Features and APIs Overview

Android 15 introduces great features and APIs for developers. The following sections summarize these features to help you get started with the related APIs.

For a detailed list of added, modified, and removed APIs, read the API diff report. For details on added APIs visit the Android API reference — for Android 15, look for APIs that were added in API level 35. To learn about areas where platform changes might affect your apps, be sure to check out Android 15 behavior changes for apps that target Android 15 and for all apps.

Camera and media

Android 15 includes a variety of features that improve the camera and media experience and that give you access to tools and hardware to support creators in bringing their vision to life on Android.

For more on the latest features and developer solutions for Android media and camera, see the Building modern Android media and camera experiences talk from Google I/O.

Low Light Boost

Android 15 introduces Low Light Boost, an auto-exposure mode available to both Camera 2 and the night mode camera extension. Low Light Boost adjusts the exposure of the Preview stream in low-light conditions. This is different from how the night mode camera extension creates still images, because night mode combines a burst of photos to create a single, enhanced image. While night mode works very well for creating a still image, it can't create a continuous stream of frames, but Low Light Boost can. Thus, Low Light Boost enables camera capabilities, such as:

  • Providing an enhanced image preview, so users are better able to frame their low-light pictures
  • Scanning QR codes in low light

If you enable Low Light Boost, it automatically turns on when there's a low light level, and turns off when there's more light.

Apps can record off the Preview stream in low-light conditions to save a brightened video.

For more information, see Low Light Boost.

In-app camera controls

Android 15 adds an extension for more control over the camera hardware and its algorithms on supported devices:

  • Advanced flash strength adjustments enabling precise control of flash intensity in both SINGLE and TORCH modes while capturing images.

HDR headroom control

Android 15 chooses HDR headroom that is appropriate for the underlying device capabilities and bit-depth of the panel. For pages that have lots of SDR content, such as a messaging app displaying a single HDR thumbnail, this behavior can end up adversely influencing the perceived brightness of the SDR content. Android 15 lets you control the HDR headroom with setDesiredHdrHeadroom to strike a balance between SDR and HDR content.

The brightness of SDR UI elements on the left screen appears to be more uniform than the brightness on the right screen, which simulates possible headroom issues when HDR and SDR content are mixed. By adjusting the HDR headroom, you can achieve a better balance between the SDR and HDR content.

Loudness control

Android 15 introduces support for the CTA-2075 loudness standard to help you avoid audio loudness inconsistencies and ensure users don't have to constantly adjust volume when switching between content. The system leverages known characteristics of the output devices (headphones and speaker) along with loudness metadata available in AAC audio content to intelligently adjust the audio loudness and dynamic range compression levels.

To enable this feature, you need to ensure loudness metadata is available in your AAC content and enable the platform feature in your app. For this, you instantiate a LoudnessCodecController object by calling its create factory method with the audio session ID from the associated AudioTrack; this automatically starts applying audio updates. You can pass an OnLoudnessCodecUpdateListener to modify or filter loudness parameters before they are applied on the MediaCodec.

// Media contains metadata of type MPEG_4 OR MPEG_D
val mediaCodec = …
val audioTrack = AudioTrack.Builder()
                                .setSessionId(sessionId)
                                .build()
...
// Create new loudness controller that applies the parameters to the MediaCodec
try {
   val lcController = LoudnessCodecController.create(mSessionId)
   // Starts applying audio updates for each added MediaCodec
}

AndroidX media3 ExoPlayer will also be updated to use the LoudnessCodecController APIs for a seamless app integration.

Virtual MIDI 2.0 devices

Android 13 added support for connecting to MIDI 2.0 devices using USB, which communicate using Universal MIDI Packets (UMP). Android 15 extends UMP support to virtual MIDI apps, enabling composition apps to control synthesizer apps as a virtual MIDI 2.0 device just like they would with an USB MIDI 2.0 device.

More efficient AV1 software decoding

dav1d logo

dav1d, the popular AV1 software decoder from VideoLAN is available for Android devices that don't support AV1 decode in hardware. dav1d is up to 3x more performant than the legacy AV1 software decoder, enabling HD AV1 playback for more users, including some low and mid tier devices.

