{"id":216722,"date":"2024-03-25T09:39:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T09:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/the-second-developer-preview-of-android-15\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:19:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:19:58","slug":"the-second-developer-preview-of-android-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/the-second-developer-preview-of-android-15\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Developer Preview of Android 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Posted by Dave Burke<\/a>, VP of Engineering <\/em><\/p>\n


<\/a>\"Android<\/a><\/div>\n

Today marks the second chapter of the Android 15 story with the release of Android 15 Developer Preview 2!<\/p>\n

Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media<\/a> and AI experiences<\/a>, take advantage of device form factors, minimize battery impact<\/a>, maximize smooth app performance<\/a>, and protect user privacy and security<\/a>, all on the most diverse lineup of devices out there.<\/p>\n

Android continues to add features enabling your apps to take advantage of premium device hardware, including the latest telecommunications features, high-end media capabilities, dazzling displays, foldable\/filppable form factors, and AI processing.<\/p>\n

Your feedback on the Android 15 Developer Preview and Beta program plays a key role in helping Android continuously improve. The Android 15 developer site<\/a> has more information about the preview, including downloads for Pixel and detailed documentation about changes. This preview is just the beginning, and we\u2019ll have lots more to share as we move through the release cycle. Thank you in advance for your help in making Android a platform that works for everyone.<\/p>\n

Updating Android communications<\/span><\/h3>\n

Android 15 updates the platform to give your app access to the latest advances in communication.<\/p>\n

Satellite support<\/span><\/h4>\n

Android 15 continues to extend platform support for satellite connectivity and includes some UI elements to ensure a consistent user experience across the satellite connectivity landscape.<\/p>\n

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Notification when device connects to satellite<\/em><\/center><\/imgcaption><\/image><\/p>\n

Apps can use ServiceState.isUsingNonTerrestrialNetwork()<\/a><\/span> to detect when a device is connected to a satellite, giving them more awareness of why full network services may be unavailable. Additionally, Android 15 provides support for SMS\/ MMS applications as well as preloaded RCS applications to use satellite connectivity for sending and receiving messages.<\/p>\n

Smoother NFC experiences<\/span><\/h4>\n

Android 15 is working to make the tap to pay experience more seamless and reliable while continuing to support Android’s robust NFC app ecosystem. On supported devices, apps can request the NfcAdapter<\/a><\/span> enter observe mode<\/a>, where the device will listen but not respond to NFC readers, sending the app’s NFC service PollingFrame<\/span> objects to process. The PollingFrame<\/a><\/span> objects<\/p>\n

can be used to auth ahead of the first communication to the NFC reader, allowing for a one tap transaction in many cases.<\/p>\n

Developer productivity<\/span><\/h3>\n

While most of our work to improve your productivity centers around tools like Android Studio<\/a>, Jetpack Compose<\/a>, and the Android Jetpack<\/a> libraries, we always look for ways in the platform to help you more easily realize your vision.<\/p>\n

PDF Improvements<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Enable searching embedded PDF files with updates to PdfRenderer<\/span><\/em><\/center><\/imgcaption><\/image><\/p>\n

Android 15 Developer Preview 2 includes an early preview of substantial improvements to the PdfRenderer APIs<\/a><\/span>, giving apps capabilities to incorporate advanced features such as rendering password-protected files<\/a>, annotations, form editing<\/a>, searching<\/a>, and selection<\/a> with copy. Linearized PDF optimizations are supported to speed local PDF viewing and reduce resource use.<\/p>\n

The PdfRenderer has been moved to a module that can be updated using Google Play system updates independent of the platform release, and we’re supporting these changes back to Android R by creating a compatible pre-Android 15 version of the API surface, called PdfRendererPreV<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

We value your feedback on the enhancements we’ve made to the PdfRenderer API surface, and we plan to make it much easier to incorporate these APIs into your app with an upcoming Android Jetpack library. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n

Automatic language switching refinements<\/span><\/h4>\n

Android 14 added on-device multi-language audio recognition with automatic switching between languages, but this can cause words to get dropped, especially when languages switch with less of a pause between the two utterances. Android 15 has added additional controls to allow apps to help tune this switching for their use case. EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_INITIAL_ACTIVE_DURATION_TIME_MILLIS<\/a><\/span> confines the automatic switching to the beginning of the audio session, while EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_MATCH_SWITCHES<\/a><\/span> deactivates the language switching after a defined number of switches. This can be a useful refinement, particularly if the expectation is that there will be a single language spoken during the session that should be autodetected.<\/p>\n

