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First Preview of Android N: Developer APIs and Tools
- creshal 11y agoI guess I'll take a look at the APIs in 5 years, when it has enough market share to be worth considering.
- sliverstorm 11y agoIce Cream Sandwich, which is 5 years old, has about vanished. Jelly Bean still has 30% market share, but are owners of 4 year old phones a significant portion of app revenue? I'd wager the people spending money have at least KitKat. Lollipop, at a year and half old, has another 30%
- creshal 11y agoKitKat is three years old at this point. And I still see new phones and tablets with 4.1 or 4.2 on sale. Digital Signage platforms especially (the part of the Android market I actually care about) seem to be largely stuck on 4.1.
- sliverstorm 11y agoSure, but ask yourself if that's a market you want to target. Do you care if digital signage terminals can run your app?
- creshal 11y agoI really care if digital signage terminals can run my apps, because I sell digital signage terminals with these apps installed.
- sliverstorm 11y agoOk, fair enough. I see now in your comment, the part of the Android market I actually care about Don't know if I wasn't paying enough attention when I replied, or if you ninja-edited, but that's certainly relevant context.
- krschultz 11y agoThen make the business case to the right stakeholders that supporting the latest versions of Android is important. I don't see how the digital signage ecosystem not staying up to date is Google's fault. I have millions of installs for my apps and my minSdk is 16, and I'm very close to bumping it to 19.
- dyladan 11y agoHow much does a digital sign really benefit from tracking the most recent releases anyways? Other than the obvious issue of security fixes, it doesn't seem like that is a domain that would really care that much about trying to keep up.
- creshal 11y agoSecurity fixes are reason enough.
- ubertaco 11y agoWoah: >Improved Java 8 language support - We’re excited to bring Java 8 language features to Android. With Android's Jack compiler, you can now use many popular Java 8 language features, including lambdas and more, on Android versions as far back as Gingerbread. The new features help reduce boilerplate code. For example, lambdas can replace anonymous inner classes when providing event listeners. Some Java 8 language features --like default and static methods, streams, and functional interfaces -- are also now available on N and above. With Jack, we’re looking forward to tracking the Java language more closely while maintaining backward compatibility.
- RivieraKid 11y agoThis has been possible for some time with retrolambda.
- EddieRingle 11y agoIn fact, they've implemented lambdas exactly like retrolambda does via anonymous classes.
- sparky_ 11y agoSo this is just another way to blow up your dex method count?
- lukasb 11y agodisclaimer: I work on Android dev tools It depends. For example, let's compare providing an event listener via a lambda vs an anonymous inner class. Using the lambda will increase your method count by 1. However, if you're accessing class member variables, it will reduce the method count for each variable you use, because it's added as a method of the containing class and doesn't need to generate accessors.
- joelhaasnoot 11y agoI find the fact that streams and functional interfaces are not backwards compatible almost a deal breaker. Using Java 8 streams makes so many things easier that once you start using it, there's no going back. Now you're not going to be able to use it in production till 2019.
- trequartista 11y agoExtremely interested in the multi-window support. With phone screens getting bigger than ever, this could be a very useful feature for multi-tasking
- smrtinsert 11y agoI found Samsungs implementation very useful on my Galaxy Tab S 10.5. I would read a pdf for example and take notes in the other. I tried using it for simple development as well, running a local dev server. Unfortunately js ides were still lacking on Android last time I tried, but it's clearly something that could be improved. Definitely super excited for Android itself to have this feature.
- geodel 11y agoSo Java 8 support is finally here. I think this is the effect of Android moving to OpenJDK.
- EddieRingle 11y agoThey've been adding Java 8 features to ART and Jack in AOSP for many months now, even before the OpenJDK move.
- pjmlp 11y agoBesides finally saying something about Java support, I found other items interesting. ART will recompile applications based on profiling data. Introduction of support to hardware keystores, with the mention that one use case is to prevent jailbreaking. Prevent the NDK users that ignored the documentation and linked to non official platform libraries to keep doing that.
- blinkingled 11y ago> ART will recompile applications based on profiling data. They went back to having a JIT in addition to AOT - which means there is no AOT when the app is installed. When the device is idle/charging then AOT will selectively precompile the used portions of the app and optimize it further using the profiling data. So faster app installs (boon for FDE devices with slow NAND write speeds) and no optimizing apps step after system update.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago> no optimizing apps step after system update. That is fantastic news. Every single time my Nexus 6P gets an update it feels like it takes at least 15 minutes to "optimize apps". Every. Single. Update.