Your app needs to opt-in to using dav1d by invoking it by name "c2.android.av1-dav1d.decoder". dav1d will be made the default AV1 software decoder in a subsequent update. This support is standardized and backported to Android 11 devices that receive Google Play system updates.

Developer productivity and tools

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

OpenJDK 17 updates

Android 15 continues the work of refreshing Android's core libraries to align with the features in the latest OpenJDK LTS releases.

The following key features and improvements are included:

These APIs are updated on over a billion devices running Android 12 (API level 31) and higher through Google Play System updates, so you can target the latest programming features.

PDF improvements

Android 15 includes substantial improvements to the PdfRenderer APIs. Apps can incorporate advanced features such as rendering password-protected files, annotations, form editing, searching, and selection with copy. Linearized PDF optimizations are supported to speed local PDF viewing and reduce resource use. The Jetpack PDF library uses these APIs to simplify adding PDF viewing capabilities to your app.

The latest updates to PDF rendering include features such as searching an embedded PDF file.

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 11 (API level 30) by creating a compatible pre-Android 15 version of the API surface, called PdfRendererPreV.

Automatic language switching refinements

Android 14 added on-device, multi-language recognition in audio 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 adds additional controls to help apps tune this switching to their use case. EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_INITIAL_ACTIVE_DURATION_TIME_MILLIS confines the automatic switching to the beginning of the audio session, while EXTRA_LANGUAGE_SWITCH_MATCH_SWITCHES deactivates the language switching after a defined number of switches. These options are particularly useful if you expect that there will be a single language spoken during the session that should be autodetected.

Improved OpenType Variable Font API

Android 15 improves the usability of the OpenType variable font. You can create a FontFamily instance from a variable font without specifying weight axes with the buildVariableFamily API. The text renderer overrides the value of wght axis to match the displaying text.

Using the API simplifies the code for creating a Typeface considerably:

Kotlin

val newTypeface = Typeface.CustomFallbackBuilder(
            FontFamily.Builder(
                Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf").build())
                    .buildVariableFamily())
    .build()

Java

Typeface newTypeface = Typeface.CustomFallbackBuilder(
            new FontFamily.Builder(
                new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf").build())
                    .buildVariableFamily())
    .build();

Previously, to create the same Typeface, you would need much more code:

Kotlin

val oldTypeface = Typeface.CustomFallbackBuilder(
            FontFamily.Builder(
                Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                    .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 400")
                    .setWeight(400)
                    .build())
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 100")
                        .setWeight(100)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 200")
                        .setWeight(200)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 300")
                        .setWeight(300)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 500")
                        .setWeight(500)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 600")
                        .setWeight(600)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 700")
                        .setWeight(700)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 800")
                        .setWeight(800)
                        .build()
                )
                .addFont(
                    Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
                        .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 900")
                        .setWeight(900)
                        .build()
                ).build()
        ).build()

Java

Typeface oldTypeface = new Typeface.CustomFallbackBuilder(
    new FontFamily.Builder(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 400")
            .setWeight(400)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 100")
            .setWeight(100)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 200")
            .setWeight(200)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 300")
            .setWeight(300)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 500")
            .setWeight(500)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 600")
            .setWeight(600)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 700")
            .setWeight(700)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 800")
            .setWeight(800)
            .build()
    )
    .addFont(
        new Font.Builder(assets, "RobotoFlex.ttf")
            .setFontVariationSettings("'wght' 900")
            .setWeight(900)
            .build()
    )
    .build()
).build();

Here's an example of how a Typeface created with both the old and new APIs renders:

An example of how Typeface rendering differs using new and old APIs

In this example, the Typeface created with the old API doesn't have the capability to create accurate font weights for the 350, 450, 550 and 650 Font instances, so the renderer falls back to the closest weight. So in this case, 300 is rendered instead of 350, 400 is rendered instead of 450, and so on. By contrast, the Typeface created with the new APIs dynamically creates a Font instance for a given weight, so accurate weights are rendered for 350, 450, 550, and 650 as well.

