and please let us know what you think here.

GWP-ASan heap analysis - Android 11 uses a variety of tools to harden security-critical components in the platform and apps. In DP3, we're adding GWP-ASan as another way to help developers find and fix memory safety issues. GWP-ASan is a sampling allocation tool that detects heap memory errors with minimal overhead or impact on performance. We've enabled GWP-ASan to run by default in platform binaries and system apps, and now you can now enable it for your apps as well. If your app uses native code or libraries, we recommend enabling GWP-ASan and testing as soon as possible. For details, see the documentation.

ADB Incremental - Installing very large APKs with ADB (Android Debug Bridge) during development can be slow and impact your productivity, especially those developers working on Android Games. With ADB Incremental in Android 11, installing large APKs (2GB+) from your development computer to an Android 11 device is up to 10x faster. To use this new developer tool, first sign your APK with the new APK signature scheme v4 format, and then install your APK with the updated ADB command line tool found in the Android 11 Preview SDK. This new feature is part of a broad suite of new tools we're investing in to make you more productive in building games on Android. Note that in DP3, ADB Incremental only works with Pixel 4 / 4XL devices due to a required file system change at the device level. All new devices launching with Android 11 will include this change and will support ADB Incremental. Learn more here.

Wireless Debugging - In Android 11, we've completely revamped the debugging experience using ADB over a Wi-Fi connection. With limited USB ports on laptops, and a myriad of USB cables & connections to manage, the Wireless Debugging feature in Android 11 can help you be more productive. Unlike the existing TCP/IP debugging workflow, Wireless Debugging on Android 11 does not need a cable to set up, remembers connections over time, and can utilize the full speed of the latest Wi-Fi standards. In DP3, use the pairing code workflow to get started with this developer feature. We plan to add an integrated experience for Wireless Debugging with QR code scanning in a future Android Studio release, but we want to get your early feedback on the command line tool offered in Android 11 DP3. For details, see the documentation.

Try the new wireless debugging feature in Developer Options.

Data access auditing updates - In DP3 we renamed several of the APIs for this Android 11 developer feature. If you are already using the APIs, make sure to check out the changes. If you aren't familiar, data access auditing lets you instrument your app to better understand how it accesses user data and from which user flows. For example, It can help you identify any inadvertent access to private data in your own code or within any SDKs you might be using. Give data access auditing a try in your apps - you can read more here. Let us know your feedback here.

For details on everything that's changed in Developer Preview 3, take a look at the DP3 diff report and read the release notes for details about known issues.

App compatibility

With Developer Preview 3, we're well on the way to finalizing features and APIs and shifting our focus to polish and performance. If you haven't already, now is the time to begin testing your app for compatibility and identify any work you'll need to do. We recommend releasing a compatible app update by Android 11 Beta to get feedback from the larger group of Android Beta users.

When we reach Platform Stability, system behaviors, non-SDK greylists, and APIs are finalized. At that time, plan on doing your final compatibility testing and releasing your fully compatible app, SDK, or library as soon as possible so that it is ready for the final Android 11 release. You can read more in the timeline for developers.

You can start compatibility testing today on a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 device, or you can use the Android Emulator. Just flash the latest build, install your current production app, and test the user flows. Make sure to review the behavior changes for areas where your app might be affected. There's no need to change the app's targetSdkVersion at this time, although we recommend evaluating the work since many changes apply once your app is targeting the new API level.

To help you test, we've made many of the targetSdk changes toggleable, so you can force-enable or disable them individually from Developer options or ADB. Check out the details here. Also see the greylists of restricted non-SDK interfaces, which can also be enabled/disabled.

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Get started with Android 11

Developer Preview 3 has everything you need to try the latest Android 11 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just download and flash a device system image to a Pixel 2 / 2 XL, Pixel 3 / 3 XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, or Pixel 4 / 4 XL device, or set up the Android Emulator through Android Studio. Next, update your Android Studio environment with the latest Android 11 Preview SDK and tools, see the set up guide for details.

As always, your feedback is crucial, so please continue to let us know what you think - the sooner we hear from you, the more of your feedback we can integrate. When you find issues, please report them here.

For complete information on Android 11, visit the Android 11 developer site.

23 Apr 2020 5:04pm GMT

Posted by Nate Fischer, Software Engineer, WebView team

Since 2014, Android WebView has paved the way as an updateable system component, delivering stability and performance improvements, modern web platform features, and security patches to Android apps and users. However, updates can be a double edged sword: as much as we strive for stability and backward compatibility, new crashes and breaking changes occasionally slip through. To solve these issues faster, today we're announcing WebView DevTools, a new set of on-device debugging tools to diagnose WebView-caused crashes and misbehaving web platform features.

For your convenience, WebView DevTools comes included as part of WebView itself. The easiest way to launch WebView Devtools is to try out WebView Beta. WebView's beta program is a way for app developers to get WebView several weeks before they reach users, for extra lead time to report compatibility bugs to our team. Starting with today's release (M83), WebView Beta includes a launcher icon for WebView DevTools. Just look for the blue and gray WebView gear icon to get started debugging WebView in your app.

