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Ultra HDR image capture could soon come to third-party Android apps
The CameraX API is getting bolstered for Android 14 and beyond
The plight of any Gen Z-er or millennial that grew up with an Android smartphone is the annoyance of how awful photos and videos look when captured using Snapchat. Heck, this author even remembers the theories other kids had to explain how horrible the quality of some Snaps were. Some of those theories turned out to be true, such as people saying it took a screenshot of the camera’s viewfinder. A trip down memory lane notwithstanding, the Android camera API situation is a mess. Third-party camera apps have had varying levels of difficulty enabling certain features across the spectrum of cameras on Android devices due to lacking API versions and compatibility problems. Android 14 added Ultra HDR support to pictures taken in the default camera app, but it hasn’t been usable by other apps beyond Google Photos. That seems to be changing.
Chrome's taking steps to ensure your gaming habit doesn't make you a target for data miners
It's the latest browser to restrict the Gamepad API
Who hasn't played a game in their web browser? While you easily have a lot of fun clicking and tapping away, modern web browsers also offer a Gamepad API to support physical controllers connected to your device — and there are a lot of great gamepad options out there. Unfortunately, actors with malicious intent could potentially use your pad's data to track you online. As a result, many browsers have restricted the API to protect their users, and now Google is doing the same.
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These days, some of the most important new smartphone features and performance gains to be found have to do with AI-powered workloads. So it wasn't any surprise when Google and Qualcomm announced last year that they were planning to make the Neural Networks APIs that power those features on Android updateable via Google Play Services — one small part of Android's growing update modularity. At first, we thought those plans might have been abandoned when Google pushed through a series of commits to AOSP reverting changes tied to the feature, but the company now confirms the plans for a Play Store updatable API are still on.
Android 13 allows app developers to promote their own Quick Settings tiles
A great tool for discovering new features or a future source of spam?
Google introduced the Quick Settings panel to Android almost a decade ago with the release of 4.2 Jelly Bean, and there have been many evolutions over the years since. Despite opening the API to custom tiles in Android 7.0 Nougat, app developers have had a hard time getting users to add third-party tiles to the Quick Settings panel. With Android 13, Google is looking to streamline the experience so users have a chance to discover new tiles and get more use from their apps.
Chrome is working to support one of Android 12's best features
A long overdue improvement spells the end of multiple screenshots for a webpage
A lot of us take screenshots with our phones, but when trying to do something like sharing a cool, long article with friends and family, that can sometimes mean snapping a bunch of them. We've been waiting forever for Google to add scrolling screenshots natively into Android, and for good reason — it's way more convenient to just take a single capture of content that extends past what's viewable on our phone's screen. Android 12 finally made this long-requested feature a reality, but with one important caveat — it doesn't work in all apps yet. Chrome is among those apps you'll most likely want to take scrolling screenshots in, and soon, it'll support one of Android 12's best features.
Android 12 may allow universal device search from third party launchers
The AppSearchManager tool could allow for deep desktop-style searching
Search has always been a core component of Android — the OS is made by Google, after all. But one of the coolest tricks of the system has been reserved for Google's own launcher and widget: the ability to search through both your own apps and web search results at once. That capability may be coming to all launchers and apps in the near future, according to developer documentation for Android 12.
Android 12 DP 2 has a sweet new textured ripple animation for taps
It's a bit scratchy, in a nice way
One of the most fun things about new versions of Android is seeing all the new visual bling Google builds into the operating system. One such example was spotted by developer @kdrag0n, who managed to get it working on Android 12, Developer Preview 2. It's a more busy, "noisy" animation for tapping a standard interface item.
Twitter rolls out developer portal for its overhauled API
API v2 opens a lot of data back up to third parties
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Twitter had been teasing the first major update to its API since 2012 for days. On the back of yesterday's major security breach which saw a bevy of verified accounts hijacked for the sake of a Bitcoin scam, the company decided that it would still announce the new API today as scheduled, but would delay the roll-out. Still, all of this has left outside developers wondering what these new tools will allow them to do.
Android 11 will make password autofill much better thanks to keyboard integration
No more wonky, disappearing drop-down menus
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Android has offered native autofill since Android 9 Pie, but despite that being an official method, actually filling out passwords and addresses is sometimes wonky, and phones often need a few seconds to recognize password entry fields. Google wants to improve that experience with Android 11 and has introduced a new autofill method that integrates with your keyboard, be it Gboard or a third-party app.
