Tag Archives: form factors

Here’s what happening in our latest Spotlight Week: Adaptive Android Apps

Posted by Alex Vanyo - Developer Relations Engineer

Adaptive Spotlight Week

With Android powering a diverse range of devices, users expect a seamless and optimized experience across their foldables, tablets, ChromeOS, and even cars. To meet these expectations, developers need to build their apps with multiple screen sizes and form factors in mind. Changing how you approach UI can drastically improve users' experiences across foldables, tablets, and more, while preventing tech debt that a portrait-only mindset can create – simply put, building adaptive is a great way to help future-proof your app.

The latest in our Spotlight Week series will focus on Building Adaptive Android apps all this week (October 14-18), and we’ll highlight the many ways you can improve your mobile app to adapt to all of these different environments.



Here’s what we’re covering during Adaptive Spotlight Week

Monday: What is adaptive?

October 14, 2024

Check out the new documentation for building adaptive apps and catch up on building adaptive Android apps if you missed it at I/O 2024. Also, learn how adaptive apps can be made available on another new form factor: cars!

Tuesday: Adaptive UIs with Compose

October 15, 2024

Learn the principles for how you can use Compose to build layouts that adapt to available window size and how the Material 3 adaptive library enables you to create list-detail and supporting pane layouts with out-of-the-box behavior.

Wednesday: Desktop windowing and productivity

October 16, 2024

Learn what desktop windowing on Android is, together with details about how to handle it in your app and build productivity experiences that let users take advantage of more powerful multitasking Android environments.

Thursday: Stylus

October 17, 2024

Take a closer look at how you can build powerful drawing experiences across stylus and touch input with the new Ink API.

Friday: #AskAndroid

October 18, 2024

Join us for a live Q&A on making apps more adaptive. During Spotlight Week, ask your questions on X and LinkedIn with #AskAndroid.


These are just some of the ways that you can improve your mobile app’s experience for more than just the smartphone with touch input. Keep checking this blog post for updates. We’ll be adding links and more throughout the week. Follow Android Developers on X and Android by Google at LinkedIn to hear even more about ways to adapt your app, and send in your questions with #AskAndroid.

Introducing Ink API, a new Jetpack library for stylus apps

Posted by Chris Assigbe – Developer Relations Engineer and Tom Buckley – Product Manager

With stylus input, Android apps on phones, foldables, tablets, and Chromebooks become even more powerful tools for productivity and creativity. While there's already a lot to think about when designing for large screens – see our full guidance and inspiration gallery – styluses are especially impactful, transforming these devices into a digital notebook or sketchbook. Users expect stylus experiences to feel as fluid and natural as writing on paper, which is why Android previously added APIs to reduce inking latency to as low as 4ms; virtually imperceptible. However, latency is just one aspect of an inking experience – developers currently need to generate stroke shapes from stylus input, render those strokes quickly, and efficiently run geometric queries over strokes for tools like selection and eraser. These capabilities can require significant investment in geometry and graphics just to get started.

Today, we're excited to share Ink API, an alpha Jetpack library that makes it easy to create, render, and manipulate beautiful ink strokes, enabling developers to build amazing features on top of these APIs. Ink API builds upon the Android framework's foundation of low latency and prediction, providing you with a powerful and intuitive toolkit for integrating rich inking features into your apps.

moving image of a stylus writing with Ink API on a Samsung Tab S8, 4ms showing end-to-end latency
Writing with Ink API on a Samsung Tab S8, 4ms end-to-end latency

What is Ink API?

Ink API is a comprehensive stylus input library that empowers you to quickly create innovative and expressive inking experiences. It offers a modular architecture rather than a one-size-fits-all canvas, so you can tailor Ink API to your app's stack and needs. The modules encompass key functionalities like:

    • Strokes module: Represents the ink input and its visual representation.
    • Geometry module: Supports manipulating and analyzing strokes, facilitating features like erasing, and selecting strokes.
    • Brush module: Provides a declarative way to define the visual style of strokes, including color, size, and the type of tool to draw with.
    • Rendering module: Efficiently displays ink strokes on the screen, allowing them to be combined with Jetpack Compose or Android Views.
    • Live Authoring module: Handles real-time inking input to create smooth strokes with the lowest latency a device can provide.

Ink API is compatible with devices running Android 5.0 (API level 21) or later, and offers benefits on all of these devices. It can also take advantage of latency improvements in Android 10 (API 29) and improved rendering effects and performance in Android 14 (API 34).