Inspecting a crash in WebView DevTools.

No software is bug-free and loading web content can be challenging, so it's no surprise WebView crashes are a pain point for apps. Worse yet, these crashes are difficult to debug because WebView's Java and C++ stack traces are obfuscated (to minimize APK size for Android users). To help make these crashes more actionable, we're exposing first-class access to WebView's built-in crash reporter. Just open WebView DevTools, tap on "crashes," and you'll see a list of recent WebView-caused crashes from apps on your device. You can use this tool to see if the crash report has been uploaded to our servers, force-upload it if necessary, and subsequently file a bug. This ensures our team has all the information we need to swiftly resolve these crashes and ensure a smoother user experience in your app.

Using flags to highlight WebView usage in Android apps.

However, not all bugs cause crashes. A handful of past WebView releases have broken Android apps due to behavior changes caused by new features. While our team's policy is to roll back features which break compatibility, the chromium team launches several features for WebView in each release, and we often need time to identify the offending feature. WebView DevTools can help here too. Inspired by Google Chrome's chrome://flags tool, which enables compatibility testing with web platform features, we're offering app developers similar controls for experimental features. To get started, open WebView DevTools, tap on "flags," enable or disable any available features, then kill and restart the WebView-based app you're testing. Using WebView DevTools will help us work together to pin down the culprit so we can roll it back. We've also included flags for features slated for upcoming releases, so you can test compatibility even earlier by enabling these features on your test device.

We hope you find WebView DevTools helpful for reporting crashes and testing against new WebView features. Install WebView Beta today to get started with WebView DevTools, and check out the user guide for more tips and tricks.

17 Apr 2020 4:59pm GMT

Posted by Krish Vitaldevara, Director of Product Management Trust & Safety, Google Play

As part of our continuing efforts to enhance user trust and safety across Google Play, we regularly examine our policies to ensure a positive experience for developers and users. Today we are announcing policy updates that give users more control over their data, tighten subscription policies, and help prevent deceptive apps and media getting onto the Play Store.

We understand that many of you are adjusting to or actively supporting efforts in response to the current unprecedented circumstances. We want to assure you that we are mindful and supportive of those efforts, and have taken steps to minimize the potential short-term impact of these changes. You can read more about that in this blog post which shares resources for developers navigating the current context. We also wanted to briefly highlight two of the more impactful policies announced today.

More transparent subscription offers

Subscriptions continue to grow in popularity on Play; however, we hear user feedback that it isn't always clear what you are signing up for. The goal of this policy update is to ensure users understand the subscription offer, the terms of free trials and introductory offers, and how to manage their subscription, including cancellation.

This blog post goes into more detail about the changes and gives examples of best practices and common violations. Developers have until June 16th to make any changes to their offer page.

Limiting unnecessary location access

Users consistently tell us that they want more control over their location data and that we should take every precaution to prevent misuse. Android users have always needed to grant explicit permission to any app that wants access to their location data. In Android 11, we're granting additional user controls with the ability to grant a temporary "one-time" permission.

In February, we announced we would require that developers get approval if they want to access background location in their app. This ensures that only apps that really need access for core functionality can ask users for permission. This policy is now live and we encourage all developers who access location to view it.

We realize complying with certain aspects of this policy may require work for some developers so we are giving you an extended timeline to make changes. We suggest that you review location best practices and evaluate whether you have appropriate disclosures, and really need background location; however, no action will be taken for new apps until August 2020 or existing apps until November 2020. Additional details can be found in this help center article and we'll keep you updated if processes or timelines change. Thanks for your continued support in making Google Play a trustworthy and valuable experience for everyone.

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16 Apr 2020 5:10pm GMT

Posted by Angela Ying, Product Manager, Google Play

For many developers, subscriptions are an important part of your business. Google Play has continued to support the growth of subscription offerings through developer tools such as new insights in the Google Play Console, and an improved user experience, including the subscriptions center, where users can easily manage all of their subscriptions. Part of improving the subscription user experience comes from fostering a trustworthy platform for subscribers; making sure they feel fully informed when they purchase in-app subscriptions.

To continue to build this trust, we announced an updated subscriptions policy today, as part of a broader policy update to build user trust and enhance user safety across Google Play. This new policy requires you to be transparent about your subscription offering, to ensure every user evaluating your service has an informed choice.

When users lose trust in your app due to unclear subscription offers, they unsubscribe and often leave negative reviews, ultimately hurting your business. On the other hand, a clear and compelling offer gives users all the information they need to make a decision, increasing their trust in your service and hopefully encouraging them to stick around for a long time.

Complying with our subscriptions policy

The goal of this policy update is to ensure users understand the subscription offer, the terms of free trials and introductory offers, and how to manage their subscription, including cancellation. You can read the full policy and see examples of best practices and common violations in the Policy Center, but the most important thing is to make sure you are clear about your subscription offering within your app. Consider the following best practices:

Be explicit about your subscription terms, such as:

• Whether a subscription is required to use all or parts of the app. If a subscription is not required, users should be able to easily dismiss your subscription offer.
• Cost of your subscription
• Frequency of your billing cycle.

