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Right now we’re releasing the second beta of Android 16, persevering with our work to construct a platform that allows inventive expression. You’ll be able to enroll any supported Pixel device to get this and future Android Beta updates over-the-air.
This construct provides new help for skilled digital camera experiences, graphical results, extends our efficiency framework, and continues the evolution of options associated to privateness, safety, and background duties. We’re trying ahead to hearing what you think, and thanks prematurely in your continued help make Android a platform that works for everybody.
Media and digital camera updates
Android 16 enhances help for skilled digital camera customers, permitting for hybrid auto publicity together with exact coloration temperature and tint changes. It is simpler than ever to seize movement photographs with new Intent actions, and we’re persevering with to enhance UltraHDR pictures, with help for HEIC encoding and new parameters from the ISO 21496-1 draft commonplace.
Hybrid auto-exposure
Android 16 provides new hybrid auto-exposure modes to Camera2, permitting you to manually management particular facets of publicity whereas letting the auto-exposure (AE) algorithm deal with the remainder. You’ll be able to management ISO + AE, and exposure time + AE, offering larger flexibility in comparison with the present strategy the place you both have full handbook management or rely totally on auto-exposure.
enjoyable setISOPriority() { // ... val availablePriorityModes = mStaticInfo.traits.get( CameraCharacteristics.CONTROL_AE_AVAILABLE_PRIORITY_MODES ) // ... // Activate AE mode to set precedence mode reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_MODE] = CameraMetadata.CONTROL_AE_MODE_ON reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AE_PRIORITY_MODE] = CameraMetadata.CONTROL_AE_PRIORITY_MODE_SENSOR_SENSITIVITY_PRIORITY reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.SENSOR_SENSITIVITY] = TEST_SENSITIVITY_VALUE val request: CaptureRequest = reqBuilder.construct() // ... }
Exact coloration temperature and tint changes
Android 16 provides digital camera help for fantastic coloration temperature and tint changes to higher help skilled video recording functions. White stability settings are at present managed by CONTROL_AWB_MODE, which incorporates choices restricted to a preset checklist, similar to Incandescent, Cloudy, and Twilight. The COLOR_CORRECTION_MODE_CCT allows using COLOR_CORRECTION_COLOR_TEMPERATURE and COLOR_CORRECTION_COLOR_TINT for exact changes of white stability based mostly on the correlated coloration temperature.
enjoyable setCCT() { // ... (Your present code earlier than this level) ... val colorTemperatureRange: Vary= mStaticInfo.traits[CameraCharacteristics.COLOR_CORRECTION_COLOR_TEMPERATURE_RANGE] // Set to handbook mode to allow CCT mode reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.CONTROL_AWB_MODE] = CameraMetadata.CONTROL_AWB_MODE_OFF reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.COLOR_CORRECTION_MODE] = CameraMetadata.COLOR_CORRECTION_MODE_CCT reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.COLOR_CORRECTION_COLOR_TEMPERATURE] = 5000 reqBuilder[CaptureRequest.COLOR_CORRECTION_COLOR_TINT] = 30 val request: CaptureRequest = reqBuilder.construct() // ... (Your present code after this level) ... }
Movement photograph seize intent actions
Android 16 provides commonplace Intent actions — ACTION_MOTION_PHOTO_CAPTURE, and ACTION_MOTION_PHOTO_CAPTURE_SECURE — which request that the digital camera utility seize a movement photograph and return it.
You could both move an additional EXTRA_OUTPUT to manage the place the picture might be written, or a Uri by Intent setClipData. Should you do not set a ClipData, will probably be copied there for you when calling Context.startActivity.
UltraHDR picture enhancements
Android 16 continues our work to ship dazzling picture high quality with UltraHDR pictures. It provides help for UltraHDR pictures within the HEIC file format. These pictures will get ImageFormat kind HEIC_ULTRAHDR and can comprise an embedded gainmap much like the prevailing UltraHDR JPEG format. We’re engaged on AVIF help for UltraHDR as properly, so keep tuned.
As well as, Android 16 implements extra parameters in UltraHDR from the ISO 21496-1 draft standard, together with the power to get and set the colorspace that gainmap math needs to be utilized in, in addition to help for HDR encoded base pictures with SDR gainmaps.