Why choose Ink API?

Ink API provides an out-of-the-box implementation for basic inking tasks so you can create a unique drawing experience for your own app. Ink API offers several advantages over a fully custom implementation:

    • Ease of Use: Ink API abstracts away the complexities of graphics and geometry, allowing you to focus on your app's unique inking features.
    • Performance: Built-in low latency support and optimized rendering ensure a smooth and responsive inking experience.
    • Flexibility: The modular design allows you to pick and choose the components you need, tailoring the library to your specific requirements.

Ink API has already been adopted across many Google apps because of these advantages, including for markup in Docs and Circle-to-Search; and the underlying technology also powers markup in Photos, Drive, Meet, Keep, and Classroom. For Circle to Search, the Ink API modular design empowered the team to utilize only the components they needed. They leveraged the live authoring and brush capabilities of Ink API to render a beautiful stroke as users circle (to search). The team also built custom geometry tools tailored to their ML models. That’s modularity at its finest.

moving image of a stylus writing with Ink API on a Samsung Tab S8, 4ms showing end-to-end latency

“Ink API was our first choice for Circle-to-Search (CtS). Utilizing their extensive documentation, integrating the Ink API was a breeze, allowing us to reach our first working prototype w/in just one week. Ink's custom brush texture and animation support allowed us to quickly iterate on the stroke design.” 

- Jordan Komoda, Software Engineer, Google

We have also designed Ink API with our Android app partners' feedback in mind to make sure it fits with their existing app architectures and requirements.

With Ink API, building a natural and fluid inking experience on Android is simpler than ever. Ink API lets you focus on what differentiates your experience rather than on the details of paths, meshes, and shaders. Whether you are exploring inking for note-taking, photo or document markup, interactive learning, or something completely different, we hope you’ll give Ink API a try!

Get started with Ink API

Ready to dive into the well of Ink API? Check out the official developer guide and explore the API reference to start building your next-generation inking app. We're eager to see the innovative experiences you create!

Note: This alpha release is just the beginning for Ink API. We're committed to continuously improving the library, adding new features and functionalities based on your feedback. Stay tuned for updates and join us in shaping the future of inking on Android!

Prepare your app for the new Samsung Galaxy foldables and watches!

Posted by Maru Ahues Bouza – Product Management Director, Android Developer

Yesterday’s Galaxy Unpacked event from Samsung debuted the latest in foldables, wearables, and more! The event introduced the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 and the Galaxy Watch7 and Watch Ultra - and it has never been easier to build apps that look great across all these screen sizes and types. To help you get your apps ready for the latest Android devices, we’re sharing how you can prepare your app for Wear OS 5 and how to build adaptive apps that scale across mobile, tablets, foldables and more!

Get your app ready for Wear OS 5

Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch lineup, including the Watch Ultra and Watch7, will be the first smartwatches powered by Wear OS 5, the latest version of the Wear OS platform. As Wear OS 5 is based on Android 14, this new platform version brings with it a number of developer-facing changes. To ensure your app is ready for the next generation of devices, start by testing your app on the Wear OS 5 Emulator!

Galaxy Watch Ultra (left) and Galaxy Watch7 (right)
Galaxy Watch Ultra (left) and Galaxy Watch7 (right)

Wear OS 5 brings the next iteration of the Watch Face Format, providing more features to create expressive, efficient and individual watch faces for your users. New watches launched with Wear OS 5 will only support third-party watch faces built with Watch Face Format, prioritizing the user experience. For more information on watch face compatibility, see this Help Center article.

As we gather momentum behind the Watch Face Format, we’re changing requirements for publishing watch faces on Google Play. Check out the watch face page for the latest guidance.

Build adaptive to scale across screen sizes and types

The latest in large screens and foldables are here, with the new Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6, so there is even more reason to ensure your app looks great across whatever screen size or folded state your users are engaging with. The best way to do that is to make your app adaptive - meaning your users get an optimal experience on all their devices. By building an adaptive app, you scale across mobile, tablets, foldables, desktop and more.

Galaxy Watch Ultra (left) and Galaxy Watch7 (right)
Galaxy Z Fold6

A great place to start when building adaptive apps is with the new Compose adaptive layout libraries. These libraries are designed to help you to make your UI look good across window sizes. From navigation UI to list/detail and supporting pane layouts, we’re providing composables to make building an adaptive app easier than ever.