If you offer free trials and introductory offers, clearly and accurately tell users:

• Duration
• Pricing
• What is included with free trial or introductory offer
• When a free trial will convert to a paid subscription
• How a user can cancel if they do not want to convert to a paid subscription.

Ensure your app clearly discloses how a subscriber can cancel and/or manage a subscription.

You have until June 16, 2020 to bring your existing apps into compliance with this policy.

A better user experience without additional development work for you

In conjunction with these policy updates, we've made several platform-level product changes to help increase user trust and build user confidence in subscribing.

• We made improvements to the checkout cart to increase transparency and improve the user experience.
• We now email users a reminder before their free trial or intro price ends.
• We now email users subscribed to 3-month, 6-month or annual plans a reminder when their renewal is coming up.
• We notify active subscribers who uninstall the app that uninstalling does not automatically unsubscribe them from the service.

We believe that although these changes may lead to fewer conversions or more subscription cancelations in the short term, they will also result in higher quality, more committed subscribers with lower refund and chargeback rates. Overall, this should result in a more stable recurring revenue.

Resources to help

We want to help you do the right thing for your subscribers, so we've created this checklist, video and training in Google Play's Academy for App Success to use as a reference when you're making any necessary app updates.

Thank you for continuing to partner with us to make Google Play a trustworthy platform for you and your users. Not only can we work together to create great experiences for users, but we can continue to grow subscription businesses as well.

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16 Apr 2020 5:01pm GMT

Posted by Michael Watson, Product Manager, Google Play

With more kids spending time at home, parents are looking for ways to find apps and games for children that are both enriching and entertaining. Today, we're announcing an update that will make it easier for parents to find this content on the Google Play Store. We're launching the Teacher Approved program, an editorial program to highlight high-quality, teacher-approved apps for kids. This is part of our ongoing effort to create a safer Google Play for kids.

What's changing

We consulted with academic experts to develop a framework for rating apps for kids. Specially trained teachers across the US will rate apps for kids based on this framework, evaluating things like:

• Design quality
• Appeal to children
• Enrichment potential
• Ads & in-app purchases
• Age appropriateness

Teacher-approved apps will:

• Be eligible to appear in the new Kids section on Google Play
• Be eligible for featuring in banners or collections on Google Play
• Display the new "Teacher approved" badge
• Display information about what teachers found valuable on their app details page

The Google Play store featuring teacher-approved apps

As a result of these changes, we are removing the Family star badge and the Family section on Google Play. All apps that were in the Family section will continue to be discoverable on the Play Store and appear in search results. Note that this change will have no effect on Family Library.

Who's eligible

Apps need to meet the requirements of the Designed for Families program before they're eligible to be reviewed by teachers. All Designed for Families apps are automatically placed in the teacher review queue.

We made the decision to launch the Teacher Approved program a little early given the vast number of kids at home now. Teachers are working hard to review apps as quickly as possible, but it will take time to review all apps, so we appreciate your patience. Our initial launch will be limited to the US, to be followed by a global rollout in the coming months.

To help developers better understand what the teachers are looking for, we published a new learning path on Google Play's Academy for App Success, including findings from Google Play's research into technology usage by parents and kids.

Rewarding for all

We're committed to improving the ecosystem and partnering with our developers. We look forward to continuing to work with you to create the best possible experience for children and families on Google Play. For more information on the Teacher Approved program, check out our FAQs.

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15 Apr 2020 6:00pm GMT

In these unprecedented times, Google Play's mission to support you, ensure your businesses continue to operate well, and help users get the content they need is more important than ever. With a surge in need for information, communications tools, entertainment, and more, we are striving to ensure our operations run smoothly, and we need your support.

Below, we've pulled together some important information to help you maintain business continuity, as well as best practices to help you stay nimble in the changing landscape.

Extended app review times

Like many of you, we've had to manage work disruptions as a result of changing business conditions. This has led to a temporary slowing down of the app review process, which now may take 7 days or longer. As the situation evolves, we will continue to make sure that the most important updates reach users quickly, which may result in fluctuating review times. Certain critical apps may receive prioritized review and may not experience an extended delay in review time. Please check the Google Play Console for the most up-to-date information and guidance.

At the same time, in order to help ensure we are providing users with accurate and timely information relating to COVID-19, we also are prioritizing the review of apps published, commissioned, or authorized by official government entities and public health organizations.

If you want to control when your app goes live, we recommend timed publishing. Just submit your app for review, and once it's approved, click "Go live" in the Play Console to instantly publish your app. Note: If you already have a release submitted to the production track that is under review, you will not see the "timed publishing" option.

Store listing and in-app guidelines

At Google Play we take our responsibility to provide accurate and relevant information for our users very seriously. For that reason, we are currently only approving apps that reference COVID-19 or related terms in their store listing if the app is published, commissioned, or authorized by an official government entity or public health organization, and the app does not contain any monetization mechanisms such as ads, in-app products, or in-app donations. This includes references in places such as the app title, description, or release notes.