Granular line break controls

Starting in Android 15, a TextView 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. Similarly, you can preserve words from hyphenation by using the <nohyphen> tag or createNoHyphenationSpan.

For example, the following string resource doesn't include a line break, and renders with the text "Pixel 8 Pro." breaking in an undesirable place:

<resources>
    <string name="pixel8pro">The power and brains behind Pixel 8 Pro.</string>
</resources>

In contrast, this string resource includes the <nobreak> tag, which wraps the phrase "Pixel 8 Pro." and prevents line breaks:

<resources>
    <string name="pixel8pro">The power and brains behind <nobreak>Pixel 8 Pro.</nobreak></string>
</resources>

The difference in how these strings are rendered is shown in the following images:

Layout for a line of text where the phrase "Pixel 8 Pro." isn't wrapped using a <nobreak> tag.
Layout for the same line of text where the phrase "Pixel 8 Pro." is wrapped using a <nobreak> tag.

App archiving

Android and Google Play announced support for app archiving last year, allowing users to free up space by partially removing infrequently used apps from the device that were published using Android App Bundle on Google Play. Android 15 includes OS level support for app archiving and unarchiving, making it easier for all app stores to implement it.

Apps with the REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES permission can call the PackageInstaller requestArchive method to request archiving an installed app package, which removes the APK and any cached files, but persists user data. Archived apps are returned as displayable apps through the LauncherApps APIs; users will see a UI treatment to highlight that those apps are archived. If a user taps on an archived app, the responsible installer will get a request to unarchive it, and the restoration process can be monitored by the ACTION_PACKAGE_ADDED broadcast.

Graphics

Android 15 brings the latest graphics improvements, including ANGLE and additions to the Canvas graphics system.

Modernizing Android's GPU access

Vulkan logo

Android hardware has evolved quite a bit from the early days where the core OS would run on a single CPU and GPUs were accessed using APIs based on fixed-function pipelines. The Vulkan® graphics API has been available in the NDK since Android 7.0 (API level 24) with a lower-level abstraction that better reflects modern GPU hardware, scales better to support multiple CPU cores, and offers reduced CPU driver overhead — leading to improved app performance. Vulkan is supported by all modern game engines.

Vulkan is Android's preferred interface to the GPU. Therefore, Android 15 includes ANGLE as an optional layer for running OpenGL® ES on top of Vulkan. Moving to ANGLE will standardize the Android OpenGL implementation for improved compatibility, and, in some cases, improved performance. You can test out your OpenGL ES app stability and performance with ANGLE by enabling the developer option in Settings -> System -> Developer Options -> Experimental: Enable ANGLE on Android 15.

The Android ANGLE on Vulkan roadmap

Roadmap of upcoming changes to the Android GPU APIs.

As part of streamlining our GPU stack, going forward we will be shipping ANGLE as the GL system driver on more new devices, with the future expectation that OpenGL/ES will be only available through ANGLE. That being said, we plan to continue support for OpenGL ES on all devices.

Recommended next steps

Use the developer options to select the ANGLE driver for OpenGL ES and test your app. For new projects, we strongly encourage using Vulkan for C/C++.

Improvements for Canvas

Android 15 continues our modernization of Android's Canvas graphics system with additional capabilities:

  • Matrix44 provides a 4x4 matrix for transforming coordinates that should be used when you want to manipulate the canvas in 3D.
  • clipShader intersects the current clip with the specified shader, while clipOutShader sets the clip to the difference of the current clip and the shader, each treating the shader as an alpha mask. This supports the drawing of complex shapes efficiently.

Performance and battery

Android continues its focus on helping you improve the performance and quality of your apps. Android 15 introduces APIs that help make tasks in your app more efficient to execute, optimize app performance, and gather insights about your apps.

For battery-efficient best practices, debugging network and power usage, and detail on how we're improving battery efficiency of background work in Android 15 and recent versions of Android, see the Improving battery efficiency of background work on Android talk from Google I/O.