Google's new in-app reviews let you rate apps without switching to the Play Store
Coming in the form of an API
An iOS feature many developers (and probably some users) have been asking for is finally making its way into Android. Google has announced a new in-app review API that lets devs ask users for Play Store reviews. That will allow them to rate and comment in a slide-up panel without leaving the app. This will make the rating prompt that used to take you to the Play Store for reviews much less disruptive.
Google added a hidden trash can to Android 11 for deleted files
More functionality for Scoped Storage
Scoped Storage was the most controversial addition to Android 10 when it debuted last year, as it blocked most applications from accessing your phone's entire internal storage to improve privacy and security. Google ended up pushing the deadline for supporting Scoped Storage to the release of Android 11 later this year, but there's additional functionality in the new Android version for apps to try out.
Google boots popular anti-spam call service YouMail off the Play Store (Update: It's back)
Google really needs to fix its automated app review process
Every other month, a legitimate, useful app gets kicked off the Play Store while sleazy applications with bad intentions thrive. Google's removal algorithms often cite arbitrary reasons as in the recent case of Slide for Reddit. The third-party client was removed for including a screenshot of an article in its listing that contained the word "ISIS" (which had been there for years). The latest app to be hit by Google's automated patrol is YouMail, a visual voicemail service that offers spam call protection. It has been booted from the Play Store because Google supposedly couldn't find evidence it's actually blocking spam.
Starting with Android P, Google began slowly closing the door on the use of non-public APIs. The process began with method calls that had little or no known usage among app developers, but things changed when Android Q expanded the list of restricted interfaces to cover a larger selection. Now with Android 11, the crackdown continues as the Android team adds even more non-public APIs to the restricted list.
First Android 11 Developer Preview lands today for Google Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and 4
Our first taste of Android's latest release includes new notification tweaks, privacy and security enhancements, and more
Android 11 is now official, and Google is releasing the first Developer Preview for this new version starting today. The software changes this time sound ambitious, with Google essentially taking most of its work on Android 10 and (literally) turning it up to 11, featuring enhancements to privacy and security, improvements to Project Mainline, a new dedicated "conversations" section for notifications, and tweaks to better harness 5G — all among a much longer list of changes just too big to include here. You can check it out for yourself by manually flashing it onto supported Pixel phones (everything but the 2016 OGs).
NerdWallet adds support for Android 10 face unlock
Unlock your NerdWallet in the nerdiest way possible
Google's Pixel 4 is the first phone from the company to utilize Android 10's new face unlock API, and because that feature's still new, many apps have yet to receive an update that adds support for the new functionality. As with any freshly introduced feature, some developers have been slower than others to incorporate this latest security tool. With its latest app update, NerdWallet is joining the growing list of financial services apps that have implemented the newest biometrics API.
Microsoft revealed two upcoming dual-screen devices last year: the Android-based Surface Duo, and the larger Surface Neo running Windows 10X. Today the company released a preview SDK for the Surface Duo, so developers can start working on apps that take advantage of both displays.
Some Facebook and Instagram users are being locked out of their accounts for reporting impostors posing as relatives (in some cases, dead relatives). The social media platforms have been requiring locked-out users to submit a picture of photo identification through an API, but many have said the API is not functioning. A source at Facebook has told Android Police the company is investigating how the code got published. The company has also pulled the API.
Back in the not-quite-dark-ages of Android, new services and APIs were launching seemingly every other week as Google and Apple engaged in an aggressive land grab to acquire users and tempt developers. Gaming became a popular battleground, and Google was investing in new features for Play Games like an API that gave developers the infrastructure to run real-time and turn-based multiplayer games for free. However, like many other older Play Games APIs, Google will be shutting this one down in about six months and it may render some older games unplayable.
Over the last week or so, the popular SMS to Gmail backup application SMS Backup+ has finally stopped working as a result of Google's Gmail API changes. When messages regarding the app's impending loss of functionality were sent out a few months back, our readers were understandably upset. After all, over five million people use SMS Backup+, and not just for backups, but for moving messages between devices and the convenience of Gmail-based threaded conversation view. Thankfully, SMS Backup+ has an IMAP-based workaround which still works.
If you use Chrome, then you have probably seen it deliver a notification — or, at least, you've been to one of those sites that spams you with repeated requests to enable them, yuck. According to some changes spotted by Chrome Story at the Chromium Gerrit, that notification system could be picking up the ability to schedule notifications for the future.