Customized graphical results with AGSL
Android 16 provides RuntimeColorFilter and RuntimeXfermode, permitting you to writer advanced results like Threshold, Sepia, and Hue Saturation and apply them to attract calls. Since Android 13, you have been in a position to make use of AGSL to create customized RuntimeShaders that reach Shaders. The brand new API mirrors this, including an AGSL-powered RuntimeColorFilter that extends ColorFilters, and a Xfermode impact that permits you to implement AGSL-based customized compositing and mixing between supply and vacation spot pixels.
personal val thresholdEffectString = """ uniform half threshold; half4 primary(half4 c) { half luminosity = dot(c.rgb, half3(0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722)); half bw = step(threshold, luminosity); return bw.xxx1 * c.a; }""" enjoyable setCustomColorFilter(paint: Paint) { val filter = RuntimeColorFilter(thresholdEffectString) filter.setFloatUniform(0.5) paint.colorFilter = filter }
Habits adjustments
With each Android launch, we search to make the platform extra environment friendly, privateness aware, internationalization pleasant, and sturdy, balancing the wants of apps towards {hardware} help, system efficiency, consumer privateness, and battery life. This can lead to habits adjustments that impression compatibility.
Edge to edge opt-out going away
Android 15 enforced edge-to-edge for apps concentrating on Android 15 (SDK 35), however your app might opt-out by setting R.attr#windowOptOutEdgeToEdgeEnforcement to true. As soon as your app targets Android 16 (Baklava), R.attr#windowOptOutEdgeToEdgeEnforcement is deprecated and disabled and your app can not opt-out of going edge-to-edge. To be appropriate with Android 16 Beta 2, guarantee your app helps edge-to-edge and take away any use of R.attr#windowOptOutEdgeToEdgeEnforcement. To help edge-to-edge, see the Compose and Views steerage. Please tell us about considerations in our tracker on the feedback page.
Well being and health permissions
For apps concentrating on Android 16 or increased, BODY_SENSORS permissions are transitioning to the granular permissions below android.permissions.well being additionally utilized by Health Connect. Any API beforehand requiring BODY_SENSORS or BODY_SENSORS_BACKGROUND will now require the corresponding android.permissions.well being permission. This impacts the next knowledge sorts, APIs, and foreground service sorts:
In case your app makes use of these APIs, it ought to now request the respective granular permissions:
These permissions are the identical as people who guard entry to studying knowledge from Well being Join, the Android datastore for well being, health, and wellness knowledge.
Deserted empty jobs cease motive
An deserted job happens when the JobParameters object related to the job has been rubbish collected, however jobFinished has not been referred to as to sign job completion. This means that the job could also be operating and being rescheduled with out the appliance’s consciousness.
Purposes in Android 16 that depend on JobScheduler with out sustaining a robust reference to the JobParameters object will now be granted the brand new job cease motive STOP_REASON_TIMEOUT_ABANDONED on timeout, as a substitute of STOP_REASON_TIMEOUT.
If there are frequent occurrences of the brand new deserted cease motive, the system will take mitigation steps to scale back job frequency. Please use the brand new cease motive to detect and scale back deserted jobs.
Word: Should you’re utilizing WorkManager, you are not anticipated to be impacted by this transformation — one good aspect impact of utilizing Android Jetpack to schedule your work.
Intent redirect adjustments
Android 16 introduces default safety hardening towards Intent redirection assaults no matter your app’s targetSDK model. The removeLaunchSecurityProtection API permits you to opt-out of this safety in case your testing reveals points.
Word: Opting out of safety protections needs to be completed with warning and solely when completely needed, as it may enhance the danger of safety vulnerabilities.
val iSublevel = intent.getParcelableExtra("sub_intent", Intent::class.java) iSublevel?.let { it.removeLaunchSecurityProtection() startActivity(it) }
Elegant font APIs deprecated and disabled
Apps concentrating on Android 15 (API stage 35) have the elegantTextHeight TextView attribute set to true by default, changing the compact font with one that’s rather more readable. You could possibly override this by setting the elegantTextHeight attribute to false.
Android 16 deprecates the elegantTextHeight attribute, and the attribute might be ignored as soon as your app targets Android 16. The “UI fonts” managed by these APIs are being discontinued, so you must adapt any layouts to make sure constant and future proof textual content rendering in Arabic, Lao, Myanmar, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Telugu or Thai.