Additionally, window size classes are the best way to scale your UI, with opinionated breakpoints that help you design, develop, and test responsive/adaptive layouts across various window sizes. Window size classes enable you to change your app layout as the display space available to your app changes, for example, when a device folds or unfolds, the device orientation changes, or the app window is resized in multi‑window mode.

Discover everything you need to know about building adaptive apps with the adaptive apps documentation; it will be continually updated with the latest and greatest tools and APIs to enable you to scale across screens!

Get started with Adaptive Apps and Wear OS

With these new devices, from the smallest to the largest, there are opportunities to build apps that excite your users on all their favorite Android screens. Apps like SoundCloud, Peloton, and more are already building experiences that scale across their user’s favorite screens!

Get building for Wear OS today by checking out Wear OS developer site and visiting the Wear OS gallery for inspiration. And scale your app across even more screens by building adaptive with the latest from Compose!

Developers for adidas CONFIRMED build features 30% faster using Jetpack Compose

Posted by Nick Butcher – Product Manager for Jetpack Compose, and Florina Muntenescu – Developer Relations Engineer

adidas CONFIRMED is an app for the brand’s most loyal fans who want its latest, curated collections that aren’t found anywhere else. The digital storefront gives streetwear, fashion, and style enthusiasts access to adidas' most exclusive drops and crossovers so they can shop them as soon as they go live. The adidas CONFIRMED team wants to provide users a premium experience, and it’s always exploring new ways to elevate the app’s UX. Today, its developers are more equipped than ever to improve the in-app experience using Jetpack Compose, Android’s modern declarative toolkit for building UI.

Improving the UX with Jetpack Compose

adidas CONFIRMED designers conduct quarterly consumer surveys for feedback from users regarding new app flows and UI enhancements. Their surveys revealed that 80% of the app’s users prefer animated visuals because animations encourage them to explore and interact with the app more. adidas CONFIRMED developers wanted to implement new design elements and animations across the app’s interface to strengthen engagement, but the app’s previous View-based system limited their ability to create engaging UX in a scalable way.

“We decided to build dynamic elements and animations across many of our screens and user journeys,” said Rodrigo Represa, an Android engineer at adidas. “We had an ambitious list of UI updates we wanted to make and started looking for solutions to help us achieve them.”

Switching to Compose allowed adidas CONFIRMED developers to create features faster than ever. The improvement in engineering efficiency has been noticeable, with the team estimating that Compose enables them to create new features roughly 30% faster than with Views. Today, more than 80% of the app’s UI has been migrated to Compose.

“I can build the same feature with Compose about 30% faster than with Views.” — Rodrigo Represa, Android engineer at adidas

Innovating the in-app experience

As part of the app’s new interface update, adidas CONFIRMED developers created an exciting, animated experience called Shoes Tournament. This competition positions different brand-collaborator sneakers head to head in a digital tournament where users vote for their favorite shoe. It took two developers only three months to build this feature from the ground up using Compose. And users loved it — it increased the app’s weekly active users by 8%.

UX screen of shoe tournament. Top shoe is clicked. Text reads: It took adidas' Android devs only 3 months to build this feature from the ground up using Compose.

Before transitioning to Compose, it was hard for the team to customize the adidas CONFIRMED app to incorporate branding from its collaborators. With Compose, it’s easy. For instance, the app’s developers can now create a dynamic design system using CompositionLocals. This functionality helps developers update the app's appearance during collab launches, providing a more appealing user experience while maintaining a consistent and clean design.

One of the most exciting animations adidas CONFIRMED developers added utilized device sensors. Users can view and interact with the products they’re looking at on product display pages by simply moving their devices, just as if they were holding the product in real life. Developers used Compose to create realistic lighting effects for the animation to make the viewing experience more engaging.

An easier way to build UI

Using composables allowed adidas CONFIRMED developers to reuse existing components. As both the flagship adidas app and the adidas CONFIRMED app are part of the same monorepo, engineers could reuse composables across both apps, like forms and lists, enabling them to implement new features quickly and easily.

“The accelerated development with Compose provided our team of seven with more time, enabling us to strike a healthy balance between delivering new functionalities and ensuring the long-term health and sustainability of our app,” said Rodrigo.