Granular line break controls<\/span><\/h4>\n

Starting in Android 15, the TextView<\/a> and the underlying line breaker can preserve the given portion of text in the same line to improve readability. You can take advantage of this line break customization by using the <nobreak> tag in string resources or createNoBreakSpan<\/a>. Similarly, you can preserve words from hyphenation by using the <nohyphen> tag or createNoHyphenationSpan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Examples and screenshots:<\/p>\n

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<resources>\n    <string name=\"pixel8pro\"<\/span>>The power and brains behind Pixel 8<\/span> Pro.<\/string>\n<\/resources><\/span>\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
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\"text<\/div>\n
<\/image><\/p>\n
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<resources>\n    <string name=\"pixel8pro\"<\/span>>The power and brains behind <nobreak>Pixel 8<\/span> Pro.<\/nobreak><\/string>\n<\/resources><\/span>\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\"text<\/div>\n
<\/image><\/p>\n
Expanded IntentFilter Functionality<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 15 builds-in support for more precise Intent resolution through UriRelativeFilterGroup<\/a><\/span>, which contain a set of UriRelativeFilter<\/a><\/span> objects that form a set of Intent matching rules that must each be satisfied, including URL query parameters, URL fragments, and blocking\/exclusion rules. This helps applications better keep up with the dynamic demands of web-hosted deep links.<\/p>\n
These rules can be defined in the AndroidManifest<\/span> with the new <uri-relative-filter-group> tag which can optionally include an android:allow\u00a0<\/span>tag. These tags can contain  tags that use existing data tag attributes as well as the new android:query<\/span> and android:fragment<\/span> attributes.<\/data><\/p>\n
An example of the AndroidManifest<\/span> syntax that will be supported:<\/p>\n
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<intent-filter>\n  <action android:name=\"android.intent.action.VIEW\"<\/span> \/>\n  <category android:name=\"android.intent.category.BROWSABLE\"<\/span> \/>\n  <data android:scheme=\"http\"<\/span> \/>\n  <data android:scheme=\"https\"<\/span> \/>\n  <data android:domain=\"astore.com\"<\/span> \/>\n  <uri-relative-filter-group>\n    <data android:pathPrefix=\"\/auth\"<\/span> \/>\n    <data android:query=\"region=na\"<\/span> \/>\n  <\/uri-relative-filter-group>\n  <uri-relative-filter-group android:allow=\"false\"<\/span>>\n    <data android:pathPrefix=\"\/auth\"<\/span> \/>\n    <data android:query=\"mobileoptout=true\"<\/span> \/>\n  <\/uri-relative-filter-group>\n  <uri-relative-filter-group android:allow=\"false\"<\/span>>\n    <data android:pathPrefix=\"\/auth\"<\/span> \/>\n    <data android:fragmentPrefix=\"faq\"<\/span> \/>\n  <\/uri-relative-filter-group>\n<\/intent-filter><\/span>\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
More OpenJDK API support<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 15 continues to add OpenJDK APIs. Developer Preview 2 includes support for additional math<\/a>\/strictmath<\/a> methods, lots of util updates<\/a> including sequenced collection<\/a>\/map<\/a>\/set<\/a>, ByteBuffer support in Deflater<\/a>, and security key updates<\/a>. These APIs are updated on over a billion devices running Android 12+ through Android 15 through Google Play System updates<\/a> so you can target the latest programming features.<\/p>\n
Giving your app more flexibility on more screens<\/span><\/h3>\n
Android 15 gives your apps the support to get the most out of Android’s form factors, including large screens, flippables, and foldables.<\/p>\n
Cover screen support<\/span><\/h4>\n
Your app can declare a property<\/a> that Android 15 uses to allow your Application or Activity to be presented on the small cover screens of supported flippable devices. These screens are too small to be considered as compatible targets for Android apps to run on, but your app can opt-in to supporting them, making your app available in more places.<\/p>\n
A more private, secure Android<\/span><\/h3>\n
We’re always looking to give users more transparency and control over their data while enhancing the core security features of the platform.<\/p>\n
Screen record detection<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 15 adds support for apps<\/a> to detect that they are being recorded. A callback is invoked whenever the app transitions between being visible or invisible within a screen recording. (An app is considered visible if activities owned by the registering process’s UID are being recorded.) This way, if your app is performing a sensitive operation, you can inform the user that they’re being recorded.<\/p>\n