All other apps may use COVID-19 related keywords and related terms in the in-app experience. For non-medical related apps, references to COVID-19 are limited to non-health related claims (e.g. opening hours changes, sharing tips on activities to do at home, providing commentary on the economic/social impacts of COVID-19, etc). These apps may not include health claims (e.g. prevention methods, treatments, vaccines).

Removing inappropriate reviews

With the recent increase in traffic, some apps are seeing a spike in inappropriate one-star reviews from users. If you are receiving reviews that are not related to your app experience, you can flag the review in the Play Console. We've expanded our ability to assess and remove inappropriate reviews so we can handle your request as quickly as possible.

Subscriptions support

While subscriptions are a large part of many app business models, two groups are currently seeing the largest impact: 1) those whose core businesses have been adversely affected by COVID-19 (such as live event ticketing), and 2) those who provide a public service with their content or services.

For developers whose business value proposition has been affected, features like deferred billing and subscription pauses can help retain users until after the crisis has passed. For developers who want to offer their content or services like medical, online learning, and wellbeing apps at reduced or no cost, features like price changes and refunds through Google Play Billing are available to help.

Learn more best practices in our Medium post.

How we're helping the community

Google is also committed to helping our community at large. To help small businesses reconnect with their customers, Google is granting $340 million in ad credits to be used across our Google Ads platforms - learn more here.

Here's what else we're doing:

• We've launched a special coronavirus section on Google Play with resources to help users find information from trusted sources.
• We've extended Google Play Pass free trials to 30 days so more people can enjoy your apps and games.
• We've launched a $10 million Distance Learning Fund to support organizations that provide high-quality learning opportunities to children. Developers who are non-profit, education-related enterprises are eligible for this program. Stay tuned for more details from Google.org.
• Finally, with your help, we've raised over $290,000 for The Center for Disaster Philanthropy's COVID-19 Response Fund, supporting organizations on the ground with preparedness, containment, response, and recovery. Visit play.google.com/donate to contribute.

As the situation progresses, we will continue to gather more resources to help you. We're also taking steps to limit changes and barriers because we know you have enough on your plate right now. Please stay tuned for more information, and thank you for being a part of the Google Play community. If you have any other suggestions about how we can support you during this time, please let us know by tweeting at us at @GooglePlayDev with #AskGooglePlay.

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06 Apr 2020 8:30pm GMT

Posted by Leticia Lago, Head of Developer Marketing, EMEA

At the start of this year we opened submissions for 2020's Google Play Indie Games Festival - an international competition celebrating incredible indie games from Europe, Japan and South Korea.

We've received hundreds of fantastic submissions that showcase the technical abilities and groundbreaking creativity of independent studios. Many thanks to everyone who submitted their game. After some hard choices and late nights, we're happy to announce our 20 finalists in each region.

Please check out the games below (in alphabetical order); each one is a true work of art. They will be receiving promotions and prizes to help them grow their business. They'll also be competing in the Finals for the top prizes.

While this is a happy announcement, we must also inform you that we will be unable to hold the Finals as planned on April 25 in Poland, Japan and South Korea due to the COVID-19 situation. We will be postponing the events until further notice, as the health and safety of finalists, jury members, players and others involved is our top priority. Please stay tuned for further announcements.

Europe*

60 Parsecs! by Robot Gentleman

Aisle Trial by Jake Matthews-Belcher

Alien Escape by Korion Games

Alt-Frequencies by Accidental Queens

Bad North by Rawfury

Bounce that Bird! by Affinity Project

Cessabit: a Stress Relief Game by Tepes Ovidiu

Color Spots by UX Apps

Cookies Must Die by Rebel Twins

Demons Never Lie by Maika Hernandez

Doors: Awakening by Big Loop

Faraway: Galactic Escape by Pine Studio

inbento by Afterburn

My Diggy Dog 2 by King Bird Games

The White Door by Rusty Lake

Tiny Tomb: Dungeon Explorer by Tinycorp

Traffix by Infinity Games

Tricky Castle by Team Tricky

Unhatched by Filip Loster

Void Tyrant by Quite Fresh

Japan

Amayadori by CHARON・Yanase

CUBE GARDEN by Fukudanuki

GIGAFALL by Shiki Game Studio

GummyShooter by simatten

Home Fighter by hap Inc.

Matsuro Palette by SleepingMuseum

METBOY! by REBUILD GAMES

Mocha - Dagsaw Puzzle - by Kotoriyama, Inc.

MonsterTrader by Mitsuhiro Okada

Overturn by Katsu Matsuda

Shiritori - The Word Chain Game by Baton

Snowman Story by Odencat

SOUND JOURNEY SCHOOL WANDERER by SOUND JOURNEY

TAP! DIG! MY MUSEUM! by oridio Inc.

Teiji Taisha Online by toru sugitani

The Final Taxi by Zxima.LLC

Uncrowned by NESTOPI Inc.