Compose also helped to improve app stability and performance for the team. They noticed a significant reduction in app-related crashes, and have seen virtually no UI-related crashes, since migrating the app to Compose. The team is proud to provide a 99.9% crash-free user experience.

Compose’s efficiency not only accelerated development, but also helped us achieve our business goals.” — Rodrigo Represa, Android engineer at adidas

A better app built with the future in mind

Compose opened doors to implementing new features faster than ever. With Compose’s clean and concise usage of Kotlin, it was easy for developers to create the ambitious and engaging interface adidas CONFIRMED users wanted. And the team doesn’t plan to stop there.

The adidas CONFIRMED team wants to lean further into its new codebase and fully adopt Compose moving forward. They also want to bring the app to new screens using more of the Compose suite and are currently developing an app widget using Jetpack Glance. This new experience will provide users with a streamlined feed of new product information for an even more efficient user experience.

“I recommend Compose because it simplifies development and is a more intuitive and powerful approach to building UI,” said Rodrigo.

Get started

Optimize your UI development with Jetpack Compose.

15 Things to know for Android developers at Google I/O

Posted by Matthew McCullough, Vice President, Product Management, Android Developer  

AI is unlocking experiences that were not even possible a few years ago, and we’ve been hard at work reimaging Android with AI at the core, to help enable you to build a whole new class of apps. At this year’s Google I/O, we’re covering how new tools like Gemini can power building the next generations of apps on Android. Plus, we showcased a range of updates to our tools and services grounded in productivity, helping you make it faster and easier to build excellent experiences across form factors. Let’s dive in!

Powering the next generation of Apps with AI

#1: AI in your tools, with Gemini in Android Studio

Gemini in Android Studio (formerly Studio Bot) is your coding companion for Android development, and thanks to your feedback since its preview at last year’s Google I/O, we’ve evolved our models, expanded to over 200 countries and territories, and brought it into the Gemini family of products. Earlier today, we previewed a number of new features coming soon, like Code suggestions, App Quality Insights that leverage Gemini, and a preview of the multi-modal inputs that are coming using Gemini 1.5 Pro. You can read more about the updates here, and make sure to check out What’s new in Android development tools.

#2: Building with Generative AI

Android provides the solution you need to build Generative AI apps. You can use our most capable models over the Cloud with the Gemini API in Google AI or Vertex AI for Firebase directly in your Android apps. For on-device, Gemini Nano is our most efficient model. We’re working closely with a few early adopters such as Patreon, Grammarly, and Adobe to ensure we’re creating the best APIs that unlock the most innovative experiences. For example, Adobe is experimenting with Gemini Nano to enhance the on-device experience of Acrobat AI Assistant, a tool that allows their users to summarize and interact with documents. Be sure to check out the Build your own generative AI powered Android app, Android on-device gen AI under the hood, and the What’s New in Android sessions to learn more!

Moving image of Gemini Nano operating in Adobe

Excellent apps, across devices

#3: Think adaptive: apps on phones, foldables, tablets and more

Build and design apps that adapt beyond the phone, with the new Compose adaptive layout libraries built with Material guidance in beta. Add rich stylus and keyboard support to increase user productivity. Check out three of our key Android adaptive sessions at Google I/O: Designing adaptive apps, Building adaptive Android apps, and Increase user productivity with large screens and accessories.

Moving image of Gemini Nano operating in Adobe

#4: Enhance homescreens with Widgets and Jetpack Glance

Jetpack Glance 1.1 is now available in release candidate and lets you build high quality widgets using your Compose skills. Check out our new canonical layouts, design guidance and figma updates to the Android UI kit. To learn more check out our Improve the user experience of your Android app workshop and Build Android widgets with Jetpack Glance technical session.

#5-9: come back here tomorrow and Thursday!

We’ll continue to share more updates for Android Developers throughout Google I/O, so check back here tomorrow!

Developer Productivity

#10: Use Kotlin Multiplatform for sharing business logic

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) enables sharing Kotlin code across different platforms and several of our Jetpack libraries, like DataStore and Room, have already been migrated to take advantage of KMP. We use Kotlin Multiplatform within Google and recommend using KMP for sharing business logic between platforms. Learn more about it here.

#11: Compose: Shared Elements, performance improvements and more

The upcoming Compose June ‘24 release is packed with the features you’ve been asking for! Shared element transitions, lazy list item reordering animations, strong skipping mode, performance improvements, a new lazy flow layout and more. Read more about it in our blog.