ApplicationStartInfo API

In previous versions of Android, app startup has been a bit of a mystery. It was challenging to determine within your app whether it started from a cold, warm, or hot state. It was also 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.

The ApplicationStartInfo API on Android 15 provides all of this and more. You can even choose to add your own timestamps into the flow to help 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.

Detailed app size information

Since Android 8.0 (API level 26), Android has included the StorageStats.getAppBytes API 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.

Android 15 adds the StorageStats.getAppBytesByDataType([type]) API, which lets you 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.

App-managed profiling

Android 15 includes the ProfilingManager class, which lets you collect profiling information from within your app such as heap dumps, heap profiles, stack sampling, and more. It provides a callback to your app with a supplied tag to identify the output file, which is delivered to your app's files directory. The API does rate limiting to minimize the performance impact.

To simplify constructing profiling requests in your app, we recommend using the corresponding Profiling AndroidX API, available in Core 1.15.0-rc01 or higher.

SQLite database improvements

Android 15 introduces SQLite APIs that expose advanced features from the underlying SQLite engine that target specific performance issues that can manifest in apps. These APIs are included with the update of SQLite to version 3.44.3.

Developers should consult best practices for SQLite performance to get the most out of their SQLite database, especially when working with large databases or when running latency-sensitive queries.

  • Read-only deferred transactions: when issuing transactions that are read-only (don't include write statements), use beginTransactionReadOnly() and beginTransactionWithListenerReadOnly(SQLiteTransactionListener) to issue read-only DEFERRED transactions. Such transactions can run concurrently with each other, and if the database is in WAL mode, they can run concurrently with IMMEDIATE or EXCLUSIVE transactions.
  • Row counts and IDs: APIs were added to retrieve the count of changed rows or the last inserted row ID without issuing an additional query. getLastChangedRowCount() returns the number of rows that were inserted, updated, or deleted by the most recent SQL statement within the current transaction, while getTotalChangedRowCount() returns the count on the current connection. getLastInsertRowId() returns the rowid of the last row to be inserted on the current connection.
  • Raw statements: issue a raw SQlite statement, bypassing convenience wrappers and any additional processing overhead that they may incur.

Android Dynamic Performance Framework updates

Android 15 continues our investment in the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF), a set of APIs that allow games and performance intensive apps to interact more directly with power and thermal systems of Android devices. On supported devices, Android 15 adds ADPF capabilities:

  • A power-efficiency mode for hint sessions to indicate that their associated threads should prefer power saving over performance, great for long-running background workloads.
  • GPU and CPU work durations can both be reported in hint sessions, allowing the system to adjust CPU and GPU frequencies together to best meet workload demands.
  • Thermal headroom thresholds to interpret possible thermal throttling status based on headroom prediction.

To learn more about how to use ADPF in your apps and games, head over to the documentation.

Privacy

Android 15 includes a variety of features that help app developers protect user privacy.

Screen recording detection

Android 15 adds support for apps 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.

val mCallback = Consumer<Int> { state ->
  if (state == SCREEN_RECORDING_STATE_VISIBLE) {
    // We're being recorded
  } else {
    // We're not being recorded
  }
}

override fun onStart() {
   super.onStart()
   val initialState =
      windowManager.addScreenRecordingCallback(mainExecutor, mCallback)
   mCallback.accept(initialState)
}

override fun onStop() {
    super.onStop()
    windowManager.removeScreenRecordingCallback(mCallback)
}

Expanded IntentFilter capabilities

Android 15 builds in support for more precise Intent resolution through UriRelativeFilterGroup, which contains a set of UriRelativeFilter objects that form a set of Intent matching rules that must each be satisfied, including URL query parameters, URL fragments, and blocking or exclusion rules.

These rules can be defined in the AndroidManifest XML file with the <uri-relative-filter-group> tag, which can optionally include an android:allow tag. These tags can contain <data> tags that use existing data tag attributes as well as the android:query and android:fragment attributes.