Wasurenaide, otona ni natte mo by GAGEX Co.,Ltd.

World for Two by Seventh rank

Zelle by Odencat Fuming

South Korea

Castle Defense Online by BlackHammer

CAT THE DJ by CATSBY STUDIO

DiceEmpire by Banjiha Games

Domino City by Bad Beans

DUST by I-eye studio

Electroad by Night Owl Studio

Extreme football by 9M Interactive

From Earth by Kentauros Entertainment

Great Sword - Stickman Action RPG by Olivecrow

Heroes Restaurant by Team Tapas

Little Boy by 39Studio

Magic Survival by LEME

Mayday Memory by StoryTaco.inc

Petrider by Ddookdak studio

Project Mars by Moontm

QV by Izzle

Sand Shark : The Boy and The Sea by GABANGMAN STUDIO

Staroid : Brick breaker shooter by Spring Games

Sword Master Story by CodeCAT

Undestroyed by Keymaker games

The competition was open to indie developers from the following European countries: Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).

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30 Mar 2020 4:41pm GMT

Posted by Michael Hazard

As part of the Android 11 developer preview we've released Android 11 system images, which are capable of executing ARM binaries with significantly improved performance. Previously, developers who were dependent on ARM libraries and could not build an x86 variant of their app either had to use system images with full ARM emulation, which are much slower than x86 system images when run on x86-based computers, or resort to physical devices. The new Android 11 system images are capable of translating ARM instructions to x86 without impacting the entire system. This allows the execution of ARM binaries for testing without the performance overhead of full ARM emulation.

The new Android 11 (Google APIs) x86 system image supports ARM ABIs, while the older Android Oreo system image does not

Details

The significance of this may require a bit of context, especially if you build apps exclusively with Kotlin or the Java programming language. Unlike Kotlin or the Java programming language, both of which execute on the Android Runtime (ART), any C++ in your Android app compiles directly into machine instructions. This means that it needs to be compiled differently based on the architecture of the target device. Mobile phones tend to have ARM processors; consequently, many C++ dependencies you might add to your app, like a camera barcode scanner library, are only compatible with ARM processors. This is a problem if you develop on a computer with an x86-based processor, as it would prevent you from running your app.

Previously, if you wanted to get around this limitation and execute an app built for ARM on your x86 machine, you would have had to use an emulator system image with full ARM emulation. Due to the overhead of translating an entire system's worth of ARM instructions to x86, emulator system images with full ARM emulation tend to run much slower than x86-based system images when run on x86 host machines. Additionally, emulator system images with full ARM emulation cannot take advantage of the hardware acceleration and CPU virtualization technologies provided by x86 processors.

The new ARM-compatible Android 11 system images allow the entire system to run x86 natively and take advantage of virtualization technologies as usual. When an app's process requires an ARM binary, the binary is translated to x86 within that process exclusively. This allows the rest of the process to continue executing in x86, including the Android Runtime (ART), and other performance-critical libraries like libGLES and libvulkan. In addition to this, the translator avoids expensive memory access instrumentation and the associated performance hit by avoiding the execution of low-level hardware-specific libraries. These new emulator system images can be used both locally and on your own continuous integration infrastructure. This is possible thanks to collaboration with ARM Limited.

Going Forward

If you have previously chosen physical devices over the emulator due to the lack of performant ARM support, try out the Android 11 system images, which are now available alongside the Android 11 Developer Preview. These system images can be downloaded in Android Studio via either the SDK Manager or the Android Virtual Device Manager.

Using the Android Virtual Device Manager to create an AVD that runs Android 11

Once you get your app running on the emulator, consider adapting it for Chrome OS. Chrome OS also supports the execution of Android apps built for ARM on x86 laptops. Building for Chrome OS provides access to a substantial ecosystem of larger screen devices, allowing your application to reach even more users globally.

This technology should enable more developers to test with the Android Emulator. That said, we still recommend that developers publish both x86 and ARM ABI variants of their apps to achieve the best physical device performance and reach as many users as possible. Going forward, we plan to roll this technology out across a wider variety of API levels and ensure that it supports testing all use cases that a physical device would. Given that this is a new technology, please let us know of any problems via our Issue Tracker.

Note that the ARM to x86 translation technology enables the execution of intellectual property owned by Arm Limited. It will only be available on Google APIs and Play Store system images, and can only be used for application development and debug purposes on x86 desktop, laptop, customer on-premises servers, and customer-procured cloud-based environments. The technology should not be used in the provision of commercial hosted services.

Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

26 Mar 2020 5:42pm GMT

Posted by Greg Hartrell, Head of Product Management, Games on Android & Google Play

While we're sorry we didn't get to see you all in person at GDC, we hope you are all staying healthy and safe. As many of us look to press on with work as much as possible, we'd like to share with you what our teams have been working on at the digital Google for Games Developer Summit. We couldn't be happier with the continued growth of the vibrant Android gaming ecosystem. In fact, Android remains the world's most popular mobile platform with more than 2.5 billion monthly active devices and great news for game developers, we're seeing more than 1.4 trillion minutes played per month in your games on Google Play. It's important to us that our platforms are highly useful to every kind of game developer, so our payment system helps games monetize in more than 65 countries. Moreover, we offer our users more than 275 local forms of payment, including more than 180 carrier billing options, with gift cards sold in over 900 thousand unique retail locations worldwide.