#12: Android Studio: the latest preview, with Gemini and more

Android Studio Koala 🐨Feature Drop (2024.1.2) available today in the canary channel, builds on top of IntelliJ 2024.1 and adds new innovative features unlocked by Gemini, such as insights for crashes in App Quality Insights, code transformations and a Gemini API starter template to get you quickly started with Gemini. Additionally, new features such as USB speed detection, shortcut UI to control device settings, a new way to sign into Google services, updated and speedier UI for profilers with a new task centric approach and a deep integration with the Google Play SDK index are intended to make the development process extremely productive. Read more here.

And the latest from the world of Mobile

#13: Grow your business with the latest Google Play updates

Discover new ways to attract and engage users with enhanced custom store listings. Optimize revenue with expanded payment options. Reinforce trust through secure, high-quality experiences made easier with our latest SDK Console improvements. Learn about these updates and more, including our new vertical approach, in our blog.

#14: Simplify app compliance with Checks

Streamline your app's privacy compliance with Checks, Google's AI-powered compliance solution! Checks empowers developers to swiftly identify, address, resolve privacy issues, and enables you to launch apps faster and with confidence. Harness the power of automation with Checks' intelligent reports, saving you valuable time and resources. Get started now at checks.google.com.

#15: And of course, Android 15

…but for that, you’ll have to stay tuned tomorrow, when we’ve got a bit more up our sleeve!

Bringing New Input Support to Desktop AVD

Posted by Joshua Hale – Software Engineer

As large screens become increasingly important within the Android app ecosystem, we are committed to enhance tools to help Android developers adapt their apps for these large screen form factors. In doing so, we strive to ensure that we can bring impactful tools to enhance the overall experience for building for all large screens such as foldables, tablets, and Chromebooks.

Over the last year, the team has worked on bringing Android 13 to the Desktop AVD, along with some additional enhancements to input support within the emulator. The Android 13 release of the Desktop AVD is now available within Android Studio. To test using this emulator, create a new virtual device.

What is the Desktop AVD?

Android Studio comes bundled with various virtual devices that run on different API levels and architectures. These emulators help developers test Android apps across a variety of devices, allowing for testing across different screen sizes, form factors, and APIs.

When an Android app runs on a Chromebook, it uses functionality that mirrors desktop behaviors, such as minimizing, maximizing, or resizing to a user-specified size. The Desktop Android Virtual Device (AVD) is an emulator that allows testing in a freeform windowing mode, similar to a Chromebook, to support this functionality.

For a deeper dive into the Desktop AVD, check out Desktop AVD in Android Studio.

Screenshot of the Desktop AVD emulator, rendering a clock app, browser window, and downloads folder in freeform windowing mode

What enhancements come with the Android 13 desktop AVD?

Most laptops use a keyboard—and it’s a common input device for increased productivity with tablets and foldables. Prior to Android 13, the Desktop AVD relied solely on uncustomizable input mapping built into Android Studio, which can cause friction points for users who rely on physical devices for mapped input and shortcuts. The Android 13 release of the Desktop AVD adds support for common keyboard interactions with Android apps. You can now test shortcuts, support keys, and mouse support to help you adhere to the large screen app quality guidelines.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The majority of apps within Google Play are designed for mobile usage and as such do not always support keyboard interactions. In Android 13, the Desktop AVD adds support for commonly used shortcuts, such as Ctrl+C (Copy) and Ctrl+V (Paste). These shortcuts can be used when copying text from a TextView/Text composable or pasting text into an EditText/TextField. These shortcuts are intercepted by the system and automatically applied.

Custom shortcuts (which are not intercepted by the system) are also included in this release. An example of this type of shortcut: a media player app that uses the Spacebar to play or pause media. You must use the new Hardware Input feature within Android Studio Hedgehog to use custom shortcuts. This will allow Android Studio to pass custom shortcuts directly to the emulator. If this is not enabled, Android Studio may consume the key combination.

Support keys

Android 13 supports additional keymappings for support keys. These keys are mapped to controls that are similar to experiences for keyboard shortcuts on a desktop. Some examples of these support keys include:

    • Esc: Dismisses pop-ups and notifications.
    • Delete / Backspace: Deletes text within an EditText or TextField
    • Arrow Keys: Provides in-app navigation (Arrow Up/Down to scroll).