- blinkingled 11y agoThe effect will be even more amazing for non-nexus/carrier devices with bloatware - my work phone (VZW M8) just got Marshmallow and it took couple hours to complete - most of the time was spent on twice optimizing 303 apps! (Only 30-35 out of those are things I installed.)
- curt15 11y agoWell, those devices rarely get updates anyway.
- andrewstuart2 11y agoOut of curiousity, where'd you hear this? I love learning low-level details like that.
- Wonnk13 11y agothe $150 discount on Pixel C is really telling. It's clear that revenue is higher for tablet optimized apps and games and Android really needs to step up to compete with Apple. I'm just a hobby developer, but the last four-ish months have been really exciting. There's a been ton released and polished in the developer console alone.
- RivieraKid 11y agoI wish they'd add grouping to the window switcher, something similar to what's in WebOS. Because it's somewhat difficult to implement tabs without cluttering the UI in appssuch as web browesers, reddit clients, mail clients, etc.
- fulafel 11y agoI wonder why the Pixel C developer discount is us-only.
- riskable 11y agoI was really hoping for something more exciting. Like maybe native support for a new, different language (like Apple did with Swift). It would be absolutely amazing if Google came out with a mechanism for building native apps in, say, Rust.
- pducks32 11y agoThat would be awesome but I think it's a huge job so it really need a purpose. Java is awesome but I love rust, yet that's not really a good enough reason I think.
- haneefmubarak 11y agoTo do that, all they'd really need to do is have a mechanism to build native apps in C, after which various language communities would be able to write simple wrappers that would allow them to use said C API. To an extent, that partially exists in the form of Android NDK, but that's not really a full solution. If and when Google makes it possible to easily create your entire app natively (with a clean C API), then you ought to see a surge of libraries/toolkits/frameworks coming out that will enable you to write Android apps in most common languages (Rust likely included).
- nly 11y agoQt has already been ported to Android via the NDK. Nothing stops other UI frameworks from doing the same.
- pjmlp 11y agoHaving used the 4.3 version I wouldn't recommend it, specially since looking at the web site it seems anything has hardly changed in that area since my attempt. It adds very little value over Java + NDK on Android. The Android native widgets aren't supported, rather emulated via QML and only the most well known ones. For the majority of Android APIs no support is provided, offering no advantage over we having to write our own JNI wrappers. Also iOS and Windows Phone support are even worse than Android.
- oDot 11y agoI really wish they would get the camera and gyro APIs on par with iOS so Instagram could port Hyperlapse
- andybak 11y agoI got the impression that the APIs were fine - but consistent device support was lacking.
- leddt 11y agoCheck out this app, it does a decent job: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yafla.gallus https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yafla.gall...
- sahaskatta 11y agoMicrosoft Hyperlapse works quite well https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.hyperlapsemobile https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....
- AdmiralAsshat 11y agoI'm disappointed to see that it will take Android N for the Doze feature to be practical [0]. As it currently stands, Doze only activates when the device is stationary. My phone never leaves my pocket, since I'm paranoid about setting it down, so the gyrometer being engaged is enough to prevent Doze from triggering. [0] http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/03/09/android-n-feature-spotlight-doze-will-now-work-whenever-the-screen-is-off-even-when-the-device-isnt-stationary/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/03/09/android-n-feature-sp...
- habosa 11y agoThis is very true, but I think doing it one step at a time is a good way to slip into a more power-efficient system without breaking tons of top apps. Too many top apps were dependent on constantly waking up and doing network or other expensive jobs. So for M Google says 'these things won't happen when the user leaves the phone on a desk for 30m+' which spurs people to prepare for this new world even if they won't encounter it much. Now with N Google is saying 'this will happen when the screen is off for a few minutes' and now any decent app needs to prepare for this, but the best apps already got into this new world for M.
- kllrnohj 11y agoYou sleep with your phone in your pocket? That's really the thing doze is great at. If you forget to charge your phone, you wake up with still decent amount of battery left. Or for tablets sitting around on tables/desks.
- AdmiralAsshat 11y agoNo, I don't, but I don't often forget to hook up my phone to the charger. I do however, sit/stand at my desk for 8-9 hours a day and maybe pull the phone out less than once an hour. I would like the phone to be in Doze mode when it's in my pocket, rather than forcing me to have to put it on my desk. As I said, I don't like leaving it unattended, even if it's simply to step away for a few minutes to the watercooler.
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- tdkl 11y agoHope the faster release will also show in a faster update cycle for vendors. Or some kind of guarantee that devices who got/get M, will also get N. The quick reply API and notification tweaks are pretty great and doze is now useful (seems like a something like Sony Stamina mode).
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- estefan 11y agoIt's blatantly going to be called Nutella.