Across Android and Google Play, our mission is to deliver the best platform to build, discover, and experience games. Specifically, we're working on ways to help you increase the reach of your games and manage the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem. We're also focused on helping you access a wider player base, once you've made a great game and are ready to get it out there. Last year, we shared that we're investing heavily in our games efforts to address your challenges in these areas, and now we are excited to share several new tools and services built specifically with game developers in mind.

New Android tools for mobile game development A major area of investment for us has been making it easier for developers to build and optimize games for Android. Here's a round-up of several new tools we're releasing:

• Android Studio Profilers: We've overhauled our Android Studio System Trace profiler to allow you to inspect and visualize in fine detail how your code is being executed. We also added native memory profiling capabilities so you can see how your game is allocating memory and find memory leaks. Download Android Studio 4.1 Canary and watch the session.
• Android Game Development Extension for Visual Studio: We're introducing a new tool to make it easy to add Android support for your cross-platform games. This integrates easily with existing Visual Studio-based workflows so now you can conveniently generate APKs, deploy to Android devices or an emulator, and debug your Android game from within Visual Studio. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
• Android GPU Inspector: Our new Android GPU Inspector enables you to look deeply into an Android GPU and see detailed information about your game's render stages and GPU counters. Now graphics engineers are empowered with information and insights to optimize their game for better frame rates and more battery life. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
• Game Package Registry for Unity by Google: Our new package registry consolidates various Google APIs, starting with Google Play Billing, Android App Bundles, Play Asset Delivery, Play Instant, and Firebase for Games, all in one place. Learn more and watch the session.
• Crytek announces Android support: CRYENGINE is known as a high performance game engine for PCs and game consoles and will be adding a full Android pipeline to their engine this summer. Learn more.

New ways to reach more devices & users

We've been working to help developers scale their reach to a growing player-base across the Android ecosystem. Today, we're introducing a few new tools to help your development process and provide greater insights into your game's performance.

• Google Play Asset Delivery: Introducing a new set of delivery features for games services, building on our App Bundle infrastructure to give you free, dynamic delivery of the right game assets to the right devices at the right time. All of this allows players to get into your game faster while assets are being downloaded, while you cut the costs of hosting and delivering game resources. Learn more and watch the session.
• Android vitals native crash symbolication: Now you can debug your native crashes more easily with support for native symbols in Play Console. Simply upload your native debug symbols to get the benefits in Android Vitals. Apply for the open beta and watch the session.
• Android vitals performance insights with Android Performance Tuner: We're making it possible to optimize your frame rate and fidelity across many devices at scale with new performance insights in Android vitals. For those in our developer preview, you can unlock this by integrating the new Android Performance Tuner into your game: a new library in the Android Game SDK. Apply for the developer preview and watch the session.
• Play Billing Library 2 for Unity developers: Game developers using Unity can now access all of Play Billing Library 2's features, such as allowing users to pay with cash and surfacing IAPs outside of the game. This is the best way for Unity developers to prepare for Play's Billing Library version requirements in 2021. Learn more.

New ways to reach more devices and win go-to-market The Google Play store is shifting to be more gameplay centric by showing more visuals that demonstrate gameplay and a new system of tags to help users learn more about specific game traits and aid in exploration. Learn how you can ensure your game is of high-quality and leverage various features and new services to help you succeed in your go-to-market activities.

• Emphasis on quality: We continue to emphasize high quality gaming experiences across Google Play, to encourage immersive gameplay with strong technical performance and being free of crashes. Learn more.
• Pre-registration: Hundreds-of-millions of players use pre-registration campaigns on Google Play each year, making it an effective way to expand the reach on launch. We'll soon be rolling out day 1 auto-installation for all pre-registration games, to help you build early consumer awareness and capture pre-launch demand.
• Play Pass: Late last year we launched Play Pass in the US market as a subscription service providing users with access to hundreds of great apps and games on Google Play, completely free of ads and in-app purchases. Learn more and express interest.

Thanks for your support in continuing to build incredible games. Make sure to try some of the new tools and services we just released and catch the full playlist of mobile developer sessions. If you're interested in sharing feedback to help shape the development of cutting edge features, apply to join our developer preview programs from Android and Google Play. You can also learn about all of the offerings we have to help game developers building on Android at d.android.com/games.

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23 Mar 2020 3:30pm GMT

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

It's been a difficult few months for many around the world. The Android team at Google is a global one, and we, like many of you, are learning how to adapt to these extraordinary times. We want to thank you, our developer community, who have given us valuable feedback on Android 11 amidst these circumstances. We hope you, your families and colleagues are all staying well.