Here's an example of the AndroidManifest syntax:

<intent-filter>
  <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
  <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
  <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
  <data android:scheme="http" />
  <data android:scheme="https" />
  <data android:domain="astore.com" />
  <uri-relative-filter-group>
    <data android:pathPrefix="/auth" />
    <data android:query="region=na" />
  </uri-relative-filter-group>
  <uri-relative-filter-group android:allow="false">
    <data android:pathPrefix="/auth" />
    <data android:query="mobileoptout=true" />
  </uri-relative-filter-group>
  <uri-relative-filter-group android:allow="false">
    <data android:pathPrefix="/auth" />
    <data android:fragmentPrefix="faq" />
  </uri-relative-filter-group>
</intent-filter>

Private space

The private space can be unlocked and locked to show or hide sensitive apps on a device.

Private space lets users create a separate space on their device where they can keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication. The private space uses a separate user profile. The user can choose to use the device lock or a separate lock factor for the private space.

Apps in the private space show up in a separate container in the launcher, and are hidden from the recents view, notifications, settings, and from other apps when the private space is locked. User-generated and downloaded content (such as media or files) and accounts are separated between the private space and the main space. The system sharesheet and the photo picker can be used to give apps access to content across spaces when the private space is unlocked.

Users can't move existing apps and their data into the private space. Instead, users select an install option in the private space to install an app using whichever app store they prefer. Apps in the private space are installed as separate copies from any apps in the main space (new copies of the same app).

When a user locks the private space, the profile is stopped. While the profile is stopped, apps in the private space are no longer active and can't perform foreground or background activities, including showing notifications.

We recommend that you test your app with private space to make sure your app works as expected, especially if your app falls into one of the following categories:

Query most-recent user selection for Selected Photos Access

Apps can now highlight only the most-recently-selected photos and videos when partial access to media permissions is granted. This feature can improve the user experience for apps that frequently request access to photos and videos. To use this feature in your app, enable the QUERY_ARG_LATEST_SELECTION_ONLY argument when querying MediaStore through ContentResolver.

Kotlin

val externalContentUri = MediaStore.Files.getContentUri("external")

val mediaColumns = arrayOf(
   FileColumns._ID,
   FileColumns.DISPLAY_NAME,
   FileColumns.MIME_TYPE,
)

val queryArgs = bundleOf(
   // Return only items from the last selection (selected photos access)
   QUERY_ARG_LATEST_SELECTION_ONLY to true,
   // Sort returned items chronologically based on when they were added to the device's storage
   QUERY_ARG_SQL_SORT_ORDER to "${FileColumns.DATE_ADDED} DESC",
   QUERY_ARG_SQL_SELECTION to "${FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE} = ? OR ${FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE} = ?",
   QUERY_ARG_SQL_SELECTION_ARGS to arrayOf(
       FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE_IMAGE.toString(),
       FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE_VIDEO.toString()
   )
)

Java

Uri externalContentUri = MediaStore.Files.getContentUri("external");

String[] mediaColumns = {
    FileColumns._ID,
    FileColumns.DISPLAY_NAME,
    FileColumns.MIME_TYPE
};

Bundle queryArgs = new Bundle();
queryArgs.putBoolean(MediaStore.QUERY_ARG_LATEST_SELECTION_ONLY, true);
queryArgs.putString(MediaStore.QUERY_ARG_SQL_SORT_ORDER, FileColumns.DATE_ADDED + " DESC");
queryArgs.putString(MediaStore.QUERY_ARG_SQL_SELECTION, FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE + " = ? OR " + FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE + " = ?");
queryArgs.putStringArray(MediaStore.QUERY_ARG_SQL_SELECTION_ARGS, new String[] {
    String.valueOf(FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE_IMAGE),
    String.valueOf(FileColumns.MEDIA_TYPE_VIDEO)
});

Privacy Sandbox on Android

Android 15 includes the latest Android Ad Services extensions, incorporating the latest version of the Privacy Sandbox on Android. This addition is part of our work to develop technologies that improve user privacy and enable effective, personalized advertising experiences for mobile apps. Our privacy sandbox page has more information about the Privacy Sandbox on Android developer preview and beta programs to help you get started.