Mouse support

In addition to enhanced keyboard support, there are additional mouse controls integrated into the Desktop AVD. Using the scroll wheel sends a mouse scroll event to the app that has input focus. Right-clicking the mouse sends a right-click event—which can be used to show context menus if the app supports it.

Where can you start?

Large screen app quality provides guidance around creating high quality large screen apps across all form factors, outlining a comprehensive set of quality requirements for most types of Android apps. Not all requirements need to be met, but it’s best practice for you to adhere to the requirements that make sense for your apps.

Create a desktop emulator today in Android Studio Hedgehog to see how your Android app responds to keyboard and mouse inputs and freeform window resizing.

Prepare your app for the new Samsung tablets, foldables and watches

Posted by the Android team

From foldable innovations to seamless connectivity, Google and Samsung have continued to work together to create helpful experiences across Android phones, tablets, smartwatches and more. Today at Galaxy Unpacked in Seoul, Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5, Galaxy Watch6 series, and Galaxy Tab S9 series.

With these new devices from Samsung, there are four more reasons to ensure your app looks great across all your user’s favorite screens. Here are three ways you can ensure your app is ready for these great new Samsung devices:

1. Provide a great foldable experience

The launch of the new Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Fold5 brings two brand new foldables to the Android ecosystem, so it is important to provide experiences that have fully adaptive UIs. The bottom line is that layout and app behavior should be based on device configuration and available features, and not the physical type of the device.

When it comes to providing a great foldable experience, here are a few of our top recommendations:

Illustration of Window Class sizes showing compact, medium, and expanded sizes across widths from 600dp through 840 dp

  • Use window size classes to guide layout decisions based on your current windowing state using opinionated breakpoints that are derived from common device types.
  • Observe folding features with Jetpack WindowManager, which provides the set of folding features that intersect your app's current window.
  • Make dynamic, runtime decisions based on whether a feature is available, instead of assuming that a feature is or is not available for a certain kind of device.
  • Referring in the UI to the user’s device as simply a “device” covers all form factors and is the simplest to implement. However, differentiating between the multiple devices a user may have provides a more polished experience and enables you to display the type of the device to the user using heuristics relevant to your particular use case.

You can learn more about how (and why) to implement the recommendations above in this detailed blog and, to find best practices for updating your app, check out the Support different screen sizes page.

2. Design with multi-device experiences in mind

With new devices, big and small, it is important to think through the user experience you hope to accomplish. A large part of that is the UI and design of your app – with specific consideration to account for based on screen sizes and types.

Ensuring your app looks great on large screens is a critical part of your users’ experience. Material You supports beautiful, efficient tablet and foldable experiences – and, at Google I/O this year, the team dove into the latest updates to large screen guidelines for designers and developers. You can also get inspired with the latest design guidance and mockup in check out the Large Screens Gallery.

To help with the challenges of designing and building great watch experiences that work for all, we created our the Wear OS Gallery This blog and the series of videos that accompany it are built to get you started designing inclusive smartwatch apps. For even more information on beautiful smartwatch design, discover the new Wear OS Gallery where you can find general design tips, verticalized use cases, and implementation ideas.

3. Get ready for Wear OS 4

The next generation of Wear OS is here! The Galaxy Watch6 series comes with the newest version of Google’s smartwatch platform, Wear OS 4. This platform update is also coming soon to other Samsung Galaxy watches, including the Watch4 and Watch5.

Wear OS 4 is based on Android 13, which is several versions newer than the current Wear OS version, so your app will need to handle the system behavior changes that took effect in Android 12 and Android 13. We recommend you start by testing your app and releasing a compatible update first – as devices get upgraded to Wear OS 4, it’s a basic but a critical level of quality that provides a good app experience for users.

Download the Wear OS 4 emulator in Android Studio Hedgehog to explore new features and test your app on Wear OS 4 Developer Preview.

The release of Wear OS 4 comes with many exciting changes – including a new way to build watchfaces.

The new Watch Face Format is a declarative XML format that allows you to configure the appearance and behavior of watch faces. This means that there's no executable code involved in creating a watch face, and there's no code embedded in your watch face APK. The Wear OS platform takes care of the logic needed to render the watch face so you can focus on your creative ideas, rather than code optimizations or battery performance.

Get started with watch faces using our documentation or create your own watch face with Samsung’s Watch Face Studio design tool.

Get started building a multi-device experience today!