Just as many of you are trying to press on with work where possible, we wanted to share the next milestone release of Android 11 for you to try. It's still an early build, but you can start to see how the OS is enabling new experiences in this release, from seamless 5G connectivity to wrapping your UI around the latest screens, to a smarter keyboard and faster messaging experience.

There's a lot to check out in Developer Preview 2 - read on for a few highlights and visit the Android 11 developer site for details. Today's release is for developers only and not intended for daily or consumer use, so we're making it available by manual download and flash only for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 devices. To make flashing a bit easier, you can optionally get today's release from the Android Flash Tool. For those already running Developer Preview 1 or 1.1, we're also offering an over-the-air (OTA) update to today's release.

Let us know what you think, and thank you to everyone who has shared such great feedback so far.

New experiences

5G state API - DP2 adds a 5G state API to let you quickly check whether the user is currently on a 5G New Radio or Non-Standalone network. You can use this to highlight your app's 5G experience or branding when the user is connected. You can use this API together with the 5G dynamic meteredness API and bandwidth estimator API, as well as existing connectivity APIs, to take advantage of 5G's improved speeds and latency.

Hinge angle for foldables - A top request for foldable devices has been an API to get the angle of the device screen surfaces. Android 11 now supports a hinge angle sensor that lets apps query directly or through a new AndroidX API for the precise hinge angle, to create adaptive experiences for foldables.

Call screening service improvements - To help users manage robocalls, we're adding new APIs to let call-screening apps do more to help users. In addition to verifying an incoming call's STIR/SHAKEN status (standards that protect against caller ID spoofing) as part of its call details, call-screening apps can report a call rejection reason. Apps can also customize a system-provided post call screen to let users perform actions such as marking a call as spam or adding to contacts. We'll have more to share on this soon.

New ops and controls in Neural Networks API - Activation functions control the output of nodes within a neural network. At Google AI, we discovered a swish activation function allowing for faster training time and higher accuracy across a wide variety of tasks. In Android 11, we're adding a computationally efficient version of this function, the hard-swish op. This is key to accelerating next-generation on-device vision models such as MobileNetV3 which forms the base model for many transfer learning use cases. Another major addition is the Control ops enabling more advanced machine learning models that support branching and loops. Finally, we've also added new execution controls to help you minimize latency for common use cases: Asynchronous Command Queue APIs reduce the overhead when running small chained models. See the NDK sample code for examples using these new APIs.

Privacy and security

We're adding several more features to help keep users secure and increase transparency and control. Give these a try with your apps right away and let us know what you think.

Foreground service types for camera and microphone - in Android 10 we introduced the manifest attribute foregroundServiceType as a way to help ensure more accountability for specific use-cases. Initially apps could choose from "location" and several others. Now in Android 11 we're adding two new types - "camera" and "microphone". If your app wants to access camera or mic data from a foreground service, you need to add the foregroundServiceType value to your manifest.

Scoped storage updates- We're continuing to iterate on our work to better protect app and user data on external storage. In this release we've made further improvements and changes, such as support to migrate files from the legacy model to the new scoped storage model, and better management of cached files. Read more here and watch for more enhancements in subsequent updates.

Read more about these and other Android 11 privacy features here.

Polish and quality

Synchronized IME transitions - A new set of APIs let you synchronize your app's content with the IME (input method editor, aka soft keyboard) and system bars as they animate on and offscreen, making it much easier to create natural, intuitive and jank-free IME transitions. For frame-perfect transitions, a new insets animation listener notifies apps of per-frame changes to insets while the system bars or the IME animate. Additionally, apps can take control of the IME and system bar transitions through the WindowInsetsAnimationController API. For example, app-driven IME experiences let apps control the IME in response to overscrolling the app UI. Give these new IME transitions a try and let us know what other transitions are important to you.

Variable refresh rate - Apps and games can now set a preferred frame rate for their windows. Most Android devices refresh the display at 60Hz refresh rate, but some devices support multiple refresh rates, such as 90Hz as well as 60Hz, with runtime switching. On these devices, the system uses the app's preferred frame rate to choose the best refresh rate for the app. The API is available in both the SDK and NDK. See the details here.

Resume on reboot - Android 11 improves the experience of scheduled overnight over-the-air software updates. Like in previous versions of Android, the device must still reboot to apply the OTA update, but with resume on reboot, apps are now able to access Credential Encrypted (CE) storage after the OTA reboot, without the user unlocking the device. This means apps can resume normal function and receive messages right away - important since OTA updates can be scheduled overnight while the device might be unattended. Apps can still support Direct Boot to access Device Encrypted (DE) immediately after all types of reboot. Give resume on reboot a try by tapping "Restart after 2AM" with your next Developer Preview OTA update, more details here.

Camera support in Emulator - The Android emulator now supports front and back emulated camera devices. The back camera supports Camera2 API HW Level 3 (includes YUV reprocessing, RAW capture). It's a fully CTS-compliant LEVEL_3 device that you can use to test advanced features like ZSL and RAW/DNG support. The front camera supports FULL level with logical camera support (one logical device with two underlying physical devices). This camera emphasizes logical camera support, and the physical camera devices include narrow and wide field of view cameras. With this emulated camera support, you can build and test with any of the camera features added in Android 11. More details coming soon.