16 KB web page dimension compatibility mode
Android 15 launched help for 16KB reminiscence pages to optimize performance of the platform. Android 16 provides a compatibility mode, permitting some apps constructed for 4K reminiscence pages to run on a tool configured for 16KB reminiscence pages.
If Android detects that your app has 4KB aligned reminiscence pages, it should routinely use compatibility mode and show a notification dialog to the consumer. Setting the android:pageSizeCompat property within the AndroidManifest.xml to allow the backwards compatibility mode will forestall the show of the dialog when your app launches. For greatest efficiency, reliability, and stability, your app ought to nonetheless be 16KB aligned. Learn our latest weblog submit about updating your apps to support 16KB memory pages for extra particulars.
Measurement system customization
Customers can now customise their measurement system in regional preferences inside Settings. The consumer choice is included as a part of the locale code, so you possibly can register a BroadcastReceiver on ACTION_LOCALE_CHANGED to deal with locale configuration adjustments when regional preferences change.
Utilizing formatters might help match the native expertise. For instance, “0.5 in” in English (United States), is “12,7 mm” for a consumer who has set their telephone to English (Denmark) or who makes use of their telephone in English (United States) with the metric system because the measurement system choice.
To search out these settings in Android 16 Beta 2, open the Settings app and navigate to System > Languages & area.
Content material dealing with for reside wallpapers
In Android 16, the reside wallpaper framework is gaining a brand new content material API to handle the challenges of dynamic, user-driven wallpapers. At present, reside wallpapers incorporating user-provided content material require advanced, service-specific implementations. Android 16 introduces WallpaperDescription and WallpaperInstance. WallpaperDescription permits you to determine distinct cases of a reside wallpaper from the identical service. For instance, a wallpaper that has cases on each the house display screen and on the lock display screen could have distinctive content material in each locations. The wallpaper picker and WallpaperManager use this metadata to higher current wallpapers to customers, streamlining the method so that you can create numerous and personalised reside wallpaper experiences.
Headroom APIs in ADPF
The SystemHealthManager introduces the getCpuHeadroom and getGpuHeadroom APIs, designed to supply video games and resource-intensive apps with estimates of obtainable CPU and GPU sources. These strategies provide a manner so that you can gauge how your app or recreation can greatest enhance system well being, notably when used together with different Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) APIs that detect thermal throttling. By utilizing CpuHeadroomParams and GpuHeadroomParams on supported units, it is possible for you to to customise the time window used to compute the headroom and choose between common or minimal useful resource availability. This might help you scale back your CPU or GPU useful resource utilization accordingly, main to higher consumer experiences and improved battery life.
Key sharing API
Android 16 provides APIs that help sharing entry to Android Keystore keys with different apps. The brand new KeyStoreManager class helps granting and revoking entry to keys by app uid, and consists of an API for apps to entry shared keys.
Standardized image and audio high quality framework for TVs
The brand new MediaQuality package in Android 16 exposes a set of standardized APIs for entry to audio and film profiles and hardware-related settings. This enables streaming apps to question profiles and apply them to media dynamically:
- Motion pictures mastered with a wider dynamic vary require larger coloration accuracy to see delicate particulars in shadows and alter to ambient gentle, so a profile that prefers coloration accuracy over brightness could also be applicable.
- Stay sporting occasions are sometimes mastered with a slim dynamic vary, however are sometimes watched in daylight, so a profile that provides choice to brightness over coloration accuracy may give higher outcomes.
- Absolutely interactive content material desires minimal processing to scale back latency, and desires increased body charges, which is why many TV’s ship with a recreation profile.
The API permits apps to change between profiles and customers to take pleasure in the advantages of tuning supported TVs to greatest go well with their content material.
Accessibility
Android 16 provides extra APIs to reinforce UI semantics that assist enhance consistency for customers that depend on accessibility companies, similar to TalkBack.
Period added to TtsSpan
Android 16 extends TtsSpan with a TYPE_DURATION, consisting of ARG_HOURS, ARG_MINUTES, and ARG_SECONDS. This lets you immediately annotate time length, making certain correct and constant text-to-speech output with companies like TalkBack.