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val<\/span> mCallback = Consumer<Int> { state ->\n  if<\/span> (state == SCREEN_RECORDING_STATE_VISIBLE) {\n    \/\/ we're being recorded<\/span>\n  } else<\/span> {\n    \/\/ we\u2019re not being recorded<\/span>\n  }\n}\n\noverride<\/span> fun<\/span> onStart<\/span>() {\n   super.onStart()\n   val<\/span> initialState =\n      windowManager.addScreenRecordingCallback(mainExecutor, mCallback)\n   mCallback.accept(initialState)\n}\n\noverride<\/span> fun<\/span> onStop<\/span>() {\n    super.onStop()\n    windowManager.removeScreenRecordingCallback(mCallback)\n}<\/span>\n<\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
Making Android more efficient<\/span><\/h3>\n
We are introducing new APIs that can help you gather insights about your apps, continuing to optimize the way background applications work, and providing APIs to help make tasks in your app more efficient to execute.<\/p>\n
ApplicationStartInfo API<\/span><\/h4>\n
App startup on Android has always been a bit of a mystery. There was no easy way to know within your app whether it started from a cold, warm, or hot state. It was difficult to know how long your app spent during the various launch phases: forking the process, calling onCreate, drawing the first frame, and more. When your application class was instantiated, you had no way of knowing whether the app started from a broadcast,  a content provider, a job, a backup, boot complete, an alarm, or an Activity.<\/p>\n
The ApplicationStartInfo<\/a><\/span> API on Android 15 gives you all of this and more. You can even choose to add your own timestamps into the flow to make it easy to collect timing data in one place. In addition to collecting metrics, you can use ApplicationStartInfo to help directly optimize app startup; for example, you can eliminate the costly instantiation of UI-related libraries within your Application class when your app is starting up due to a broadcast.<\/p>\n
Changes to package stopped state<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 15 includes several improvements to the PackageManager<\/a>\u2019s Stopped State<\/a>. Apps that are in a Stopped State should only be leaving this state through direct user action. Furthermore, apps entering the Stopped State will have their PendingIntents<\/a> removed. To help developers re-register their pending intents, apps will now receive the BOOT_COMPLETED<\/a> broadcast once they are removed from the Stopped State. Lastly, the new ApplicationStartInfo<\/a> will also include the ApplicationStartInfo.wasForceStopped()<\/a> to let developers know that their app was put into the Stopped State.<\/p>\n
Detailed app size information<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android has offered an API, StorageStats.getAppBytes()<\/a><\/span>, that summarizes the installed size of an app as a single number of bytes, which is a sum of the APK size, the size of files extracted from the APK, and files that were generated on the device such as ahead-of-time (AOT) compiled code. This number is not very insightful in terms of how your app is using storage.<\/p>\n
Android 15 adds the StorageStats.getAppBytesByDataType([type])<\/a><\/span> API, which allows you to get insight into how your app is using up all that space, including apk file splits, AOT and speedup related code, dex metadata, libraries, and guided profiles.<\/p>\n
Changes to foreground services<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 14 began requiring Foreground Service Types. The documentation mentions that the dataSync Foreground Service type will be deprecated in a future version of Android.<\/p>\n
To support migrating away from the dataSync Foreground Service type, Android 15 includes the mediaProcessing Foreground Service type<\/a><\/span>, which is used to perform time-consuming operations on media assets, like converting media to different formats. In a future Beta release, this service will have a runtime limit of 6 hours.<\/p>\n
SQLite database<\/span><\/h4>\n
Android 15 introduces new SQLite APIs that expose advanced features from the underlying SQLite engine that target specific performance issues that can manifest in apps.<\/p>\n
Developers should consult best practices for SQLite performance<\/a> to get the most out of their SQLite database, especially when working with large databases or when running latency-sensitive queries.<\/p>\n