With all the amazing additions to the Android ecosystem coming from Galaxy Unpacked, there has never been a better time to be sure your app looks great on all the devices your users know and love - from tablets to foldables to watches.

Learn more about building multi-device experiences from Deezer, where they increased their monthly active users 4X after improving multi-device support. Then get started with Jetpack WindowManager to help you build a responsive app for large screens by checking out the documentation and sample app. Finally, get to know Wear OS 4 and try it out with your app!

Deezer increased its monthly active users 4X after improving multi-device support

Posted by the Android team

Deezer is a global music streaming platform that provides users access to over 110 million tracks. Deezer aims to make its application easily accessible, letting users listen to their audio when, where, and how they want. With the growing popularity of Wear OS devices and large screens and foldables, the Deezer team saw an opportunity to give its users more ways to stream by enhancing its multi-device support.

We’re focused on delivering a consistently great UX on as many devices as possible.” — Hugo Vignaux, senior product manager at Deezer

Increasing smart watch support

Over the past few years, users increasingly requested Deezer to make its app available on Wear OS. During this time, the Deezer team had also seen rapid growth in the wearable market.

“The Wear OS market was growing thanks to the Fitbit acquisition by Google, the Pixel watch announcement, and the switch to Wear OS on Galaxy watches,” said Hugo Vignaux, a senior product manager at Deezer. “It was perfect timing because Google raised the opportunity with us to invest in Wear OS by joining the Media Experience Program in 2022.”

Deezer’s developers initially focused on providing instant, easy access to users’ personalized playlists from the application. To do this, engineers streamlined the app’s Wear OS UI, making it easier for users to control the app from their wrist. They also implemented a feature that allowed users to download their favorite Deezer playlists straight to their smartwatches, making offline playback possible without requiring a phone or an internet connection.

The Deezer team relied on Google’s Horologist and its Media Toolkit during development. Horologist and its libraries guided the team and ensured updates to the UI adhered to Wear best practices. It also made rolling out features like audio and bluetooth management much easier.

“The player view offered by the Media Toolkit was a source of inspiration and guaranteed that the app’s code quality was up to par,” said Hugo. “It also allowed us to focus on unit testing and resiliency rather than developing new features from scratch.”

More support for large screens and foldables

Before updating the app, Deezer’s UX wasn’t fully optimized for large screens and foldables. With this latest update, Deezer developers created special layouts for multitasking on large screens, like tablets and laptops, and used resizable emulators to optimize the app’s resizing capabilities for each screen on foldables.

“Supporting large screens means we can better fit multiple windows on a screen,” said Geoffrey Métais, engineering manager at Deezer. “This allows users to easily switch between apps, which is good because Deezer doesn’t require a user's full attention for them to make use of its UI.”

On tablets, Deezer developers split pages that were displayed vertically to be displayed horizontally. Developers also implemented a navigation rail and turned some lists into grids. These simple quality-of-life updates improved UX by giving users an easier way to click through the app.

Making these changes was easy for developers thanks to the Jetpack WindowManager library. “The WindowManager library made it simple to adapt our UI to different screen sizes,” said Geoffrey. “It leverages Jetpack Compose’s modularity to adapt to any screen size. And Compose code stays simple and consistent despite addressing a variety of different configurations.”

Updates to large screens and foldables and Wear OS were all created using Jetpack Compose and Compose for Wear OS, respectively. With Jetpack Compose, Deezer developers were able to efficiently create and implement a design system that focused on technical issues within the new app. The Deezer team attributes their increased productivity with Compose to Composable functions, which lets developers reuse code segments, and Android Studio, which helps developers iterate on features faster.

“The combination of a proper Design System with Jetpack Compose’s modularity and reactive paradigms is a very smart and efficient solution to improve usability without losing development productivity,” said Geoffrey.

'With the new capabilities of Wear OS 3, we’ve optimized the Deezer experience for the next generation of smartwatches, letting our users listen to their music anywhere, anytime.' — Hugo Vignaux, senior product manager at Deezer

The impact of increased multi-device support

Increasing multi-device support was easy for Deezer developers thanks to the tools and resources offered by Google. The updates the Deezer team made across screens improved the app’s UI, making it easier for users to navigate the app and listen to audio on their own terms.

Since updating for Wear OS and other Android devices, the Deezer team saw a 4X increase in user engagement and received positive feedback from its community.