Health Connect

Android 15 integrates the latest extensions around Health Connect by Android, a secure and centralized platform to manage and share app-collected health and fitness data. This update adds support for additional data types across fitness, nutrition, skin temperature, training plans, and more.

Skin temperature tracking allows users to store and share more accurate temperature data from a wearable or other tracking device.

Training plans are structured workout plans to help a user achieve their fitness goals. Training plans support includes a variety of completion and performance goals:

Learn more about the latest updates to Health Connect in Android in the Building adaptable experiences with Android Health talk from Google I/O.

Partial screen sharing

Android 15 supports partial screen sharing so users can share or record just an app window rather than the entire device screen. This feature, first enabled in Android 14 QPR2, includes MediaProjection callbacks that allow your app to customize the partial screen sharing experience. Note that for apps targeting Android 14 (API level 34) or higher, user consent is required for each MediaProjection capture session.

User experience and system UI

Android 15 gives app developers and users more control and flexibility for configuring their device to fit their needs.

To learn more about how to use the latest improvements in Android 15 to improve your app's user experience, see the Improve the user experience of your Android app talk from Google I/O.

Richer widget previews with Generated Previews API

Before Android 15, the only way to provide widget picker previews was to specify a static image or layout resource. These previews often differ significantly from the look of the actual widget when it is placed on the home screen. Also, static resources can't be created with Jetpack Glance, so a Glance developer had to screenshot their widget or create an XML layout to have a widget preview.

Android 15 adds support for generated previews. This means that app widget providers can generate RemoteViews to use as the picker preview, instead of a static resource.

Apps can provide Remote Views to the Widget Picker, so they can update the content in the picker to be more representative of what the user will see.

Push API

Apps can provide generated previews through a push API. Apps can provide previews at any point in their lifecycle, and don't receive an explicit request from the host to provide previews. Previews are persisted in AppWidgetService, and hosts can request them on-demand. The following example loads an XML widget layout resource and sets it as the preview:

AppWidgetManager.getInstance(appContext).setWidgetPreview(
   ComponentName(
       appContext,
       SociaLiteAppWidgetReceiver::class.java
   ),
   AppWidgetProviderInfo.WIDGET_CATEGORY_HOME_SCREEN,
   RemoteViews("com.example", R.layout.widget_preview)
)

The expected flow is:

  1. At any time, the widget provider calls setWidgetPreview. The provided previews are persisted in AppWidgetService with other provider info.
  2. setWidgetPreview notifies hosts of an updated preview through the AppWidgetHost.onProvidersChanged callback. In response, the widget host reloads all of its provider information.
  3. When displaying a widget preview, the host checks AppWidgetProviderInfo.generatedPreviewCategories, and if the chosen category is available, calls AppWidgetManager.getWidgetPreview to return the saved preview for this provider.

When to call setWidgetPreview

Because there is no callback to provide previews, apps can choose to send previews at any point when they are running. How often to update the preview depends on the widget's use case.

The following list describes the two main categories of preview use cases:

  • Providers that show real data in their widget previews, such as personalized or recent information. These providers can set the preview once the user has signed in or has done initial configuration in their app. After this, they can set up a periodic task to update the previews at their chosen cadence. Examples of this type of widget could be a photo, calendar, weather or news widget.
  • Providers that show static information in previews or quick-action widgets that don't display any data. These providers can set previews once, when the app first launches. Examples of this type of widget include a drive quick actions widget or chrome shortcuts widget.

Some providers might show static previews on the hub mode picker, but real information on the homescreen picker. These providers should follow the guidance for both of these use cases to set previews.

Picture-in-Picture

Android 15 introduces changes in Picture-in-Picture (PiP) ensuring an even smoother transition when entering into PiP mode. This will be beneficial for apps having UI elements overlaid on top of their main UI, which goes into PiP.

Developers use the onPictureInPictureModeChanged callback to define logic that toggles the visibility of the overlaid UI elements. This callback is triggered when the PiP enter or exit animation is completed. Beginning in Android 15, the PictureInPictureUiState class includes another state.

