Some new updates from Google, arranged roughly in descending order of what I think is important to the Android Developer Community…
Android M (Developer Preview will be available later today, final release around September this year. ):
- ‘Native platform-level Fingerprint API’ support.
- Granular permission model, bringing it at parity with iOS. No upfront check for Permissions, which has been the case with Android till date from inception. Permissions are requested for as and when needed. Geez, thanks Google !
- ‘App Links’ - An improvement on ‘Intent’ model which allows ‘Auto verification’, which allows by-passing the ‘Chooser menu’ when sharing content, and allowing an ‘AutoVerified’ app to automatically be launched in response to a share request. Not sure if this is exactly an improvement, since I don't mind the 'Chooser' model.
- ‘Chrome Custom Tabs’ - ability to customize WebView when launched from within the context of an app.
- Smarter sharing – the Androijd System learns how you share links / data between App(s) and People, and improves defaults…
- ‘Android Pay’ - Android’s take on mPayments using NFC/HCE.
- ‘Power management updates’ - upto 2X improvements in Battery with a new ‘Doze’ mode. Also USB type-C charging will improve charging time by 3X – 5X.
Free Automated Android Testing on Top 20 Devices ( sourced from Google I/O, Engadget ):
- ‘Cloud Test Lab’ - Upload your APK and Google will test it against the top 20 Android devices for free.
- Submit your app to the developer console staging channel and Google will perform automated testing
- If they run into any crashes, they'll get a video of the app before the crash and a crash log to help them debug things.
- With the Test Lab, developers only have to upload their application to the service and the tool will automatically work its way through every screen in the app.
Android Wear:
- 4000 apps targeted to Android Wear, already available.
- Several UI updates.
Play Store:
- Developer Console - Support for A/B testing
- Better app installation / usage analytics.
- Support for ‘Developer Homepages’ where people can upload more Custom graphics to differentiate their apps and serve as a single page to showcase all your apps.
- More filters added to the Google Play Store, including Age filters etc...
Android Studio:
- updated to version 1.3
- Added support for C/C++
Google Now:
- ‘Now on Tap’ - available on Android M.
- Can be invoked from the context of Any app. If you are on any app, and invoke Google Now, Google Now is able to understand / scan the screen and obtain context, and then be able to provide information as needed with this contextual information.
Project Brillo OS:
- Google’s official OS for Internet of things. Available Q3 of this year.
- Derived from Android.
- ‘Weave’ communications layer for Internet of things project. E.g. A Recipe app, could interface with a smart oven to set the correct temperature etc from the app itself etc… Available Q4 of this year.
Google Photos ( Brand New App ):
- Backup and store – Unlimited Automatic High-resolution Photo & Video backup.
- Auto-Organization / Grouping – of People, of Faces, History of people in your albums.
- Search – textual search for Photos. Search for Snow storms
- More functionality – create custom animation, movies, collage etc.
- Photo suggestions – auto edited photos / compositions which user can choose to use or discard.
- ‘Login-less’ photo sharing.
- As of yesterday, Google Photos is my default photos home, especially after the unlimited photos announcement,
- Google Photos also has a feature which 'releases' memory on your phone to 'auto-delete' photos which have already been backed up. Using this technique, I was able to make 9 GB memory available on my phone easily.
Other Stuff:
- Self driving cars
- Partnership with GoPro to bring VR to the masses: http://www.google.com/get/cardboard/jump/
- Balloon-based internet – Project Loon.
- Android Auto.