“Developing for WearOS and across devices was great thanks to the help of the Google team and the availability of libraries and APIs that helped us deliver some great features, such as Horologist and its Media Toolkit. All those technical assets were very well documented and the Google team’s dedication was tremendous,” said Hugo.

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Get ready for I/O ‘23: start planning your sessions, and take a look at some of Android’s favorite moments!

Posted by Maru Ahues Bouza, Director, Android Developer Relations

Google I/O 2023 is just a week away, kicking off on Wednesday May 10 at 10AM PT with the Google Keynote and followed at 12:15PM PT by the Developer Keynote. The program schedule launched last week, allowing you to save sessions to your calendar and start previewing content.

To help you get ready for this year's Google I/O, we’re taking a look back at some of Android’s favorite moments from past Google I/Os, as well as a playlist of developer content to help you prepare. Take a look below, and start getting ready!


Modern Android Development

Helping you stay more productive and create better apps, Modern Android Development is Android’s set of tools and APIs, and they were born across many Google I/Os. Tor Norbye, Director of Engineering for Android, reflects on how Android development tools, APIs, and best practices have evolved over the years, starting in 2013 when he and the team announced Android Studio. Here are some of the talks we’re excited for in developer productivity at this year’s Google I/O:



Building for a multi-device world

From the launch of Android Auto and Android Wear in 2014 to last year’s preview of the Google Pixel Tablet, Google I/O has always been an important moment for seeing the new form factors that Android is extending to. Sara Hamilton, Developer Relations Engineer for Android, discusses how we are continuing to invest in multi-device experiences and making it easier for you to build for the entire Android device ecosystem. Sara shares her excitement for developers continuing to bring unique experiences to all screen sizes and types, from tablets and foldables, to watches and tvs. Some of our favorite talks at this year’s Google I/O in the multi-device world include:




The platform and app quality

From originally playing a smaller part in Google I/O keynotes in the early days to announcing 3 billion monthly active users in 2021, Dan Sandler, Software Engineer for Android, looks back at the tremendous growth of the Android platform and how it’s continuing to evolve. With a focus on helping you make quality apps, here are some of our favorite Android platform talks this year:




We can’t wait to show you all that’s new across Android in just under a week. Be sure to tune in on the Google I/O website on May 10 to catch the latest Android updates and announcements this year!

Get ready for I/O ‘23: start planning your sessions, and take a look at some of Android’s favorite moments!

Posted by Maru Ahues Bouza, Director, Android Developer Relations

Google I/O 2023 is just a week away, kicking off on Wednesday May 10 at 10AM PT with the Google Keynote and followed at 12:15PM PT by the Developer Keynote. The program schedule launched last week, allowing you to save sessions to your calendar and start previewing content.

To help you get ready for this year's Google I/O, we’re taking a look back at some of Android’s favorite moments from past Google I/Os, as well as a playlist of developer content to help you prepare. Take a look below, and start getting ready!


Modern Android Development

Helping you stay more productive and create better apps, Modern Android Development is Android’s set of tools and APIs, and they were born across many Google I/Os. Tor Norbye, Director of Engineering for Android, reflects on how Android development tools, APIs, and best practices have evolved over the years, starting in 2013 when he and the team announced Android Studio. Here are some of the talks we’re excited for in developer productivity at this year’s Google I/O:



Building for a multi-device world

From the launch of Android Auto and Android Wear in 2014 to last year’s preview of the Google Pixel Tablet, Google I/O has always been an important moment for seeing the new form factors that Android is extending to. Sara Hamilton, Developer Relations Engineer for Android, discusses how we are continuing to invest in multi-device experiences and making it easier for you to build for the entire Android device ecosystem. Sara shares her excitement for developers continuing to bring unique experiences to all screen sizes and types, from tablets and foldables, to watches and tvs. Some of our favorite talks at this year’s Google I/O in the multi-device world include:




The platform and app quality

From originally playing a smaller part in Google I/O keynotes in the early days to announcing 3 billion monthly active users in 2021, Dan Sandler, Software Engineer for Android, looks back at the tremendous growth of the Android platform and how it’s continuing to evolve. With a focus on helping you make quality apps, here are some of our favorite Android platform talks this year:




We can’t wait to show you all that’s new across Android in just under a week. Be sure to tune in on the Google I/O website on May 10 to catch the latest Android updates and announcements this year!