App compatibility

We're working to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app compatibility as we roll out new platform versions. In Android 11 we've added new processes, tools, and release milestones to minimize the impact of platform updates and make them easier for developers.

With Developer Preview 2, we're well into the release and getting closer to Beta. so now is the time to start your compatibility testing and identify any work you'll need to do. We recommend doing the work early, so you can release a compatible update by Android 11 Beta 1. This lets you get feedback from the larger group of Android 11 Beta users.

When we reach Platform Stability, system behaviors, non-SDK greylists, and APIs are finalized. At this time, plan on doing your final compatibility testing and releasing your fully compatible app, SDK, or library as soon as possible so that it is ready for the final Android 11 release. More on the timeline for developers is here.

You can start compatibility testing on a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 device, or you can use the Android Emulator. Just flash the latest build, install your current production app, and test all of the user flows. There's no need to change the app's targetSdkVersion at this time. Make sure to review the behavior changes that could affect your app and test for impacts.

To help you with testing, we've made many of the breaking changes toggleable, so you can force-enable or disable them individually from Developer options or adb. Check out the details here. Also see the greylists of restricted non-SDK interfaces, which can also be enabled/disabled.

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Get started with Android 11

Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 11 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just download and flash a device system image to a Pixel 2 / 2 XL, Pixel 3 / 3 XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, or Pixel 4 / 4 XL device, or set up the Android Emulator through Android Studio. Next, update your Android Studio environment with the Android 11 Preview SDK and tools, see the set up guide for details.

As always, your feedback is crucial, so please continue to let us know what you think - the sooner we hear from you, the more of your feedback we can integrate. When you find issues, please report them here.

18 Mar 2020 5:01pm GMT

Posted by David Winer, Kotlin Product Manager

Last May at Google I/O, we announced that Android was going Kotlin first, and now over 60% of the top 1000 Android apps use Kotlin. One feature we love about Kotlin is that nullability is baked into its type system - when declaring a reference, you say upfront whether it can hold null values. In this post, we'll look at how the Android 11 SDK does more to expose nullability information in its APIs and show how you can prepare your Kotlin code for it.

How does nullability in Kotlin work?

When writing code in Kotlin, you can use the question mark operator to indicate nullability:

KOTLIN

var x: Int = 1
x = null // compilation error

var y: Int? = 1
y = null // okay

This aspect of Kotlin makes your code safer - if you later call a method or try to access a property on a non-null variable like x, you know you're not risking a null pointer exception. We hear over and over again that this feature of Kotlin gives developers more peace of mind and leads to higher quality apps for end users.

How does nullability work with the Java programming language?

Not all of your (or Android's) APIs are written in Kotlin. Fortunately, the Kotlin compiler recognizes annotations on Java programming languages methods that indicate whether they produce nullable or non-nullable values. For example:

JAVA

public @Nullable String getCurrentName() {
   return currentName;
}

The @Nullable annotation ensures that when using the result of getCurrentName in a Kotlin file, you can't dereference it without a null check. If you try, Android Studio will notify you of an error, and the Kotlin compiler will throw an error in your build. The opposite is true of @NonNull - it tells the Kotlin compiler to treat the method result as a non-null type, forbidding you from assigning that result to null later in your program.

The Kotlin compiler also recognizes two similar annotations, @RecentlyNullable and @RecentlyNonNull, which are the exact same as @Nullable and @NonNull, only they generate warnings instead of errors¹.

Nullability in Android 11

Last month, we released the Android 11 Developer Preview, which allows you to test out the new Android 11 SDK. We upgraded a number of annotations in the SDK from @RecentlyNullable and @RecentlyNonNull to @Nullable and @NonNull (warnings to errors) and continued to annotate the SDK with more @RecentlyNullable and @RecentlyNonNull annotations on methods that didn't have nullability information before.

What's next

If you are writing in Kotlin, when upgrading from the Android 10 to the Android 11 SDK, you may notice that there are some new compiler warnings and that previous warnings may have been upgraded to errors. This is intended and a feature of the Kotlin compiler - these warnings tell you that you may be writing code that crashes your app at runtime (a risk you would miss entirely if you weren't writing in Kotlin). As you encounter these warnings and errors, you can handle them by adding null checks to your code.

As we continue to make headway annotating the Android SDK, we'll follow this same pattern - @RecentlyNullable and @RecentlyNonNull for one numbered release (e.g., Android 10), and then upgrade to @Nullable and @NonNull in the next release (e.g., Android 11). This practice will give you at least a full release cycle to update your Kotlin code and ensure you're writing high-quality, robust code.

1. Due to rules regarding handling of annotations in Kotlin, there is currently a small set of cases where the compiler will throw an error for @Nullable references but not for @RecentlyNullable references.

Java is a trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

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