Help parts with a number of labels
Android at present permits UI parts to derive their accessibility label from one other, and now gives the power for a number of labels to be related, a typical state of affairs in internet content material. By introducing a list-based API inside AccessibilityNodeInfo, Android can immediately help these multi-label relationships. As a part of this transformation, we have deprecated AccessibilityNodeInfo setLabeledBy and getLabeledBy in favor of addLabeledBy, removeLabeledBy, and getLabeledByList.
Improved help for expandable parts
Android 16 provides accessibility APIs that mean you can convey the expanded or collapsed state of interactive parts, similar to menus and expandable lists. By setting the expanded state utilizing setExpandedState and dispatching TYPE_WINDOW_CONTENT_CHANGED AccessibilityEvents with a CONTENT_CHANGE_TYPE_EXPANDED content material change kind, you possibly can be sure that display screen readers like TalkBack announce state adjustments, offering a extra intuitive and inclusive consumer expertise.
Indeterminate ProgressBars
Android 16 provides RANGE_TYPE_INDETERMINATE, giving a manner so that you can expose RangeInfo for each determinate and indeterminate ProgressBar widgets, permitting companies like TalkBack to extra constantly present suggestions for progress indicators.
Tri-state CheckBox
The brand new AccessibilityNodeInfo getChecked and setChecked(int) strategies in Android 16 now help a “partially checked” state along with “checked” and “unchecked.” This replaces the deprecated boolean isChecked and setChecked(boolean).
Two Android API releases in 2025
This preview is for the following main launch of Android with a deliberate launch in Q2 of 2025 and we plan to have another release with new developer APIs in Q4. The Q2 main launch would be the solely launch in 2025 to incorporate habits adjustments that would have an effect on apps. The This autumn minor launch will decide up characteristic updates, optimizations, and bug fixes; like our non-SDK quarterly releases, it won’t embrace any intentional app-impacting habits adjustments.
We’ll proceed to have quarterly Android releases. The Q1 and Q3 updates present incremental updates to make sure steady high quality. We’re placing extra power into working with our machine companions to convey the Q2 launch to as many units as attainable.
There’s no change to the goal API stage necessities and the related dates for apps in Google Play; our plans are for one annual requirement annually, tied to the foremost API stage.
Learn how to prepare
Along with performing compatibility testing on this subsequent main launch, just remember to’re compiling your apps towards the brand new SDK, and use the compatibility framework to allow targetSdkVersion-gated habits adjustments as they grow to be out there for early testing.
App compatibility
The Android 16 Preview program runs from November 2024 till the ultimate public launch in Q2 of 2025. At key growth milestones, we’ll ship updates in your growth and testing environments. Every replace consists of SDK instruments, system pictures, emulators, API reference, and API diffs. We’ll spotlight essential APIs as they’re prepared to check within the preview program in blogs and on the Android 16 developer website.
We’re concentrating on March of 2025 for our Platform Stability milestone. At this milestone, we’ll ship closing SDK/NDK APIs and in addition closing inner APIs and app-facing system behaviors. From that point you’ll have a number of months earlier than the ultimate launch to finish your testing. Study extra by checking the release timeline details.
Get began with Android 16
You’ll be able to enroll any supported Pixel device to get this and future Android Beta updates over-the-air. Should you don’t have a Pixel machine, you possibly can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. In case you are at present on Android 16 Beta 1 or are already within the Android Beta program, you’ll be supplied an over-the-air replace to Beta 2.
We’re on the lookout for your suggestions so please report issues and submit feature requests on the feedback page. The sooner we get your suggestions, the extra we will embrace in our work on the ultimate launch.
For the most effective growth expertise with Android 16, we suggest that you just use the most recent preview of Android Studio (Meerkat). When you’re arrange, listed below are a few of the issues you must do:
- Compile towards the brand new SDK, check in CI environments, and report any points in our tracker on the feedback page.
- Take a look at your present app for compatibility, study whether or not your app is affected by changes in Android 16, and set up your app onto a tool or emulator operating Android 16 and extensively check it.
We’ll replace the beta system images and SDK recurrently all through the Android 16 launch cycle. When you’ve put in a beta construct, you’ll routinely get future updates over-the-air for all later previews and Betas.
For full info, go to the Android 16 developer site.