With this UI state, apps targeting Android 15 (API level 35) will observe the Activity#onPictureInPictureUiStateChanged callback being invoked with isTransitioningToPip() as soon as the PiP animation starts. There are many UI elements that are not relevant for the app when it is in PiP mode, for example views or layout that include information such as suggestions, upcoming video, ratings, and titles. When the app goes to PiP mode, use the onPictureInPictureUiStateChanged callback to hide these UI elements. When the app goes to full screen mode from the PiP window, use onPictureInPictureModeChanged callback to unhide these elements, as shown in the following examples:

override fun onPictureInPictureUiStateChanged(pipState: PictureInPictureUiState) {
        if (pipState.isTransitioningToPip()) {
          // Hide UI elements
        }
    }

override fun onPictureInPictureModeChanged(isInPictureInPictureMode: Boolean) {
        if (isInPictureInPictureMode) {
          // Unhide UI elements
        }
    }

This quick visibility toggle of irrelevant UI elements (for a PiP window) helps ensure a smoother and flicker-free PiP enter animation.

Improved Do Not Disturb rules

AutomaticZenRule lets apps customize Attention Management (Do Not Disturb) rules and decide when to activate or deactivate them. Android 15 greatly enhances these rules with the goal of improving the user experience. The following enhancements are included:

  • Adding types to AutomaticZenRule, allowing the system to apply special treatment to some rules.
  • Adding an icon to AutomaticZenRule, helping to make the modes be more recognizable.
  • Adding a triggerDescription string to AutomaticZenRule that describes the conditions on which the rule should become active for the user.
  • Added ZenDeviceEffects to AutomaticZenRule, allowing rules to trigger things like grayscale display, night mode, or dimming the wallpaper.

Set VibrationEffect for notification channels

Android 15 supports setting rich vibrations for incoming notifications by channel using NotificationChannel.setVibrationEffect, so your users can distinguish between different types of notifications without having to look at their device.

Media projection status bar chip and auto stop

Media projection can expose private user information. A new, prominent status bar chip makes users aware of any ongoing screen projection. Users can tap the chip to stop screen casting, sharing, or recording. Also, for a more intuitive user experience, any in‑progress screen projection now automatically stops when the device screen is locked.

Status bar chip for screen sharing, casting, and recording.

Large screens and form factors

Android 15 gives your apps the support to get the most out of Android's form factors, including large screens, flippables, and foldables.

Improved large screen multitasking

Android 15 gives users better ways to multitask on large screen devices. For example, users can save their favorite split-screen app combinations for quick access and pin the taskbar on screen to quickly switch between apps. This means that making sure your app is adaptive is more important than ever.

Google I/O has sessions on Building adaptive Android apps and Building UI with the Material 3 adaptive library that can help, and our documentation has more to help you Design for large screens.

Cover screen support

Your app can declare a property 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.

Connectivity

Android 15 updates the platform to give your app access to the latest advances in communication and wireless technologies.

Satellite support

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.

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

A notification appears when the device connects to a satellite.

Smoother NFC experiences

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 to enter observe mode, where the device listens but doesn't respond to NFC readers, sending the app's NFC service PollingFrame objects to process. The PollingFrame objects can be used to auth ahead of the first communication to the NFC reader, allowing for a one tap transaction in many cases.

In addition, apps can register a filter on supported devices so they can be notified of polling loop activity, which allows for smooth operation with multiple NFC-aware applications.

Wallet role

Android 15 introduces a Wallet role that allows tighter integration with the user's preferred wallet app. This role replaces the NFC default contactless payment setting. Users can manage the Wallet role holder by navigating to Settings > Apps > Default Apps.

The Wallet role is used when routing NFC taps for AIDs registered in the payment category. Taps always go to the Wallet role holder unless another app that is registered for the same AID is running in the foreground.

This role is also used to determine where the Wallet Quick Access tile should go when activated. When the role is set to "None", the Quick Access tile isn't available and payment category NFC taps are only delivered to the foreground app.

Security

Android 15 helps you enhance your app's security, protect your app's data, and gives users more transparency and control over their data. See the Safeguarding user security on Android talk from Google I/O for more of what we're doing to improve user safeguards and protect your app against new threats.

Integrate Credential Manager with autofill

Starting with Android 15, developers can link specific views like username or password fields with Credential Manager requests, making it easier to provide a tailored user experience during the sign-in process. When the user focuses on one of these views, a corresponding request is sent to Credential Manager. The resulting credentials are aggregated across providers and displayed in autofill fallback UIs, such as inline suggestions or drop-down suggestions. The Jetpack androidx.credentials library is the preferred endpoint for developers to use and will soon be available to further enhance this feature in Android 15 and higher.

Integrate single tap sign-up and sign-in with biometric prompts

Credential Manager integrates biometric prompts into the credential creation and sign-in processes, eliminating the need for providers to manage biometric prompts. As a result, credential providers only need to focus on the results of the create and get flows, augmented with the biometric flow result. This simplified process creates a more efficient and streamlined credential creation and retrieval process.

Key management for end-to-end encryption

We are introducing the E2eeContactKeysManager in Android 15, which facilitates end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in your Android apps by providing an OS-level API for the storage of cryptographic public keys.

The E2eeContactKeysManager is designed to integrate with the platform contacts app to give users a centralized way to manage and verify their contacts' public keys.

Permission checks on content URIs

Android 15 introduces a set of APIs that perform permission checks on content URIs:

Accessibility

Android 15 adds features that improve accessibility for users.

Better Braille

In Android 15, we've made it possible for TalkBack to support Braille displays that are using the HID standard over both USB and secure Bluetooth.

This standard, much like the one used by mice and keyboards, will help Android support a wider range of Braille displays over time.

Internationalization

Android 15 adds features and capabilities that complement the user experience when a device is used in different languages.

CJK variable font

Starting with Android 15, the font file for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) languages, NotoSansCJK, is now a variable font. Variable fonts open up possibilities for creative typography in CJK languages. Designers can explore a broader range of styles and create visually striking layouts that were previously difficult or impossible to achieve.

How the variable font for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) languages appears with different font widths.

Inter-character justification

Starting with Android 15, text can be justified utilizing letter spacing by using JUSTIFICATION_MODE_INTER_CHARACTER. Inter-word justification was first introduced in Android 8.0 (API level 26), and inter-character justification provides similar capabilities for languages that use the whitespace character for segmentation, such as Chinese, Japanese, and others.

Layout for Japanese text using JUSTIFICATION_MODE_NONE.
Layout for English text using JUSTIFICATION_MODE_NONE.


Layout for Japanese text using JUSTIFICATION_MODE_INTER_WORD.
Layout for English text using JUSTIFICATION_MODE_INTER_WORD.


Layout for Japanese text using the JUSTIFICATION_MODE_INTER_CHARACTER.
Layout for English text using the JUSTIFICATION_MODE_INTER_CHARACTER.

Automatic line break configuration

Android started supporting phrase-based line breaks for Japanese and Korean in Android 13 (API level 33). However, while phrase-based line breaks improve the readability of short lines of text, they don't work well for long lines of text. In Android 15, apps can apply phrase-based line breaks only for short lines of text, using the LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_AUTO option. This option selects the best word style option for the text.

For short lines of text, phrase-based line breaks are used, functioning the same as LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_PHRASE, as shown in the following image:

For short lines of text, LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_AUTO applies phrase-based line breaks to improve the readability of the text. This is the same as applying LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_PHRASE.

For longer lines of text, LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_AUTO uses a no line-break word style, functioning the same as LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_NONE, as shown in the following image:

For long lines of text, LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_AUTO applies no line-break word style to improve the readability of the text. This is the same as applying LINE_BREAK_WORD_STYLE_NONE.

Additional Japanese Hentaigana Font

In Android 15, a font file for old Japanese Hiragana (known as Hentaigana) is bundled by default. The unique shapes of Hentaigana characters can add a distinctive flair to artwork or design while also helping to preserve accurate transmission and understanding of ancient Japanese documents.

Character and text style for the Japanese Hentaigana font.

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